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Because:
1. A section in the article is shamefully POV(no mention of *high* taxes imposed in Christian lands, aside from the persecution of some Christians under Christian rule). + the status of Christians under Muslim lands should be revised.
2. A lot of sources used are not reliable and should be replaced by good ones.
3. There has been an edit war over this article.
Aminz 20:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I have never looked at this article before, so i'll give my 2 cents worth on this.
I agree that the article should be de-listed. The single reason being is that in the last month there have been around 600 edits on the article changing huge areas of it. This is not even close to being stable.- Localzuk (talk) 21:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I ask you to read the whole of my statement before you respond. Aminz, I am restricted, by rules and conscience, to be civil, but being direct does not mean not being civil, so I will be straightforward. Recently, you have been trying to introduce a change to make Muslims look more benevolent, but no one (including the secularists who don't identify with Christianity in this discussion) has agreed that your changes should be adopted in full. I don't know if they fail to teach the same thing Persian schools or not (I have no desire to rap on Iran, believe me; this is just an honest pondering), but no one seems to agree with your ascertions. We have tried to be civil and discuss changes, and I personally have even taken into account some of your statements, though some are patently false by history (i.e., Christians never saw perseuction under Islam). What it appears to me is that, because you haven't got what you wanted, you are trying to exact revenge and punish us somehow by getting this article delisted. So I will address each of your concerns:
I am currently in a break from this article. I still think there are problems with this article and to my mind considering this article to be a good one is just lowering our standards. But that's me. If the policy says that most editors (and not all) should think the article is a good, then list it as a good article.
I gather my information for reliable books written by renowned scholars. I only change my mind when I gain more knowledge through that channel and only that channel. The personal opinion of my wikipedia peers on historical issues are of absolutely no value to me.
Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say:"Christians never saw perseuction under Islam." I said that before the french revolution, except rare instances, there were no waves of discontent among Christians living in Muslim lands. Persecution in terms of violence was rare and atypical. As Bernard Lewis points out the story "of subservience and persecution and ill treatment" of Dhimmis under Muslim rule is a myth as the story of "a golden age of equality, of mutual respect and cooperation, especially but not exclusively in Moorish Spain" is a myth. Of course, Christians were not treated equally with Muslims and had social and legal disabilities. But classifying the behaviour of Muslims together with that of Early Romans, of Sassanids, and even of Christian in the same context, without any qualifications or further explanations is far unfair.
Also, I think if somebody wanted to punish others, it was you guys who were removing the sources I added from this article. It was all in the source section. Just five half lines wasn't bothering any of you guys and none of the readers would actually read this. It was clear that I had added those sources to use them improving the article.
-- Aminz 01:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
What is the exact definition of persecution? Of course violence is persecution. But what if there is no violence? Is persecution defined as getting "greatly offended"? Does high taxes for example include persecution?
If persecution is defined as getting "greatly offended", then there were no persecutions by Muslims since Lewis says:
For Christians and Muslims alike, tolerance is a new virtue, intolerance a new crime. For the greater part of the history of both communities, tolerance was not valued nor was intolerance condemned. Until comparatively modern times, Christian Europe neither prized nor practiced tolerance itself, and was not greatly offended by its absence in others. The charge that was always brought against Islam was not that its doctrines were imposed by force- something seen as normal and natural- but that its doctrines were false
-- Aminz 20:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
According to Persecution, it is
Tom Harrison Talk 20:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Will try to find academic definitions of persecution in the old times. Of course, something that is seen as normal and natural shouldn't be persecution. -- Aminz 20:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The page on Religious persecution says, "unwarranted arrest, false imprisonment, beatings, torture, unjustified execution, denial of benefits, and denial of civil rights and liberties. It also may refer to the confiscation or destruction of property, or incitement to hate among other things." I do not think 'greatly offended' describes it well. Let me ask; the sentence is "Later, under Islam, Christians were second-class citizens and have at times suffered violent persecution." Leaving aside possible better wording for 'second-class citizen', are you saying this is not true? Are you now trying to find a definition of 'persecution' that will let you say Muslims did not persecute people? Tom Harrison Talk 21:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I know that after