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Isn't Thelema a significant neo-pagan religion? 2603:6011:A400:8873:C831:5028:5BE1:4F7A ( talk) 23:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Strong arguments have been made on both sides, but the numerical consensus in favor of moving is not outweighed by the opposing arguments. I submit that the decisive argument, most clearly articulated by
Cinderella157, is that this article currently describes something too general to merit capitalization in itself, and while such grammatical norms can be trumped by a clear preponderance of capitalized instances outside Wikipedia (and not just in scholarly media), there is, at present, insufficient evidence thereof.
SchreiberBike summarized the situation well: What is and is not a proper noun is hard to define around the edges, so we fall back on n-grams and modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.... [Moreover,] this article does not describe paganism in the way that those who say "I am a Pagan" describe their beliefs. It describes it as a group of religions. That could change.
I hope most of us will agree that this is a borderline case, so may we be especially quick to assume good faith in all those involved, including myself.
Arbitrarily0 (
talk) 18:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Modern Paganism → Modern paganism – per MOS:ISMCAPS. This suggestion failed to achieve consensus support in an RM discussion five years ago, but the fact remains that paganism is not a single identifiable organized religion or even a single identifiable set of specific beliefs. Rather, as the article says, modern paganism is "a collective term for religious movements" of a certain variety. Collective terms are things that describe a category, and thus are common nouns, not proper names. There isn't any single authoritative definition of what modern paganism exactly is. As the article says, "Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one", and there is a "lack of core commonalities in issues such as theology, cosmology, ethics, afterlife, holy days, or ritual practices", and there is "no consensus about how contemporary Paganism can best be defined". Wikipedia's convention is to use lowercase in such situations. See also Germanic paganism, as noted in the 2017 discussion. Please also see the related ongoing RM at Talk:Neopaganism in Scandinavia#Requested move 14 August 2022. — BarrelProof ( talk) 18:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Amakuru ( talk) 10:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Prior close, prior to a move review which led to this RM being relisted
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Moved. I guess we can build a snowman in August. ( closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky ( talk) 09:58, 28 August 2022 (UTC) |
(This doesn't seem like a particularly Southern Hemisphere topic, but it looks like it is snowing in August!) — BarrelProof ( talk) 16:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
(Comments made after the initial close):
Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.
Paganism is used with capitalization in contemporary academic literature referring to a defined group of religions (just like " Hinduism," rather than a "movement" inside a larger religion- ie, offshoots of an existing religion like evangelicalism and fundamentalism or even Pentecostal and Calvinist.)As a "group of religions", wouldn't the appropriate comparator be Indian religions (which we don't capitalize, except for the first word because it comes from the word India) rather than Hinduism? Graham ( talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
By Indian religions, do you mean the ones sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions? (taken from the lead of Indian religions, all capitalized.)Indic is a proper noun, and I don't know that we should be capitalizing dharmic either. Many sources don't, in fact, capitalize it (e.g., the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife).
substantial majority, as you well know. This is close to 50/50. Wallnot ( talk) 13:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique. The suffix -ism is usually not pluralised (-s), but it can be intended as plural, referring to a more or less narrow category of new religious movements. It is certainly not a common noun as general as
continent, planet, person, corporation, etc. Æo ( talk) 19:54, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Proper nouns are normally invariant for number: most are singular, but a few, referring for instance to mountain ranges or groups of islands, are plural (e.g. Hebrides).Modern pagan religions are not invariant for number. It would also state that:
A [true] proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ...There is much confusion about what is actually a proper name rather than a name phrase that is being capitalised for emphasis or significance (importance) - see MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Cinderella157 ( talk) 07:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
consistently capitalized by a substantial majority of reliable sources. Wallnot ( talk) 21:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
substantial majorityof sources. The ngram shows that it is close to 50/50 cap/lowercase. That’s not consistently capitalized, nor is it a substantial majority. Wallnot ( talk) 13:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
clear, unambiguous majority; it is consistent capitalization in a
substantial majority, i.e., a supermajority, which is not the case even in the ngram you supply. The analysis is not based solely on the most recent year of data, and the capitalized form did not have even a bare majority until very recently. The fact that it has a majority at all is a product of the fact that modern paganism will always be capitalized in a heading. Below, Amakuru provides an ngram superior to either of ours showing that, when you take care to omit headings, it is even more clear that modern paganism fails the CAPS
substantial majoritytest. Wallnot ( talk) 17:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: |last=
has numeric name (
help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (
link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
... [it] is a collective term for religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs ..., further reinforcing that it is being used as a category or common noun phrase. Consequently, there is no inherent reason to capitalise this but we should then defer to MOS:CAPS (through WP:NCCAPS) if there is (as there now is) dissent over whether the phase is a proper name.
not [to] capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not.The guidance would therefore tell us to use lowercase.
