Talk:Falun Gong/Archive 24

Require More Information Regarding FLG's Belief/Teachings Regarding Modern Science and Medicine[edit]

This has NOT been elaborated enough in the article itself. As a scientist I would like to know more about the stance of FLG on modern science and medicine. Children of the dragon (talk) 10:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Olaf's comments to User:Intranetusa[edit]

In my view, the way some of you are applying the 'cult' label is yet another obfuscation of the word's meaning. Talking about aliens, mixed-race marriages or homosexuality has no relation to whether Falun Gong is a 'cult' or not. You could shout "Heresy! Heterodoxy! Feudal superstition!" all over the place, just because you disagree with Li Hongzhi's teachings. But that does not make Falun Gong a 'cult' or Li Hongzhi a 'cult leader'. However, I'm aware of how such words are powerful tools in positioning Falun Gong practitioners--or anyone, for that matter--outside the borders of rationality and normalcy. Thus "cult members" is just another way of saying "inferior subjects", whose autonomous will is not on the level of an ordinary citizen. More severe control measures then seem acceptable and justified, and the outsider's "rational" view becomes the standard by which to judge what "they" really are all about. "Now, stay put while the doctor administers his cure!"

But whether something deserves to be called a 'cult' is a matter of its operational structure. Falun Gong is not operating like a cult, which has been verified by all those who have done serious research on the movement. Practitioners know that perfectly well: they know such labels have absolutely nothing to do with their experiences. Those who choose to use this word in labeling Falun Gong are merely drawing a line of demarcation between 'us' and 'them', 'purity' and 'danger', 'center' and 'margin', while paying no attention to the accuracy of such concepts. Because they think Falun Gong is stupid and its practitioners are alienated from what is real, they couldn't care less if people assume, for example, that Falun Gong is an "organization", with a tight grip on the sheepish "cult members", whose money is going up a pyramid structure to the hands of a callous, calculating and charismatic "cult leader".

Falun Gong is completely open for people to come in or leave. You don't have to pay for anything. You either take responsibility for your own cultivation or you don't, or you start working against the persecution or not, but nobody's ever going to order you to do something. You never join any organization; the practice itself is about as informal as when you go play pétanque with your friends in a park. True, Falun Gong can be called dissidence, at least in relation to the dominant scientific paradigm. But we must keep in mind that China's so-called qigong boom was widely perceived as a paradigm shift--a new form of science--and therefore it's totally understandable why so many qigong enthusiasts, including many Falun Gong practitioners, are highly educated, as proven by fieldwork. True qigong's effects are perfectly tangible and real; the discrepancy that exists between the views of materialist science and the phenomenology of qigong is a blatant farce. And judging by its pre-1999 popularity and the number of awards it received in China, Falun Gong is the most renowned qigong practice in history. That is why it was banned; it was too genuine, intertextual and deeply-rooted for the Communist leaders, as it created a meaningful existence outside of the Party framework. Taking into account what took place in China in the 1980s and 90s, the pop culture definition of qigong as just another "breathing exercise" is a form of revisionist history, an ideologically loaded concept that aims at neutralizing and diluting its essence. China's qigong boom came to an abrupt end because of political repression; qigong was never conclusively proven false or irreal, but the leading ideologies of the scientific establishment have swept it under the carpet, along with a myriad of other anomalous phenomena that call into question the legacy of the Western Enlightenment. This is nothing new, but its implications are sometimes forgotten.

In this way, deliberate obfuscation of the 'cult' label is, in itself, a tool of ideological struggle, not infrequently linked to militant secularism, scientism, or, ironically, even religious fundamentalism. It postulates a "closed" reality, a fixed set of metaphysical axioms, and seeks to crush its perceived adversaries by the way of social exclusion, even if it has to prostitute language itself: it doesn't matter if apples become oranges or war becomes peace. Of course, many people slap labels without any profound idea of what they're doing, but in this matter, they are, unwittingly or not, serving as lackeys of those who would rather see "heresy" weeded out to pave the way for a Brave New World. Talk about yet another Hegelian nightmare! It is heartbreaking to see how the 20th Century couldn't teach us very much. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 07:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

bunch of wikilaywering that has nothing to do with the case. The edit actually was reviewed by multiple administrators, please read their decision that the edit should stay. Bobby fletcher (talk) 16:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The edit? Wikilawyering? Why, I just said what is inherently true. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 05:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please cite some wiki rule on "inherently true". It's neither a reliable or notable source is it? Bobby fletcher (talk) 17:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

practice/movement[edit]

On the second paragraph of the lead, all the sources on that paragraph call it a movement, and some (if not all) specify that it teaches practices or mention "practices and teachings (of Falun Gong)" (searching for both "practice" and "movement" and see how each one is used).