French revolution, there were waves of discontent among Dhimmis. So, that discontent can be interpreted as Muslims persecuting Dhimmis. But nothing I've of such waves of discontent before that. So, please provided academic sources stating that before French revolution, Dhimmis were discontent and were thinking that they are persecuted. Unless a reliable source (not robert spencer) states that, we can not include Islamic persecution of Christians in that section as it is now. We can menion what sporadically happened in Muslim lands such as forced conversions in 12th century under Ahlemods + the results of French revolution. So, if no source was found, we should say something like this: Before the french revolution, the waves of discontent among Christians in Muslim lands occured only sporadically for example under the Alhemods in 12th century. -- Aminz 22:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
1. For my claim about the Jews and Roman citizenship see:A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations cambridge university press, "Accordingly, Jews came to be recognized not so much as members of a national community, but as members of legal collegia or associations". It doesn't say they were second class citizens and that wasn't my point. 2. Yes, Muslim did none of these. Where are your sources? 3. Bat Ye'or is not comparable with Bernard Lewis and Mark Cohen. I think I have made this clear. Bat Ye'or has no academic degrees in Islamic studies whatever. 4. You need to find sources mentioning that Christians considered themselves *persecuted*. If yes, when and how. Violence was rarely there. In terms of Social and Legal aspects they had disadvantages but did they consider this persecutions and were discontent before French revolution? We know Jews were gratitude. A source is needed for your claim (an academic one; your words is not enough since they are not peer reviewed) -- Aminz 08:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The template, "totallydisputed-section" has been added to the "persecution of Christians" section. Would someone please point out the disputed sentence, so that we might discern whether the title is apt? I for one am confused by the above discussions because the have ventured into irrelevant areas. Please, we need a sentence, and the objection. Lostcaesar 08:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Lostcaesar, let me classify my problems. I have some problems with that particular section and in general about the references. I need to go to sleep now, but let me write about the sources.
Please have a look at Islam and slavery article. I, together with some other editors worked hard on this article and in a few weeks we completely rewrote this article using reliable sources and turned it into a good article (the sudan section was added later by some editor and I haven't got to check the sources used there). Here are the sources we mostly used:
{{
cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)See, they (except one or two) are written by famous scholars and published by university presses. So, it is possible to use good sources. We are writing an encyclopedia here. We can not heavily use junk websites, and arbitrary books. A good article in wikipedia should be based on good sources. And we have shown that it is possible. -- Aminz 09:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The first sentence I contest is "Later, under Islam, Christians were second-class citizens and have at times suffered violent persecution." There was a discussion about usage of the second-class citizenship both on this talk page and on Dhimmi talk page. The result was that instead of that we should use legal and social disabilities. The sentence says:"have at times suffered violent persecution." while bernard lewis says: Dhimmis were guaranteed their personal safety and security of property, in return for paying tribute to Muslims and acknowledging Muslim supremacy. cf Lewis (1984), pp. 10, 20 and that persecution in the form of violent and active repression was rare and atypical cf Lewis (1984) p. 62. (There is a quote attributed to Muhammad that "One who kills a man under covenant will not even smell the fragrance of Paradise")
But aside these, I need sources from you showing that Muslims persecuted Christians (that is Christian subjects felt persecuted). here is a source writing about Muslim early conquests: My source is John Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and Oxford’s The Islamic World: Past and Present.
In his book "Islam: the straight path" Oxford University Press, p.34 he states that the Islamic conquests was one that
"brought peace to peoples demoralized and disaffected by the casualties and heavy taxation resulted from the years of Byzantine-Persian warfare. Local communities were free to continue to follow their own way of life in internal and domestic affairs. In many ways, local populations found Muslim rule more flexible and tolerant than that of Byzantium and Persia, Religious communities were free to practice their faith-to worship and be governed by their religious leaders and laws in areas such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In exchange, they were required to pay tribute, a poll tax (jizya) that entitled them from military service. They were therefore called the "protected ones" (dhimmi). In effect, this often meant lower taxes, greater local autonomy, rule by fellow Semites with closer linguistic and cultural ties than the hellenized, Greco-Roman elites of Byzantium, and greater religious freedom for Jews and indigenous Christians."
Also, please see my quotes from Lewis. -- Aminz 12:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear Aminz, I reply to what you wrote above in your reply to LC.
