Talk:Criticism of religion

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To-do: E · H · W · R Updated 2008-03-22 Neutrality and verifiability issues Check and recheck for POV Citation, citation, citation! Improving the flow of the article Expand introductory sections. Missing material Add an historic perspective, or at least a brief overview of the prominent critics, especially the recent wave of criticism (Dawkins, Harris, Dennet). The section about the harmful consequences of religion on society should discuss whether religion should be held responsible for the action of "misguided" believers. In particular, Dawkins criticism that moderate religion makes fundamentalism acceptable should be covered. Add a section on the position of women under various religions, for example, bride burning, honour killing, female circumcision, superstitions about menstrual "uncleaness". Add short section on shari'a law, to Homophobia section Add a new section on societal resistance to criticism of religion - the 'weird privileged status of religion' phenomena (perhaps at the start?) General Clean-up and Style Fix messy citations Trim the article, it's starting to get much too long. Or is it? This is a rather complex issue and requires a comprehensive discussion. Copy edit,many sections don't read very well.

I don't want to get into yet another edit war with Ramos yet again. The IPs text was entirely relevant and well sourced. I am getting very tired of Ramos reverting useful edits which may be unfavourable to one's religious views. This article is about the criticism of religion which included arguments which demonstrate societies with less religious influence faring better. I also believe that Ramos's additions to the "counter arguments" sections are still far too lengthy and should also be further cut as I know few other articles on wikipedia that have such an enormous proportion of counter arguments relative to the rest of the article. Shabidoo | Talk 00:25, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am not opposed to good adds that stick to what the sources say, the problem is that some wiki editors actually claim what the sources never state in the first place. Sorry, but the whole add was WP:SYN and reverted the exact same edit in July of 2020 with no issues. Its the same IP editor adding it again. None of the sources placed blame on religion nor did they state that religions causes any harm and also none of them cited the "World Happiness Index" either. Also it had a link to Latin America for some odd reason. It was just super sloppy all around like last time. Furthermore, Phil Zuckerman who you removed, who is more of an expert on secular societies and wellbeing and he himself does not state that secularism or religion cause these circumstances in societies. How would a claim of "less religious countries are doing well" be a criticism of religion by the way? Originally there were some sources on that and also rebuttals from literature on that too but those were removed years ago. Because there were many many explanations for any correlations for or against. Anyways, more of a breakdown of the edit I reverted. From the sources:

1) The Pew source actually said that religious people do fare better than the less religious on pretty much all the points in that article. It certainly did not say the opposite.

2) The second source was Phil Zuckerman in the Oxford Handbook of Atheism under Stephen Bullivant and he does not attribute well being to atheism or secularity or the lack thereof to religion or theism. He actually acknowledged the complexity of nations and the markers for social welbeing in the paper and conlusiions of that piece. He merely claims that religion and theism do not automatically make societies better nor that the secularity or atheism automatically deter social well being. He also notes atheist regimes in the paper as examples against social well being.

3) Eckhart is actually talking about group selection theorists and uses the US and Scandinavia as an example of how that theory fails. He attributes the correlations from Scandinavia "to their low levels of social inequality", not religion.

4) Cliquet is trying to explain the conditions in which religion is prominent and states "religiosity is dependent upon the level of social development". He does not claim that religion causes anything but that economic conditions playa role on level of religiosity or lack thereof.

As to your other concern, the counter criticism sections were already shortened extensively by you a while back. I even corrected some mistakes rectified per the sources back then too.Ramos1990 (talk) 01:56, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to list this to get other people's input. Shabidoo | Talk 16:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the section of harm to society we should definitely add harm to women and countless examples from ancient times to currently in most Muslim countries as well as persecution of homosexuals because of religious beliefs Nlivataye (talk) 08:30, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the Islamic notion of din (as for example in surah al kafirun) not an equiavalent of the notion of a religion? 118.179.16.63 (talk) 11:32, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Shabidoo:. I removed this section for the simple fact that criticism of FGM is generally 1.) Almost always not related to criticism of religion 2.) This is a general article about religious criticism. Not specific criticisms of certain religions. (It much better belongs for articles like criticism of Judaism or criticism of Islam or criticism of Christianity. Rather than an article about the premises of religious faith in general.) Beyond this, none of the sources presently in the article mention religious-oriented criticism surrounding this, just criticism of FGM in general/weighing the aggregate health benefits/downsides of circumcision.

The academic literature overwhelmingly separates FGM and religion. (The present article even states: The Jewish Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran themselves do not contain textual support for the practice of female genital mutilation even though the practice predates both Islam and Christianity.) Circumcision section is valid: just not in this article. The overwhelming majority of the world's religious population is not in a tradition that mandates it. (Only Judaism and the Shafi'i Islamic tradition does.) Including FGM/circumcision here would be like this article including criticism of the virgin birth.