Notice the ambiguity with Falun Gong followers being called "practitioners", probably because they all practice its teachings and practices. Altough Ownby uses the term "Falun Gong practitioners", that doesn't mean that he is saying that Falun Gong is a practice, since a few lines above he says "practitioner to the Falun Gong organization", so he is calling it an organization, and also says somewhere else "practitioners of qigong and Falun Gong", when he has specifically called qigong a movement. The only source that I couldn't verify was the book, but there was an online source from the same author on the first paragraph that I reused.

Ownby doesn't call it directly a movement, but it says that it's a school of qigong and that it emerged from it, with qigong being a movement, and that it teaches a certain practice. Also, the article speaks about the movement and not bout the practice that it teachs. I re-used the online source on the second paragraph. I assume that both the online source and the book say that same, since they are written by the same person.

Barend ter Haar also calls it a movement. It only mentions "practice" to refer to what Falun Gong teaches.

Benjamin Penny concurs, just like the lead says, because it calls it a movement on its source.

The ABC source also calls it a movement, and refers to practice on sentences like "practice and teachings of Falun Gong" and "(some people) practice Falun Gong".

Britannica also says that it's a movement.

So, seeing the above, I changed the lead to be in accord with the verifiability policy, see the diff for my change. (are you hearing, Asdfg? we are supossed to all what it is called on the sources, not what we personally think that it is!)

P.D.: This article itself is about the movement. The practice itself is covered on Falun_Gong#Theoretical_background and Qigong. By the way, the Qigong article deals exclusively with practice and says nothing about the movement (and should probably be expanded to explain better the movement and the spinoff schools Falun Gong and Zhong Gong). --Enric Naval (talk) 16:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Look, the primary issue here is that Falun Gong defines itself as a practice, and that should be the first definition given; Falun Gong is a set of exercises and books, and people practice them by reading them or doing those exercises. The analysis, critique, and interpretation comes firmly after that. You can find a dozen sources that call Falun Gong a movement? For everyone one of those, I'll bet there's another that calls it a practice. Ownby also uses practice, so does Penny. They also use movement sometimes. Do I need to dig around for examples of where they refer to Falun Gong as a practice? for example, from Ownby's latest book, "Falun Gong and the future of China", on the second page where he first refers to Falun Gong directly: "First, this book is not a defense of Falun Gong doctrine and practice." -- I could find many others where this term is used. I would suggest that "practice" is just as common as "movement" in the literature, and coupled with the even more important point that this is the way Falun Gong defines itself, the immediate definition should be the lowest common denominator, and elaborations remain elaborations. Check out MOS:IDENTITY. --Asdfg12345 01:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I read my comment again, and I want to clarify something. Firstly, I acknowledge that reliable, independent sources often characterise Falun Gong as a "movement". Secondly, I assert that they just as often characterise it as a "practice"--I am able to find more examples, if you please. (For example, Danny Schechter's book is entitled "Falun Gong's Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or 'Evil Cult'?", also consider that overwhelmingly those who practice Falun Gong are referred to as Falun Gong practitioners--doesn't this already indicate that Falun Gong is something that you do, i.e., practice?) My point in illustrating these other, reliable independent instances of the use of practice to describe Falun Gong was to make clear that I am not just going on my personal view, but that this is even more supported by reliable sources than "movement"; I give examples to illustrate. Thirdly, Falun Gong defines itself as a "practice", and I regard this as perhaps the most important point. Wikipedia appears to defer to self-definition, and coupled with the strong support this finds in reliable sources, I believe it should be totally acceptable. No one is disputing that Falun Gong is actually a practice, including the sources which describe it as a "movement"; "practice" is the lowest common denominator, and a quite basic commonality between what Falun Gong says of itself, and what reliable sources say.--Asdfg12345 01:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

some more sources, from Adam Frank's book chapter called "Falun Gong and the Threat of History" in the book Gods, Guns, and globalization: "The emerging scholarly discourse on Falun Gong generally seeks a place for the practice in the wider discourse of Chinese history but without resorting to sensationalism..."

"In a lecture at Rice University, Ownby made a point of mentioning that he had learned the rudiments of the practice in the course of his fieldwork but neither shared the Falun Gong belief system nor considered himself an adherent"

Yuezhi Zhao's book chapter in "Contesting media power" :

"Li Hongzhi, a middle-aged clerk with a high school education, began to introduce Falun Gong in 1992 through public lectures. The practice spread quickly through word of mouth and the demonstrative effect of the spectacle of group exercises in public parks."

"Falun Gong literally means “Dharma Wheel Practice,” which refers to a series of five stretching and meditation exercises aimed at channeling and harmonizing the qi, or vital energy, that supposedly circulates through the body."

"The involvement of official publishing houses, like the participation of elites in the practice, ensured the initial legitimacy of Falun Gong."