... only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.
Names of organized religions (as well as officially recognized sects), whether as a noun or an adjective, and their adherents start with a capital letter. Unofficial movements, ideologies or philosophies within religions are generally not capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not. Here there is a flaw in the MOS rule. "Evangelicalism" and "fundamentalism" are indeed not religions but approaches to the way of being religious; the others in the list are religions. However, neither "Islam", nor "Catholic", nor "Protestant" are based on proper nouns: the first means " surrender (to God)" in Arabic, the second means "all-whole" (katholikos) in Greek, the third is an archaic Latinate form of "protester". Æo ( talk) 19:01, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ... If it had once been, it may no longer be so ...Just as for the example of Newtown, in the proper noun article, proper names will often have a derivation ( etymology). Catholic may mean all-embracing. While the Catholic Church may once have been, it no longer is all-embracing. Catholic refers to the religious denomination with the Pope at its head. Protestants aren't protesting in the streets and very few Anglophones would associate Islam with its Arabic meaning. Because of the mixed understandings about what a proper name is, WP reverts to empirical evidence to resolve disputes. Of the various terms you raise immediately above and below, please see this ngram evidence. [14] [15] [16] One can see that the religions we would capitalise per the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS are near always capitalised - quite unlike modern paganism. There is no apparent inconsistency as you would assert. The rules of grammar in conjunction with this article, the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS and the general advise at MOS:CAPS along with ngram evidence all indicate a conclusion for a move to modern paganism. Cinderella157 ( talk) 01:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The Wild Hunt consistently capitalizes “Paganism” when referring to contemporary practice. (We do use lower-case “paganism” to refer to the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions, though even this is not without debate.)
"the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions". I don't think this article is about the modern religion called Paganism. We don't have an article about people who identify their religion primarily as Pagan. This article is about
"the general historical grouping". SchreiberBike | ⌨ 12:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Regarding
this edit to the lead (and similar). In its fullness, the statement that would be added is not supported by citation. The statement is not a key point that would belong in the lead (
MOS:LEADREL). It is a POV. The addition fails
WP:WEIGHT. There is a
WP:ONUS. In the light of the recent RM, the edit wcould appear to be
Wikipedia:Gaming the system and
WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
Cinderella157 (
talk) 00:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)What I intended to say
Cinderella157 (
talk) 02:07, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
... is a collective term for religions ...to
... is a term for a religion or family of religions ...directly relates to matters raised in the RM. Collective term has been used in the lead since 2017. It is difficult for me to see any other reason for changing this now unless it is a reaction to the RM. There is then the sentence you would add. The matter of P/p is not
a topic with its own sub-heading. On my screen, it occupies just over three lines of prose (half of one paragraph) in the section Reappropriation of "paganism" which consists of three near equal paragraphs. There are 111 words in the subject passage out of 9460 words of readable prose in the article (just over 1%). The article does not support that this is a "key point" that should be mentioned in the lead.