Regards, Str1977 (smile back) 13:31, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear Str1977, Thanks for your comment. I am on a short wiki-break from this article but will be back soon and explain more about my thoughts. Regards, -- Aminz 12:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
This section has recently been observed to need cleanup. I attempted to cleanup the bibliography by using the standardized "cite X" template list. However, I found these templates inadequate. Some examples as to why:
These are just some of the problems I encountered. My conclusion is that there is nothing which the cite X templates offer that cannot simply be entered in otherwise.
What I would like to do is to first reformat the bibliography without the "cite X" templates. Then, I would like to go through the article, through every "ref" tag, and standardize them. The standard method is for each footnote to give the author's name (first – last) and then an abbreviated title. Then, in the Bibliography, the full title and book information is given. What this will allow us to do is to save space with the footnotes, to save multiple access dates for websites, and to follow a standard practice. I would like input from various other contributors, however, before this goes forward. There may be unseen disadvantages to this (for example, if a reader is not familiar with this format, the footnotes might not provide enough information alone). I understand that this is a more boring part of the process, but I think it is important nonetheless. I am willing to do this in time mostly myself (and one editor is probably preferred in such processes of standardization), but I do not want to act unilaterally, in that there needs to be more input. Lostcaesar 09:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I took a look at the other article, and it doesn't look good. In fact, it looks like almost compleatly taken from the one non-biblegateway.com site listed at the bottom, which may have disputable reliability. Homestarmy 19:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The article should defiantly not be merged here. All this page could do would be to provide a gloss of the article, giving the latter as a mainpage. At present the article is too poor a quality to warrant a gloss here, but if this is so then how much more so should it not be merged. Lostcaesar 13:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I just made it a redirect. A.J.A. 15:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Could I ask for some help in shaping the 'Christianity' article on the Simple English Wikipedia? So far that site consists of a list of (so-called) common Christian beliefs that are ill defined and so still in contention - and a potted history of denominational divisions. Based on the experience here I think there are some authors who could greatly improve it. - ( Just nigel 03:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC))
"Christianity continued from Judaism a belief in the existence of a single omnipotent God who created and sustains the universe." Before making changes to this statement can we discuss the unqualified use of the word 'omnipotent'... I thought God's omnipotence was at least ambiguos or even openly disputed within both Judaism and Christianity. The Biblical wisdom/writings tradition and subsequnet Christian and Jewish theology of theodicy explore this abiguity. For example: Psalm 1 says evil people are blown away like straw and kept away from God's people. Psalm 2 says evil people are kings who rule over God's chosen. Any thoughts? - ( Just nigel 03:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC))
Strom Rider says he is "unaware of a dispute among the larger Christian community regarding God's omnipotence." yet I quoted the Biblical wisdom traditon for him. One pslamist says (to paraphrase) "wonderful - God makes sure everything is in its proper place and the righteous are blessed - the world is a just place" the next says "why do the nations rage and kings rebell and curse God's righteous people? - where is the justice in that?" The book of Job would be another example of a drama exploring a complicated area in a very neaunced way.
Just as we have seen in the posts above, people have often reflected on the apparent mismatch bewteen what we expect as fair and the reality of how people have expereinced God's justice. Such debate is called the theology of theodicy and it is a major area of theological thought in both Christianity and Judaism. Just because Storm Rider may not be aware of it, doesn't make it not so.
BUT I agree that this is not a message board for abstract theological discussion, so if I can address my comments to the article...There are several different adjectives or titles we could place in the sentence opening several unrealted neuances or areas of debate: "Christianity continued from Judaism a belief in the existence of a single all powerful, all knowing, ever present, all loving, judgemental, all wise and fluffy God who created and sustains the universe." OK I was joking about the fluffy thing, but my point is this sentence doesn't need an adjective. It is about God's uniqueness, not God's power. So I have cut it. If someone needs to list 'All mighty' as a common form of address for God under a section on Christian devotion and prayer go for it. ( Just nigel 04:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC))
I like what LostCaesar's doing with the references. There's one thing that I think needs clarification, though. The References section is divided into three parts (keeping with the Caesar theme), Primary sources, Secondary sources, and Popular media, which is good because it helps readability. The problem is I'm not sure it follows any real standard for which source goes where. The primary sources appear to be Church Fathers, ancient historians and Reformation-era Protestant confessions. But the article uses a lot of other things as primary sources (as defined in the reliable sources policy), including Boettner (which is why I had moved him up for a while), the Chicago Statement, a Jehovah's Witness tract, and, you know, the Bible.