And just another point, related to the above, a note on translation. In Chinese, what we are calling Falun Gong is either written like: 法輪功 or 法輪大法. The first is "Falun Gong", the latter is "Falun Dafa". Even the name indicates something. 功 is the same 功 of 氣功 qigong。 In this context it means "practice", "method", or something along those lines. the second, 大法, means "great law", or "great way". My point in illustrating this is that the name itself underscores this issue. The "gong" of "Falun Gong" itself means practice; the Falun Gong means "Falun practice", or "law wheel practice" or "dharma wheel practice". Fa = law, dharma; lun = wheel. In this sense it's not just a discrete, simple name, but it already defines what it actually is. I'm bringing these further notes up as a way of supplementing the demonstration that "practice" is just as, if not more used, in independent sources as "movement", and that apart from that source parity there are all these other considerations.--Asdfg12345 01:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last thing to add to my already long comments, just considered while in the shower: there would be no sense insisting on practice if it was not supported so much by reliable sources, and I wouldn't do so, I'd have already conceded to this. Apart from the support it finds, and the other things I've said, the other reason for favouring it is because it is less loaded. "Movement" is a term with many connotations, and while it also expresses the views of some reliable sources, it also carries with it many other meanings--some of which may not have been intended by the source, some of which may have been, though that is not particularly important--whereas "practice" simply does not. It is a more basic term which does not attempt to define without contextualising; the view that Falun Gong is a "movement" is disputed and not universal, whereas no one disputes that it is a "practice."--Asdfg12345 02:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I saw the edit and I was going to complain on the grounds of verifiability, but I see that you did your research and found reliable sources for your change. I agree with your change, since I see a lot of ambiguity with the same name being given to the movement and to the practice, and checking again the Ownby source, I see that it also says "qigong practice", which I didn't notice the first time. Seeing that "gong" means "practice" in chinese, I'm happy with defining it as a practice on the first sentence on the lead, specially since the second paragraph already explains how several researchers view its other facets of movement, qigong practice, religion, phenomena, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

lol, I have to figure out how to get my points across with less space and greater humour...--Asdfg12345 03:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Teachings section[edit]

Mainly to Mr Naval. Let me know that you have read through both of the parts on offer and that you firmly think the original is better. Clearly the most important part of Falun Gong is its beliefs and teachings, so I think it's appropriate that this section be longer than other sections on the page. As for the duplication, I personally don't think that's an issue. You will notice that every section on this front page duplicates content from its daughter article, and the same for their daughters (for example the tiananmen square self immolation introduction on the persecution page is the lede of that main article--know what I mean?) I'm unaware of a wikipedia policy advising against this. It seems like a rational way to do it. The content and the subject is going to be the same. I don't mind how it goes in the end, but I'd submit two key points for consideration:

The old teachings stuff on this page was a little unsophisticated and did not draw on any relevant literature on Falun Gong; it was simplistic and not well written. It failed to introduce the subject in an intelligent and intellectually coherent way. It didn't really give people a full idea of what Falun Gong teaches, or use quality sources to do so.
The other section did; I don't think there's a problem to c&p a lede and other stuff as appropriate. Basically I think the altered and expanded version was much better--I think the scrutiny should be on why we shouldn't go with it? Just a few thoughts. Let's deliberate. --Asdfg12345 09:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can look at Wikipedia:Summary_style. The section should make a summary of the relevant points on main article. I guess that copy/pasting the whole lead is one way to doing it. I would rather improve the actual text, because using the lead fattens the section from 614 words to 1562 words, but I don't know enough about the topic to know which version treats Falun gong beliefs better. If you say that the longer version is really much better, then it must be so, so feel free to just undo my edit back to your version.

Also, please, try not to archive the whole talk page. Leave at least a pair of threads that have been edit recently, man. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eric is right about leaving a pair of threads. Fixed that. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 07:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hehe, sorry. Thanks for putting back the last few threads. It'd been ages since an archive. Well, it would still be good to hear your opinion about which version is better. Perhaps it could be shorter. I thought the lede of the main teachings page summed things up well, and add another few hundreds words it would give people a good picture (but I think I ended up adding another 1000; only one paragraph was originally written for this page). The majority of people that come to this page probably won't read the whole teachings page, I reckon, so I think it's important to give them a good idea of what the story is with Falun Gong beliefs and teachings on the main page. It could be rather shorter though, perhaps combining and synthesising the main points on the teachings page. Will do soonish.--Asdfg12345 12:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on Repeated Removal of Adminstrator Reviewed Edits[edit]

Edit A) in question:

The Chinese government considers Falun Gong to be a cult^[1] while other countries do not.