In its fullness, the statement that would be added is not supported by [the] citation.The cited passage does not support a causative relationship.( Rountree p8) The matter of P/p (per the article) is not a matter on which there is a scholarly consensus. There are two opposing views (POVs). To state in the lead (without fuller context)
... though specialists in the field of Pagan studies tend towards capitalisation ...fails WP:WEIGHT, since it favours one POV on the basis of a single statement. As to Rountree's actual statement, a review of JSTOR and Google Scholar (as offered in the RM) are cause for concern as to the weight that should be afforded it - though this is not so problematic when balanced as in the body of the article. If you have not already, please see WP:VNOT. The WP:ONUS has not been met and the status quo should be retained until there is a consensus for the change. Cinderella157 ( talk) 12:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC) Added link to cited material Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:18, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Should the lead of the article be amended per this edit. Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Notified at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters. Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Among the critics of the upper-case P are York and Andras Corban-Arthen, president of the ECER.And to state:
The fact is that scholarly specialists of the topic overwhelmingly [emphasis added] use the upper case "P", is not supported by evidence from JSTOR and Google Scholar, as presented during the RM. The saliant points I would make remain. Cinderella157 ( talk) 11:19, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus. While the proposed title "Neo-Paganism" is generally rejected, some editors favored "Neopaganism" as the alternative. However, others pointed out that any form of "neo(-)paganism" is often considered pejorative by the proponents and is thus avoided by scholars, and that argument has not been addressed. I don't find a sufficient consensus in this RM to move away from the long-standing title. No such user ( talk) 11:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Modern paganism → Neo-Paganism – Per WP:COMMONNAME. Based on the Google Ngrams [21] [22], "Neo-Paganism" is the most common term for this topic. Britannica also titles their article on this topic as Neo-Paganism. Rreagan007 ( talk) 22:34, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Quotes from article sources
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[In the academic field of Pagan studies] there has been a general preference for the terms "modern/contemporary Paganism" over "Neopaganism" ... However, certain academic authors continue to use "Neopaganism".This work was cited in 2020 by Pavel Horak ("Who Is, and Who Is Not a Pagan? Struggles in Defining Contemporary Paganism: A Response to Ethan Doyle White", The Pomegranate 22(2), doi:10.1558/pome.39673), who doesn't indicate that the situation has changed in the intervening years:
Ethan Doyle White summarized the various attempts in defining contemporary Paganism thus: to put it generally, scholars prefer the usage of the term "contemporary Paganism" over "Neo-Paganism" to emphasize and stress the similarities of contemporary and ancient Paganism.These two sources would seem to indicate that "modern" or "contemporary pagan" is preferred, but as I say, additional sources would be helpful to confirm this. Sojourner in the earth ( talk) 13:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
The previously cited distinction between the terms Pagan and Neopagan (or Neo-pagan) is still more controversial. Many modern Pagans reject the term Neopagan... The title of the current volume as well as several of the chapters here avoid the term Neopaganism at the explicit request of modern Pagans to not be classified as "Neo," which they see as derogatory and unnecessary.
- Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives page 9
In Hindu scriptures, the word 'Hindu' is not to be found. Yet, long before Western scholars sat down to invent definitions of 'Hindu', the term already carried a definite meaning. The normal procedure ought to be, to listen to this original version first. It was brought into India by the Islamic invaders, and meant: 'Indian Pagan'. ... / The Muslim invaders called the Pagans of India sometimes 'Kafirs', unbelievers in general, i.e. the same religious designation which was used for the polytheists of Arabia; but often they called them 'Hindus', inhabitants of Hindustan, i.e. an ethnic-geographical designation. Thereby, they gave a fixed religious content to this geographical term: a Hindu is any Indian who is not a Jew, Christian, Muslim or Zoroastrian. In other words: any Indian 'Pagan', i.e. one who is not a believer in the Abrahamic religions nor an Iranian Pagan, is a Hindu. In its definition as 'Indian Paganism', Hinduism includes the whole range from animal worship to Upanishadic monist philosophy, and from Shaktic blood sacrifice to Jain extreme non-violence. / The term Hindu was used for all Indians who were unbelievers or idol-worshippers, including Buddhists, Jains, 'animists' and later the Sikhs, but in contradistinction to Indian Christians (ahl-i Nasâra or Isâî ), Jews (ahl-î-Yahûd or banû Isrâîl ), Mazdeans (ahl-i Majûs or âtish-parast ) and of course Muslims themselves. This way, at least by the time of Albiruni (early 11th century), the word Hindu had a distinct religio-geographical meaning: a Hindu is an Indian who is not a Muslim, Jew, Christian or Zoroastrian. ... / All Indians who were not Parsis, Jews, Christians or Muslims, were automatically Hindus. So, the original definition of Hindu is: an Indian Pagan. Since the earliest use of the term Hindu in India, a clear definition has been given with it, and of every community it can easily be decided whether it fits that definition or not. It does not matter if you do not like the name-tag: if you fit the definition, you fall within the Hindu category. The Hindus have not chosen to be called Hindus: others have conceived the term and its definition, and Hindus simply found themselves carrying this label and gradually accepted it.
Significant disparities exist between 'modern paganism', ' paganism', ' major religious groups' & etc. articles, with more general/historical articles describing the second definition of 'pagan/ heathen' (after 'country-dweller' like on the heath) being when Roman empire Christians called everyone else (except Jews) 'pagan [non-Abrahamic]', including various pagan philosophers (pantheists, atomists, etc.) and atheists who didn't believe in their God (so also such agnostics), and that this definition continued through modern age of Christian European worldwide empires, and continues (among stricter Abrahamics) to current-day.