I'm not sure what the distinction between secondary and popular is. As a very general rule it seems that the secondary is more scholarly, but there are enough exceptions that if we make that an explicit standard for inclusion (which we probably should) there's going to need to be some cutting and pasting. A.J.A. 17:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Reference Cleanup complete, tags removed. Lostcaesar 11:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Throughout the article, Christianity is called a religion, but it's really not. Has anyone ever heard a pastor say that Christianity isn't a religion becuase religion means "to bind to"? It's really not that big a deal, since the whole world calls it a religion anyway, but does anyone have any thoughts? -- Christknight 22:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I just brought it up because I've been told in the past that Christianity is the relationship we have with Jesus Christ, rather than a religion. -- Christknight 23:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Every once in a while, someone comes along and drops his share of Karl Barth on this article, stating that Christianity is not a religion. The thing about the relationship is not wrong, though the wording is rather modern, but that doesn't change the fact that Christianity is a religion. And Barth actually had something else in mind, as he distinguished between religion - not only in other religions but also in Christianity - and faith, with the latter being the essential thing. Str1977 (smile back) 23:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Have we kept a bit of "Barth" in the article? Just as it has been important to point out people's rejection of the "denominations" name tags we could have two sentences saying something like - "Some Christians focussing on perscriptive or institutional characteristics of "relligion", prefer to describe Christianity in terms of a spirituality or relationship with God through Jesus. An example of this is 20th Century Protestant theologian is Karl Barth who said "quote" ref" ( Just nigel 06:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC))
The section on beliefs says "Most Christians consider the death and resurrection of Jesus the most important events in history." While not doubting how important most Christians think Jesus' resurrection is, many would not consider it an event of "history". Sure some Evangelical-Protestant Chrsitians emphasis the historicity of the resurection and try to prove it in historic terms (eg Josh McDowell). Others consider it an event of "escatology" or beyond history. They say its uniquness as an event without historical parallel and its role as something that is eternal puts it beyond the category of "history". They may go on to argue that is is best known - not through historical eveidence - but through an experience of perceiveing Jesus to be alive. (eg Marianne Sawicki) The Anglican Bishop Peter Carnley has written a book The Structure of Resurection Belief that outlines several different ways Christians frame the resurection including as "historical event", "eschatological event", "nonevent", "presence" and "memory". ( Just nigel 07:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC))
The resurrection is the very center of Christiainity. See my comments above about not taking in very minority views because nothing would be left to the religion - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 14:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The section on beliefs says "Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion". This is disputed even among the Gospels. See this quote from the Jesus page:
The exact date of Jesus' death is also unclear. Many scholars hold that the Gospel of John depicts the crucifixion just before the Passover festival on Friday 14 Nisan, called the Quartodeciman, whereas the synoptic gospels (except for Mark 14:2) describe the Last Supper, immediately before Jesus' arrest, as the Passover meal on Friday 15 Nisan; however, a number of scholars hold that the synoptic account is harmonious with the account in John.[8] Further, the Jews followed a lunisolar calendar with phases of the moon as dates, complicating calculations of any exact date in a solar calendar. According to John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew, allowing for the time of the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate and the dates of the Passover in those years, his death can be placed most probably on April 7, 30 AD/CE or April 3, 33 AD/CE.[9]
What is clear is the gospels use the phrase "third day" - but what they meant by it may not be so clear. It had precedents in the Hebrew Scriptures of refering to a day of Rising/Salvation/Vindication (eg Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days). Instead of being a phrase refering to a 'day' in the sense of a chornologically, it could be refering to a 'day' in the sense of the rightness and significance of that day. ( Just nigel 07:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC))
Does a day start at sunset or midnight? ( Just nigel 05:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC))
Ever since this edit on October 10 wikipedia has again claimed as fact that Jesus rose from the dead. An event like going to Jerusalem for the Passover gets prefaced by "according to the Gospels" but disputed events like a resurrection & trial by the Sanhedrin are stated as bald fact -- JimWae 06:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
As per the Good Article review on this page, this article has been relisted as a GA, primarily due to lack of confidence in the motivations of the delister. Dispute archived here: Wikipedia:Good articles/Disputes/Archive 7 Homestarmy 17:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | → | Archive 40 |
Because:
1. A section in the article is shamefully POV(no mention of *high* taxes imposed in Christian lands, aside from the persecution of some Christians under Christian rule). + the status of Christians under Muslim lands should be revised.