Important information has been moved here. Thanks! KlayCax (talk) 03:39, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You just stated yourself that certain religious groups support FGM. It is also unheard of to be practiced in non-religious or non religion affiliated cultures. If there is nuance needed, then add that nuance. A quick survey of other articles on Wikipedia will show that examples of issues are abound. Reverting this until there is a consensus on your removal of content. Shabidoo | Talk 16:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So recently I made a number of edits to this page. They included removing some content that I felt was WP:OFFTOPIC for this page and so could be removed per WP:Notability is not relevance or reliability. Separately, I also rewrote some sentences that described books in a WP:POV WP:SUBJECTIVE way, such as describing a book as "injecting both snarky irony and humor" without attribution for this description. All these edits were separate, and had their reasoning explained in the edit summary.

@Shabidoo lumped all these edits together and reverted them, claiming that the removals were justified by an extremely narrow definition and the edits for WP:NPOV were watering down content.

I obverted these edits, saying Please establish consensus for inclusion per WP:ONUS, "The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content". Also, please deal with separate edits separately, you've reinserted WP:POV WP:AESTHETIC descriptions of books which are completely different to the discussion of whether some content is WP:OFFTOPIC. My aim here was that edits to different parts of the article for different reasons could be discussed separately, and consensus generated separately as per Wikipedia norms.

Shabidoo then reverted the whole lot again saying This is not how bold, revert cycle works, which I think ignores that WP:BRD is an essay that self-describes as "one of many optional strategies" and even offers alternatives while WP:ONUS is a policy. They also said my edits were for dubious reasons, even though I cited which policies and guidlines I was basing my reasoning on. I'd asked Shabidoo to assume good faith for me, like I do for them.

All this to say, I've come here in the hopes of generating consensus and avoiding an edit war. The two questions at hand are A) should the sentences about the New Atheist's books be changed as per this diff and B)is there consensus to include the disputed sections which I removed in my original edits.'

I think here and in my edit summaries I've made my position and arguments clear, so I'm not going to comment here further except to clarify any points or respond to questions if needed. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 00:43, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think your edit of the New Atheists is more NPOV and to the point. On the sections you removed, Jerusalem syndrome is an odd entry as it is not a criticism of religion. Just wanting to go to a city is not a criticism nor is any religion specified. Machiavelli seems more like a criticism of political leaders than religion since it mentions leaders using religion to their benefit, not that religion is the problem. Albert Einstein seems relevant but the sentence is off since the quote says what morals should be based on, not that religion is unnecessary. WP:SYN. Can be fixed by sticking to what he said. On the witches stuff, does the source explicitly blame religion, or just mentions that people who were religious were involved? If the source does not blame religion, then it is not really a criticism. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:41, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Ramos1990. Thanks for your comment. I've now waited a few days and no one else seems to have jumped in (including the original reverter, who was pinged), so I think we can tentatively move forward with consensus.

Just confirming you support:

A) My edits of the New Atheists sentences

B) The removal of Jerusalem syndrome section

C) Removal of Machiavelli's statement.

D) Re-writing of Albert Einstein bit to directly reflect his quote.

If this is the case, I will action these.

(I can't get access to the witches sources, but the sentences themselves don't seem to blame religion, merely note that people who were religious were involved.)

Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 23:32, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Tomorrow and tomorrow, on A-D I agree. You can put a quote required tag on the witches sources at the moment. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:35, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, thanks! Actioning that now. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 00:51, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No sorry this all happened way too fast and two people agreeing on mass removals is not a consensus, especially if it is a contentious and potentially overly narrow interpretation of what criticism is. Will comment and address all of this tomorrow. Shabidoo | Talk 23:44, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Shabidoo. I'd invite you to read Wikipedia:Consensus. Two people agreeing on a change with policy based reasoning (in this case, @Ramos1990 and myself) can indeed be consensus, particularly when as happened here no others joined the conversation including the only objector (you) not responding. Also, I disagree that this all happened way too fast - it's been 9 days since I first created the topic on talk, and no one other than the three of us has weighed in. And it's been 2 days since I actioned the changes, and no one has objected or reverted. I don't think we can be accused of rushing anything through.

Of the three editors who seem to be interested, two of us have supported the changes and explained our policy/guideline rationale for doing so. You are the sole objector and haven't provided any policies or guidelines explaining your objection other than that you think the definition used by Ramos1990 and I is an overly narrow interpretation.

That said, if you wish to challenge the consensus, or establish a consensus to include, that is your prerogative. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 04:38, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph that states the concept of religion did not exist before the 17th century is followed by a quote that uses the word religion from the 1st century BCE. Can't have it both ways. The reference claims earlier references to religion meant something akin to "inner piety". This does not make sense in the quote: "But 'tis that same [inner piety] oftener far / Hath bred the foul impieties of men". Inner piety breeds impiety? 100.34.46.136 (talk) 02:57, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]