From enlightenment era to 2010s Abrahamism was decreasing, and if one investigates statistics, in mid-to-late 2010s was only roughly 45% (44% or 46%... forgot which)... this figure was arrived at from statistics (probably still on older Wikipedia, and Pew Research Forum, etc.) the Islamic world has overall/average 25% of their population atheists (I can possibly recheck exactly where I found this, but I don't edit this article)... normally still pretending to practice Islam (otherwise in Islamic theocracies (Islamocracies) would be shunned, jailed or executed) so apparently for that reason are still counted as Muslim in statistics, but really aren't... so subtracting 25% from Islamic percentage one arrives that only about 45% the world is Abrahamic. Since 2010s it's been increasing again (counting children born/indoctrinated into religion, which significant number later leave) but last I checked is still not over 48%. Going by original religious (exclusion) definition, paganism since at least mid-2010s is the largest category of (dis)beliefs/(ir)religions/philosophies in the world. With cases like Denmark that 99% citizens are in the state Christian church (registered on birth) but only something from 8% to about 1/4 consider religion important, which it's similar (without registration) in many 'Christian' countries, the shift may have actually been sometime 1800s to perhaps 1960s rise of 'New Age', and percentages (considering presumably very large number of agnostics/atheists who were told they were Christian but never really went along with that, or partly or fully stopped... likely even larger percentage wrongly counted 'Christian' in the West than atheist in the Islamic world) might be significantly different, but as the 'major religious groups' article says, it's hard to tell and there isn't agreement how to measure.
To me paganism always included not just historical European philosophies/religions but all non-Abrahamism, including secularism (agnosticism/atheism, pantheism) and all other worldwide religions. I didn't see any source in 'modern paganism' article why it's contradicting the 'paganism' one with this new term 'secular paganism' supposedly has to do with other pagan (than agnostics'/atheists' own) 'principles/virtues'--never heard of any such thing until reading that today, and no seculars/agnostics/atheists identifying with the term 'pagan/heathen' ever told me that--makes no sense to me; they've always been pagan/heathen, and any their irreligious principles/virtues are as relevant to be in the category. It's not necessarily so important pagan/heathen scholars don't apply the term worldwide, because that's simply how the term has been applied 1600+ years to this day (as an exclusion term) even if not to large extent in some areas of the world (but generally some extent). Of course, on one hand, some Hindus (even when not mixing in Christianity) don't like the term 'pagan/heathen', and even some Greek and Slavic polytheists don't like the Latin/Roman/English term, when that term more recognizably applies in the term's languages... on the other hand, other Greek and Slavic polytheists and Dharma practitioners (and people in other tribal and ancient middle to far Eastern religions/philosophies) prefer to identify with the term. They and agnostics/atheists who identify with the term consider it relevant as a group of (dis)beliefs/(ir)religions alernative to the formerly majority Abrahamism that had near-worldwide genocidal militarist imperialism with lasting effects to this day such as places that still have witch-hunts (Saudi Arabia, some Christian parts of Africa, etc.) and/or punish/execute people for paganism (in this case not just polytheism/witchcraft but also secularism/agnosticism/atheism). I've talked to many agnostics/atheists, Dharma practitioners, other worldwide philosophy/religion practitioners who identify with the term 'pagan/heathen' on this basis as well as seeing religious pagans/heathens trying to co-opt the term to exclude those people and to de-emphasize philosophy. Of course, one would want to find academic sources the original term (or equivalent) is still used not just among adherents of European pagan religions, but philosophy, other religions, and atheism/agnosticism... I just don't see a reliable source that the term became more limited rather than that being an attempted co-option.
There are undue modern focuses on religion and nature/Gaea, when for example pagan ancient/Classical Greek/Roman/Hellenistic Philosophy (as well as Dharma/etc.) is a vast subject that continues to modern philosophy, and for example an ancient Athenian who worshipped Goddess Athena rather than Gaea might not have had a significant nature focus, nor worshippers of Goddess Roma (of Rome) nor worshippers of some of the Hindu gods associated with cities, etc.... even since ancient times, the urban was equally as important as the rural/naturalist/country-dwelling in pagan/heathen polytheism.-- dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍( talk| contrib) 14:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Modern paganism article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Auto-archiving period: 3 months |
If you have a general comment, question, or announcement about Neopaganism-related articles on Wikipedia, you may want to post it to the WikiProject Neopaganism talk page. That is the quickest way to reach a broad audience of editors interested in Neopaganism. |
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This article has previously been nominated to be moved.