2. A lot of sources used are not reliable and should be replaced by good ones.
3. There has been an edit war over this article.
Aminz 20:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I have never looked at this article before, so i'll give my 2 cents worth on this.
I agree that the article should be de-listed. The single reason being is that in the last month there have been around 600 edits on the article changing huge areas of it. This is not even close to being stable.- Localzuk (talk) 21:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I ask you to read the whole of my statement before you respond. Aminz, I am restricted, by rules and conscience, to be civil, but being direct does not mean not being civil, so I will be straightforward. Recently, you have been trying to introduce a change to make Muslims look more benevolent, but no one (including the secularists who don't identify with Christianity in this discussion) has agreed that your changes should be adopted in full. I don't know if they fail to teach the same thing Persian schools or not (I have no desire to rap on Iran, believe me; this is just an honest pondering), but no one seems to agree with your ascertions. We have tried to be civil and discuss changes, and I personally have even taken into account some of your statements, though some are patently false by history (i.e., Christians never saw perseuction under Islam). What it appears to me is that, because you haven't got what you wanted, you are trying to exact revenge and punish us somehow by getting this article delisted. So I will address each of your concerns:
I am currently in a break from this article. I still think there are problems with this article and to my mind considering this article to be a good one is just lowering our standards. But that's me. If the policy says that most editors (and not all) should think the article is a good, then list it as a good article.
I gather my information for reliable books written by renowned scholars. I only change my mind when I gain more knowledge through that channel and only that channel. The personal opinion of my wikipedia peers on historical issues are of absolutely no value to me.
Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say:"Christians never saw perseuction under Islam." I said that before the french revolution, except rare instances, there were no waves of discontent among Christians living in Muslim lands. Persecution in terms of violence was rare and atypical. As Bernard Lewis points out the story "of subservience and persecution and ill treatment" of Dhimmis under Muslim rule is a myth as the story of "a golden age of equality, of mutual respect and cooperation, especially but not exclusively in Moorish Spain" is a myth. Of course, Christians were not treated equally with Muslims and had social and legal disabilities. But classifying the behaviour of Muslims together with that of Early Romans, of Sassanids, and even of Christian in the same context, without any qualifications or further explanations is far unfair.
Also, I think if somebody wanted to punish others, it was you guys who were removing the sources I added from this article. It was all in the source section. Just five half lines wasn't bothering any of you guys and none of the readers would actually read this. It was clear that I had added those sources to use them improving the article.
-- Aminz 01:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
What is the exact definition of persecution? Of course violence is persecution. But what if there is no violence? Is persecution defined as getting "greatly offended"? Does high taxes for example include persecution?
If persecution is defined as getting "greatly offended", then there were no persecutions by Muslims since Lewis says:
For Christians and Muslims alike, tolerance is a new virtue, intolerance a new crime. For the greater part of the history of both communities, tolerance was not valued nor was intolerance condemned. Until comparatively modern times, Christian Europe neither prized nor practiced tolerance itself, and was not greatly offended by its absence in others. The charge that was always brought against Islam was not that its doctrines were imposed by force- something seen as normal and natural- but that its doctrines were false
-- Aminz 20:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
According to Persecution, it is
Tom Harrison Talk 20:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Will try to find academic definitions of persecution in the old times. Of course, something that is seen as normal and natural shouldn't be persecution. -- Aminz 20:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The page on Religious persecution says, "unwarranted arrest, false imprisonment, beatings, torture, unjustified execution, denial of benefits, and denial of civil rights and liberties. It also may refer to the confiscation or destruction of property, or incitement to hate among other things." I do not think 'greatly offended' describes it well. Let me ask; the sentence is "Later, under Islam, Christians were second-class citizens and have at times suffered violent persecution." Leaving aside possible better wording for 'second-class citizen', are you saying this is not true? Are you now trying to find a definition of 'persecution' that will let you say Muslims did not persecute people? Tom Harrison Talk 21:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I know that after French revolution, there were waves of discontent among Dhimmis. So, that discontent can be interpreted as Muslims persecuting Dhimmis. But nothing I've of such waves of discontent before that. So, please provided academic sources stating that before French revolution, Dhimmis were discontent and were thinking that they are persecuted. Unless a reliable source (not robert spencer) states that, we can not include Islamic persecution of Christians in that section as it is now. We can menion what sporadically happened in Muslim lands such as forced conversions in 12th century under Ahlemods + the results of French revolution. So, if no source was found, we should say something like this: Before the french revolution, the waves of discontent among Christians in Muslim lands occured only sporadically for example under the Alhemods in 12th century. -- Aminz 22:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