Discussions:
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Isn't Thelema a significant neo-pagan religion? 2603:6011:A400:8873:C831:5028:5BE1:4F7A ( talk) 23:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Strong arguments have been made on both sides, but the numerical consensus in favor of moving is not outweighed by the opposing arguments. I submit that the decisive argument, most clearly articulated by
Cinderella157, is that this article currently describes something too general to merit capitalization in itself, and while such grammatical norms can be trumped by a clear preponderance of capitalized instances outside Wikipedia (and not just in scholarly media), there is, at present, insufficient evidence thereof.
SchreiberBike summarized the situation well: What is and is not a proper noun is hard to define around the edges, so we fall back on n-grams and modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.... [Moreover,] this article does not describe paganism in the way that those who say "I am a Pagan" describe their beliefs. It describes it as a group of religions. That could change.
I hope most of us will agree that this is a borderline case, so may we be especially quick to assume good faith in all those involved, including myself.
Arbitrarily0 (
talk) 18:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Modern Paganism → Modern paganism – per MOS:ISMCAPS. This suggestion failed to achieve consensus support in an RM discussion five years ago, but the fact remains that paganism is not a single identifiable organized religion or even a single identifiable set of specific beliefs. Rather, as the article says, modern paganism is "a collective term for religious movements" of a certain variety. Collective terms are things that describe a category, and thus are common nouns, not proper names. There isn't any single authoritative definition of what modern paganism exactly is. As the article says, "Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one", and there is a "lack of core commonalities in issues such as theology, cosmology, ethics, afterlife, holy days, or ritual practices", and there is "no consensus about how contemporary Paganism can best be defined". Wikipedia's convention is to use lowercase in such situations. See also Germanic paganism, as noted in the 2017 discussion. Please also see the related ongoing RM at Talk:Neopaganism in Scandinavia#Requested move 14 August 2022. — BarrelProof ( talk) 18:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Amakuru ( talk) 10:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Prior close, prior to a move review which led to this RM being relisted
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Moved. I guess we can build a snowman in August. ( closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky ( talk) 09:58, 28 August 2022 (UTC) |
(This doesn't seem like a particularly Southern Hemisphere topic, but it looks like it is snowing in August!) — BarrelProof ( talk) 16:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
(Comments made after the initial close):
Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.
Paganism is used with capitalization in contemporary academic literature referring to a defined group of religions (just like " Hinduism," rather than a "movement" inside a larger religion- ie, offshoots of an existing religion like evangelicalism and fundamentalism or even Pentecostal and Calvinist.)As a "group of religions", wouldn't the appropriate comparator be Indian religions (which we don't capitalize, except for the first word because it comes from the word India) rather than Hinduism? Graham ( talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
By Indian religions, do you mean the ones sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions? (taken from the lead of Indian religions, all capitalized.)Indic is a proper noun, and I don't know that we should be capitalizing dharmic either. Many sources don't, in fact, capitalize it (e.g., the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife).
substantial majority, as you well know. This is close to 50/50. Wallnot ( talk) 13:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique. The suffix -ism is usually not pluralised (-s), but it can be intended as plural, referring to a more or less narrow category of new religious movements. It is certainly not a common noun as general as
continent, planet, person, corporation, etc. Æo ( talk) 19:54, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Proper nouns are normally invariant for number: most are singular, but a few, referring for instance to mountain ranges or groups of islands, are plural (e.g. Hebrides).Modern pagan religions are not invariant for number. It would also state that:
A [true] proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ...There is much confusion about what is actually a proper name rather than a name phrase that is being capitalised for emphasis or significance (importance) - see MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Cinderella157 ( talk) 07:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
consistently capitalized by a substantial majority of reliable sources. Wallnot ( talk) 21:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
substantial majorityof sources. The ngram shows that it is close to 50/50 cap/lowercase. That’s not consistently capitalized, nor is it a substantial majority. Wallnot ( talk) 13:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
clear, unambiguous majority; it is consistent capitalization in a
substantial majority, i.e., a supermajority, which is not the case even in the ngram you supply. The analysis is not based solely on the most recent year of data, and the capitalized form did not have even a bare majority until very recently. The fact that it has a majority at all is a product of the fact that modern paganism will always be capitalized in a heading. Below, Amakuru provides an ngram superior to either of ours showing that, when you take care to omit headings, it is even more clear that modern paganism fails the CAPS
substantial majoritytest. Wallnot ( talk) 17:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: |last=
has numeric name (
help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (
link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
... [it] is a collective term for religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs ..., further reinforcing that it is being used as a category or common noun phrase. Consequently, there is no inherent reason to capitalise this but we should then defer to MOS:CAPS (through WP:NCCAPS) if there is (as there now is) dissent over whether the phase is a proper name.
not [to] capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not.The guidance would therefore tell us to use lowercase.
... only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.
Names of organized religions (as well as officially recognized sects), whether as a noun or an adjective, and their adherents start with a capital letter. Unofficial movements, ideologies or philosophies within religions are generally not capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not. Here there is a flaw in the MOS rule. "Evangelicalism" and "fundamentalism" are indeed not religions but approaches to the way of being religious; the others in the list are religions. However, neither "Islam", nor "Catholic", nor "Protestant" are based on proper nouns: the first means " surrender (to God)" in Arabic, the second means "all-whole" (katholikos) in Greek, the third is an archaic Latinate form of "protester". Æo ( talk) 19:01, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ... If it had once been, it may no longer be so ...Just as for the example of Newtown, in the proper noun article, proper names will often have a derivation ( etymology). Catholic may mean all-embracing. While the Catholic Church may once have been, it no longer is all-embracing. Catholic refers to the religious denomination with the Pope at its head. Protestants aren't protesting in the streets and very few Anglophones would associate Islam with its Arabic meaning. Because of the mixed understandings about what a proper name is, WP reverts to empirical evidence to resolve disputes. Of the various terms you raise immediately above and below, please see this ngram evidence. [14] [15] [16] One can see that the religions we would capitalise per the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS are near always capitalised - quite unlike modern paganism. There is no apparent inconsistency as you would assert. The rules of grammar in conjunction with this article, the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS and the general advise at MOS:CAPS along with ngram evidence all indicate a conclusion for a move to modern paganism. Cinderella157 ( talk) 01:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The Wild Hunt consistently capitalizes “Paganism” when referring to contemporary practice. (We do use lower-case “paganism” to refer to the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions, though even this is not without debate.)
"the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions". I don't think this article is about the modern religion called Paganism. We don't have an article about people who identify their religion primarily as Pagan. This article is about
"the general historical grouping". SchreiberBike | ⌨ 12:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Regarding
this edit to the lead (and similar). In its fullness, the statement that would be added is not supported by citation. The statement is not a key point that would belong in the lead (
MOS:LEADREL). It is a POV. The addition fails
WP:WEIGHT. There is a
WP:ONUS. In the light of the recent RM, the edit wcould appear to be
Wikipedia:Gaming the system and
WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
Cinderella157 (
talk) 00:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)What I intended to say
Cinderella157 (
talk) 02:07, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
... is a collective term for religions ...to
... is a term for a religion or family of religions ...directly relates to matters raised in the RM. Collective term has been used in the lead since 2017. It is difficult for me to see any other reason for changing this now unless it is a reaction to the RM. There is then the sentence you would add. The matter of P/p is not
a topic with its own sub-heading. On my screen, it occupies just over three lines of prose (half of one paragraph) in the section Reappropriation of "paganism" which consists of three near equal paragraphs. There are 111 words in the subject passage out of 9460 words of readable prose in the article (just over 1%). The article does not support that this is a "key point" that should be mentioned in the lead.