1. For my claim about the Jews and Roman citizenship see:A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations cambridge university press, "Accordingly, Jews came to be recognized not so much as members of a national community, but as members of legal collegia or associations". It doesn't say they were second class citizens and that wasn't my point. 2. Yes, Muslim did none of these. Where are your sources? 3. Bat Ye'or is not comparable with Bernard Lewis and Mark Cohen. I think I have made this clear. Bat Ye'or has no academic degrees in Islamic studies whatever. 4. You need to find sources mentioning that Christians considered themselves *persecuted*. If yes, when and how. Violence was rarely there. In terms of Social and Legal aspects they had disadvantages but did they consider this persecutions and were discontent before French revolution? We know Jews were gratitude. A source is needed for your claim (an academic one; your words is not enough since they are not peer reviewed) -- Aminz 08:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The template, "totallydisputed-section" has been added to the "persecution of Christians" section. Would someone please point out the disputed sentence, so that we might discern whether the title is apt? I for one am confused by the above discussions because the have ventured into irrelevant areas. Please, we need a sentence, and the objection. Lostcaesar 08:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Lostcaesar, let me classify my problems. I have some problems with that particular section and in general about the references. I need to go to sleep now, but let me write about the sources.
Please have a look at Islam and slavery article. I, together with some other editors worked hard on this article and in a few weeks we completely rewrote this article using reliable sources and turned it into a good article (the sudan section was added later by some editor and I haven't got to check the sources used there). Here are the sources we mostly used:
{{
cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)See, they (except one or two) are written by famous scholars and published by university presses. So, it is possible to use good sources. We are writing an encyclopedia here. We can not heavily use junk websites, and arbitrary books. A good article in wikipedia should be based on good sources. And we have shown that it is possible. -- Aminz 09:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The first sentence I contest is "Later, under Islam, Christians were second-class citizens and have at times suffered violent persecution." There was a discussion about usage of the second-class citizenship both on this talk page and on Dhimmi talk page. The result was that instead of that we should use legal and social disabilities. The sentence says:"have at times suffered violent persecution." while bernard lewis says: Dhimmis were guaranteed their personal safety and security of property, in return for paying tribute to Muslims and acknowledging Muslim supremacy. cf Lewis (1984), pp. 10, 20 and that persecution in the form of violent and active repression was rare and atypical cf Lewis (1984) p. 62. (There is a quote attributed to Muhammad that "One who kills a man under covenant will not even smell the fragrance of Paradise")
But aside these, I need sources from you showing that Muslims persecuted Christians (that is Christian subjects felt persecuted). here is a source writing about Muslim early conquests: My source is John Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and Oxford’s The Islamic World: Past and Present.
In his book "Islam: the straight path" Oxford University Press, p.34 he states that the Islamic conquests was one that
"brought peace to peoples demoralized and disaffected by the casualties and heavy taxation resulted from the years of Byzantine-Persian warfare. Local communities were free to continue to follow their own way of life in internal and domestic affairs. In many ways, local populations found Muslim rule more flexible and tolerant than that of Byzantium and Persia, Religious communities were free to practice their faith-to worship and be governed by their religious leaders and laws in areas such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In exchange, they were required to pay tribute, a poll tax (jizya) that entitled them from military service. They were therefore called the "protected ones" (dhimmi). In effect, this often meant lower taxes, greater local autonomy, rule by fellow Semites with closer linguistic and cultural ties than the hellenized, Greco-Roman elites of Byzantium, and greater religious freedom for Jews and indigenous Christians."
Also, please see my quotes from Lewis. -- Aminz 12:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear Aminz, I reply to what you wrote above in your reply to LC.