In its fullness, the statement that would be added is not supported by [the] citation.The cited passage does not support a causative relationship.( Rountree p8) The matter of P/p (per the article) is not a matter on which there is a scholarly consensus. There are two opposing views (POVs). To state in the lead (without fuller context)
... though specialists in the field of Pagan studies tend towards capitalisation ...fails WP:WEIGHT, since it favours one POV on the basis of a single statement. As to Rountree's actual statement, a review of JSTOR and Google Scholar (as offered in the RM) are cause for concern as to the weight that should be afforded it - though this is not so problematic when balanced as in the body of the article. If you have not already, please see WP:VNOT. The WP:ONUS has not been met and the status quo should be retained until there is a consensus for the change. Cinderella157 ( talk) 12:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC) Added link to cited material Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:18, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Should the lead of the article be amended per this edit. Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Notified at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters. Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Among the critics of the upper-case P are York and Andras Corban-Arthen, president of the ECER.And to state:
The fact is that scholarly specialists of the topic overwhelmingly [emphasis added] use the upper case "P", is not supported by evidence from JSTOR and Google Scholar, as presented during the RM. The saliant points I would make remain. Cinderella157 ( talk) 11:19, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus. While the proposed title "Neo-Paganism" is generally rejected, some editors favored "Neopaganism" as the alternative. However, others pointed out that any form of "neo(-)paganism" is often considered pejorative by the proponents and is thus avoided by scholars, and that argument has not been addressed. I don't find a sufficient consensus in this RM to move away from the long-standing title. No such user ( talk) 11:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Modern paganism → Neo-Paganism – Per WP:COMMONNAME. Based on the Google Ngrams [21] [22], "Neo-Paganism" is the most common term for this topic. Britannica also titles their article on this topic as Neo-Paganism. Rreagan007 ( talk) 22:34, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Quotes from article sources
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[In the academic field of Pagan studies] there has been a general preference for the terms "modern/contemporary Paganism" over "Neopaganism" ... However, certain academic authors continue to use "Neopaganism".This work was cited in 2020 by Pavel Horak ("Who Is, and Who Is Not a Pagan? Struggles in Defining Contemporary Paganism: A Response to Ethan Doyle White", The Pomegranate 22(2), doi:10.1558/pome.39673), who doesn't indicate that the situation has changed in the intervening years:
Ethan Doyle White summarized the various attempts in defining contemporary Paganism thus: to put it generally, scholars prefer the usage of the term "contemporary Paganism" over "Neo-Paganism" to emphasize and stress the similarities of contemporary and ancient Paganism.These two sources would seem to indicate that "modern" or "contemporary pagan" is preferred, but as I say, additional sources would be helpful to confirm this. Sojourner in the earth ( talk) 13:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
The previously cited distinction between the terms Pagan and Neopagan (or Neo-pagan) is still more controversial. Many modern Pagans reject the term Neopagan... The title of the current volume as well as several of the chapters here avoid the term Neopaganism at the explicit request of modern Pagans to not be classified as "Neo," which they see as derogatory and unnecessary.
- Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives page 9
In Hindu scriptures, the word 'Hindu' is not to be found. Yet, long before Western scholars sat down to invent definitions of 'Hindu', the term already carried a definite meaning. The normal procedure ought to be, to listen to this original version first. It was brought into India by the Islamic invaders, and meant: 'Indian Pagan'. ... / The Muslim invaders called the Pagans of India sometimes 'Kafirs', unbelievers in general, i.e. the same religious designation which was used for the polytheists of Arabia; but often they called them 'Hindus', inhabitants of Hindustan, i.e. an ethnic-geographical designation. Thereby, they gave a fixed religious content to this geographical term: a Hindu is any Indian who is not a Jew, Christian, Muslim or Zoroastrian. In other words: any Indian 'Pagan', i.e. one who is not a believer in the Abrahamic religions nor an Iranian Pagan, is a Hindu. In its definition as 'Indian Paganism', Hinduism includes the whole range from animal worship to Upanishadic monist philosophy, and from Shaktic blood sacrifice to Jain extreme non-violence. / The term Hindu was used for all Indians who were unbelievers or idol-worshippers, including Buddhists, Jains, 'animists' and later the Sikhs, but in contradistinction to Indian Christians (ahl-i Nasâra or Isâî ), Jews (ahl-î-Yahûd or banû Isrâîl ), Mazdeans (ahl-i Majûs or âtish-parast ) and of course Muslims themselves. This way, at least by the time of Albiruni (early 11th century), the word Hindu had a distinct religio-geographical meaning: a Hindu is an Indian who is not a Muslim, Jew, Christian or Zoroastrian. ... / All Indians who were not Parsis, Jews, Christians or Muslims, were automatically Hindus. So, the original definition of Hindu is: an Indian Pagan. Since the earliest use of the term Hindu in India, a clear definition has been given with it, and of every community it can easily be decided whether it fits that definition or not. It does not matter if you do not like the name-tag: if you fit the definition, you fall within the Hindu category. The Hindus have not chosen to be called Hindus: others have conceived the term and its definition, and Hindus simply found themselves carrying this label and gradually accepted it.
Significant disparities exist between 'modern paganism', ' paganism', ' major religious groups' & etc. articles, with more general/historical articles describing the second definition of 'pagan/ heathen' (after 'country-dweller' like on the heath) being when Roman empire Christians called everyone else (except Jews) 'pagan [non-Abrahamic]', including various pagan philosophers (pantheists, atomists, etc.) and atheists who didn't believe in their God (so also such agnostics), and that this definition continued through modern age of Christian European worldwide empires, and continues (among stricter Abrahamics) to current-day.
From enlightenment era to 2010s Abrahamism was decreasing, and if one investigates statistics, in mid-to-late 2010s was only roughly 45% (44% or 46%... forgot which)... this figure was arrived at from statistics (probably still on older Wikipedia, and Pew Research Forum, etc.) the Islamic world has overall/average 25% of their population atheists (I can possibly recheck exactly where I found this, but I don't edit this article)... normally still pretending to practice Islam (otherwise in Islamic theocracies (Islamocracies) would be shunned, jailed or executed) so apparently for that reason are still counted as Muslim in statistics, but really aren't... so subtracting 25% from Islamic percentage one arrives that only about 45% the world is Abrahamic. Since 2010s it's been increasing again (counting children born/indoctrinated into religion, which significant number later leave) but last I checked is still not over 48%. Going by original religious (exclusion) definition, paganism since at least mid-2010s is the largest category of (dis)beliefs/(ir)religions/philosophies in the world. With cases like Denmark that 99% citizens are in the state Christian church (registered on birth) but only something from 8% to about 1/4 consider religion important, which it's similar (without registration) in many 'Christian' countries, the shift may have actually been sometime 1800s to perhaps 1960s rise of 'New Age', and percentages (considering presumably very large number of agnostics/atheists who were told they were Christian but never really went along with that, or partly or fully stopped... likely even larger percentage wrongly counted 'Christian' in the West than atheist in the Islamic world) might be significantly different, but as the 'major religious groups' article says, it's hard to tell and there isn't agreement how to measure.
To me paganism always included not just historical European philosophies/religions but all non-Abrahamism, including secularism (agnosticism/atheism, pantheism) and all other worldwide religions. I didn't see any source in 'modern paganism' article why it's contradicting the 'paganism' one with this new term 'secular paganism' supposedly has to do with other pagan (than agnostics'/atheists' own) 'principles/virtues'--never heard of any such thing until reading that today, and no seculars/agnostics/atheists identifying with the term 'pagan/heathen' ever told me that--makes no sense to me; they've always been pagan/heathen, and any their irreligious principles/virtues are as relevant to be in the category. It's not necessarily so important pagan/heathen scholars don't apply the term worldwide, because that's simply how the term has been applied 1600+ years to this day (as an exclusion term) even if not to large extent in some areas of the world (but generally some extent). Of course, on one hand, some Hindus (even when not mixing in Christianity) don't like the term 'pagan/heathen', and even some Greek and Slavic polytheists don't like the Latin/Roman/English term, when that term more recognizably applies in the term's languages... on the other hand, other Greek and Slavic polytheists and Dharma practitioners (and people in other tribal and ancient middle to far Eastern religions/philosophies) prefer to identify with the term. They and agnostics/atheists who identify with the term consider it relevant as a group of (dis)beliefs/(ir)religions alernative to the formerly majority Abrahamism that had near-worldwide genocidal militarist imperialism with lasting effects to this day such as places that still have witch-hunts (Saudi Arabia, some Christian parts of Africa, etc.) and/or punish/execute people for paganism (in this case not just polytheism/witchcraft but also secularism/agnosticism/atheism). I've talked to many agnostics/atheists, Dharma practitioners, other worldwide philosophy/religion practitioners who identify with the term 'pagan/heathen' on this basis as well as seeing religious pagans/heathens trying to co-opt the term to exclude those people and to de-emphasize philosophy. Of course, one would want to find academic sources the original term (or equivalent) is still used not just among adherents of European pagan religions, but philosophy, other religions, and atheism/agnosticism... I just don't see a reliable source that the term became more limited rather than that being an attempted co-option.
There are undue modern focuses on religion and nature/Gaea, when for example pagan ancient/Classical Greek/Roman/Hellenistic Philosophy (as well as Dharma/etc.) is a vast subject that continues to modern philosophy, and for example an ancient Athenian who worshipped Goddess Athena rather than Gaea might not have had a significant nature focus, nor worshippers of Goddess Roma (of Rome) nor worshippers of some of the Hindu gods associated with cities, etc.... even since ancient times, the urban was equally as important as the rural/naturalist/country-dwelling in pagan/heathen polytheism.-- dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍( talk| contrib) 14:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)