Regards, Str1977 (smile back) 13:31, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear Str1977, Thanks for your comment. I am on a short wiki-break from this article but will be back soon and explain more about my thoughts. Regards, -- Aminz 12:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
This section has recently been observed to need cleanup. I attempted to cleanup the bibliography by using the standardized "cite X" template list. However, I found these templates inadequate. Some examples as to why:
These are just some of the problems I encountered. My conclusion is that there is nothing which the cite X templates offer that cannot simply be entered in otherwise.
What I would like to do is to first reformat the bibliography without the "cite X" templates. Then, I would like to go through the article, through every "ref" tag, and standardize them. The standard method is for each footnote to give the author's name (first – last) and then an abbreviated title. Then, in the Bibliography, the full title and book information is given. What this will allow us to do is to save space with the footnotes, to save multiple access dates for websites, and to follow a standard practice. I would like input from various other contributors, however, before this goes forward. There may be unseen disadvantages to this (for example, if a reader is not familiar with this format, the footnotes might not provide enough information alone). I understand that this is a more boring part of the process, but I think it is important nonetheless. I am willing to do this in time mostly myself (and one editor is probably preferred in such processes of standardization), but I do not want to act unilaterally, in that there needs to be more input. Lostcaesar 09:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I took a look at the other article, and it doesn't look good. In fact, it looks like almost compleatly taken from the one non-biblegateway.com site listed at the bottom, which may have disputable reliability. Homestarmy 19:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The article should defiantly not be merged here. All this page could do would be to provide a gloss of the article, giving the latter as a mainpage. At present the article is too poor a quality to warrant a gloss here, but if this is so then how much more so should it not be merged. Lostcaesar 13:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I just made it a redirect. A.J.A. 15:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Could I ask for some help in shaping the 'Christianity' article on the Simple English Wikipedia? So far that site consists of a list of (so-called) common Christian beliefs that are ill defined and so still in contention - and a potted history of denominational divisions. Based on the experience here I think there are some authors who could greatly improve it. - ( Just nigel 03:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC))
"Christianity continued from Judaism a belief in the existence of a single omnipotent God who created and sustains the universe." Before making changes to this statement can we discuss the unqualified use of the word 'omnipotent'... I thought God's omnipotence was at least ambiguos or even openly disputed within both Judaism and Christianity. The Biblical wisdom/writings tradition and subsequnet Christian and Jewish theology of theodicy explore this abiguity. For example: Psalm 1 says evil people are blown away like straw and kept away from God's people. Psalm 2 says evil people are kings who rule over God's chosen. Any thoughts? - ( Just nigel 03:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC))
Strom Rider says he is "unaware of a dispute among the larger Christian community regarding God's omnipotence." yet I quoted the Biblical wisdom traditon for him. One pslamist says (to paraphrase) "wonderful - God makes sure everything is in its proper place and the righteous are blessed - the world is a just place" the next says "why do the nations rage and kings rebell and curse God's righteous people? - where is the justice in that?" The book of Job would be another example of a drama exploring a complicated area in a very neaunced way.
Just as we have seen in the posts above, people have often reflected on the apparent mismatch bewteen what we expect as fair and the reality of how people have expereinced God's justice. Such debate is called the theology of theodicy and it is a major area of theological thought in both Christianity and Judaism. Just because Storm Rider may not be aware of it, doesn't make it not so.
BUT I agree that this is not a message board for abstract theological discussion, so if I can address my comments to the article...There are several different adjectives or titles we could place in the sentence opening several unrealted neuances or areas of debate: "Christianity continued from Judaism a belief in the existence of a single all powerful, all knowing, ever present, all loving, judgemental, all wise and fluffy God who created and sustains the universe." OK I was joking about the fluffy thing, but my point is this sentence doesn't need an adjective. It is about God's uniqueness, not God's power. So I have cut it. If someone needs to list 'All mighty' as a common form of address for God under a section on Christian devotion and prayer go for it. ( Just nigel 04:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC))
I like what LostCaesar's doing with the references. There's one thing that I think needs clarification, though. The References section is divided into three parts (keeping with the Caesar theme), Primary sources, Secondary sources, and Popular media, which is good because it helps readability. The problem is I'm not sure it follows any real standard for which source goes where. The primary sources appear to be Church Fathers, ancient historians and Reformation-era Protestant confessions. But the article uses a lot of other things as primary sources (as defined in the reliable sources policy), including Boettner (which is why I had moved him up for a while), the Chicago Statement, a Jehovah's Witness tract, and, you know, the Bible.
I'm not sure what the distinction between secondary and popular is. As a very general rule it seems that the secondary is more scholarly, but there are enough exceptions that if we make that an explicit standard for inclusion (which we probably should) there's going to need to be some cutting and pasting. A.J.A. 17:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Reference Cleanup complete, tags removed. Lostcaesar 11:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Throughout the article, Christianity is called a religion, but it's really not. Has anyone ever heard a pastor say that Christianity isn't a religion becuase religion means "to bind to"? It's really not that big a deal, since the whole world calls it a religion anyway, but does anyone have any thoughts? -- Christknight 22:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I just brought it up because I've been told in the past that Christianity is the relationship we have with Jesus Christ, rather than a religion. -- Christknight 23:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Every once in a while, someone comes along and drops his share of Karl Barth on this article, stating that Christianity is not a religion. The thing about the relationship is not wrong, though the wording is rather modern, but that doesn't change the fact that Christianity is a religion. And Barth actually had something else in mind, as he distinguished between religion - not only in other religions but also in Christianity - and faith, with the latter being the essential thing. Str1977 (smile back) 23:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Have we kept a bit of "Barth" in the article? Just as it has been important to point out people's rejection of the "denominations" name tags we could have two sentences saying something like - "Some Christians focussing on perscriptive or institutional characteristics of "relligion", prefer to describe Christianity in terms of a spirituality or relationship with God through Jesus. An example of this is 20th Century Protestant theologian is Karl Barth who said "quote" ref" ( Just nigel 06:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC))
The section on beliefs says "Most Christians consider the death and resurrection of Jesus the most important events in history." While not doubting how important most Christians think Jesus' resurrection is, many would not consider it an event of "history". Sure some Evangelical-Protestant Chrsitians emphasis the historicity of the resurection and try to prove it in historic terms (eg Josh McDowell). Others consider it an event of "escatology" or beyond history. They say its uniquness as an event without historical parallel and its role as something that is eternal puts it beyond the category of "history". They may go on to argue that is is best known - not through historical eveidence - but through an experience of perceiveing Jesus to be alive. (eg Marianne Sawicki) The Anglican Bishop Peter Carnley has written a book The Structure of Resurection Belief that outlines several different ways Christians frame the resurection including as "historical event", "eschatological event", "nonevent", "presence" and "memory". ( Just nigel 07:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC))
The resurrection is the very center of Christiainity. See my comments above about not taking in very minority views because nothing would be left to the religion - Patstuart (talk) (contribs) 14:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The section on beliefs says "Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion". This is disputed even among the Gospels. See this quote from the Jesus page:
The exact date of Jesus' death is also unclear. Many scholars hold that the Gospel of John depicts the crucifixion just before the Passover festival on Friday 14 Nisan, called the Quartodeciman, whereas the synoptic gospels (except for Mark 14:2) describe the Last Supper, immediately before Jesus' arrest, as the Passover meal on Friday 15 Nisan; however, a number of scholars hold that the synoptic account is harmonious with the account in John.[8] Further, the Jews followed a lunisolar calendar with phases of the moon as dates, complicating calculations of any exact date in a solar calendar. According to John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew, allowing for the time of the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate and the dates of the Passover in those years, his death can be placed most probably on April 7, 30 AD/CE or April 3, 33 AD/CE.[9]
What is clear is the gospels use the phrase "third day" - but what they meant by it may not be so clear. It had precedents in the Hebrew Scriptures of refering to a day of Rising/Salvation/Vindication (eg Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days). Instead of being a phrase refering to a 'day' in the sense of a chornologically, it could be refering to a 'day' in the sense of the rightness and significance of that day. ( Just nigel 07:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC))
Does a day start at sunset or midnight? ( Just nigel 05:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC))
Ever since this edit on October 10 wikipedia has again claimed as fact that Jesus rose from the dead. An event like going to Jerusalem for the Passover gets prefaced by "according to the Gospels" but disputed events like a resurrection & trial by the Sanhedrin are stated as bald fact -- JimWae 06:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
As per the Good Article review on this page, this article has been relisted as a GA, primarily due to lack of confidence in the motivations of the delister. Dispute archived here: Wikipedia:Good articles/Disputes/Archive 7 Homestarmy 17:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)