1) According to editor Enric Naval "chinese government source is now accepted as source for the label existance":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive24#Cult_vs_Evil_Cult

2) This edit was vetted by multiple Administrators as appropriate and should be in the lead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive442#Is_Chinese_government_website_notable_source.3F

However it has since been removed yet again. Some editors, in addition to this case, has demonstrated a pattern of "improving" this edit by blanking it. It is DE and POV Pushing.

I have personally appealed, on multiple occasions, that edit such as this be improved without remval, but such appeal has been consistently ignored.

I hereby request the community's attention and opinion.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 04:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find it a little difficult to relate to your complaint. There was so much discussion about this, a week ago. Thousands of words were written, and basically it was decided that we weren't going to do this in the lede because there isn't enough space to contextualise it, because it was a minor detail (though notable) of just one part of one part of this whole topic, and much more. Please click on the latest archive above and read all the discussion, in case you missed it. You didn't seem to engage in the discussion. If you feel there are unresolved issues you might indicate which. The edit and these comments indicate that you have ignored, or perhaps were simply unaware of, that consensus, I think. Anyway, please read all the discussion.--Asdfg12345 05:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it shouldn't be in the lead, where in the body should it be? Not that I agree with you, as multiple editors have opined that it should be in the lead Bobby fletcher (talk) 05:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also please see Administrator llywrch's reply addressing all your objections:

The only gain I can see here if these sources are excluded from this article is to suppress mentioning what the Chinese position is at all -- which does not help our users. Suppose a user wants to know what the Chinese POV is in order to debate & refute it: by not including a link to this source, we have made it more difficult for this person to prepare for this debate. I believe this responds to all of your objections, even the ones you do not want to repeat. -- llywrch (talk) 19:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Bobby fletcher (talk) 05:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict] I think as one aspect of the media campaign, which is one aspect of the persecution, it rightly belongs on the persecution page. It has its own section on the persecution page, too. If it was thought particularly notable, we could just have a few sentences on this main page, in the persecution section, outlining what reliable sources say about the CCP's media campaign against Falun Gong, and include a sentence that the CCP labelled Falun Gong a cult during this, but that this is dismissed by academics etc.. About your final note--there was a huge amount of discussion about just this topic, can you indicate that you have clicked on the archive and read it?

further note: I understand and read all those remarks, though there was more discussion on this talk page. I think you really should actually read it. I'm trying not to repeat myself so I'll just finish my note here. Please read the extensive discussion about this that took place on this talk page. --Asdfg12345 05:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let me quote some Wikipedia policies (from WP:NPOV), emphases mine:

Disagreements over whether something is approached neutrally can usually be avoided through the practice of good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little ground work can save a lot of time justifying a point later. [...]

We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well.

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.

While we all agree that the 'cult' label is an important part of how the Chinese government has tried to legitimize the persecution, it has hardly any significance outside of this context. It is not taken seriously by leading sinologists; serious research has not given it any kudos at all. On the other hand, the word 'propaganda' has been used in such research to characterise the CCP's media campaign. This is not about two competing views that could be juxtapositioned and given the air of equality. There is the mainstream academic view, and there is the fringe view that has been thoroughly analysed and debunked. That's why it belongs into its own section; we are not excluding these sources from the article, nor do we have any interest in doing so. The lead, whose length is limited to four relatively short paragraphs, should mention the propaganda campaign on a general level.

required reading for editors of these pages[edit]

Recent Far Eastern Economic Review article: "China’s Guerrilla War for the Web". Quite relevant, methinks.--Asdfg12345 11:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is that differnent from "validating the Fa"?[3]--PCPP (talk) 06:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd figured it was the opposite. btw, I don't dispute that there's relevant info in that article. --Asdfg12345 10:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

concerns on this page[edit]

I will start by saying I am no expert on the contents of this article, but attempting to read this from a neutral stand point, I think that this article is very bias against the Chinese government. Although I am by no means defending some of their decisions and actions, I am troubled that this article lacks the 'Controversy' section that many other controversial articles contain. As an immigrant from China, I know that the general opinion is one that is negative towards the Falun Gong, and I cannot see how this view can be without foundation. This article seems to view the religion as an image of innocence and attributes the banning of it to simply 'jealousy'. There are quite a few important events that have at the very least contributed to the Chinese government's view on the religion. For example, the attempted mass public suicide of practitioners in 1999 <http://atimes.com/china/CA27Ad01.html>, while credited in the references of this article, isn't mentioned anywhere within. While I won't list them all, I hope that my concerns will be considered in a future editting. While I can't say present facts, I have a friend who practiced falun gon who has died from refusing modern medicines, and I personally see the religion in negative light. While I always try to keep an open mind, I iterate again the concern I have for the lack of controversial points in this article, even though it is marked as such. Uforian (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uforian (talk • contribs) 01:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article wasn't always like that, try browsing through the history. Frankly, the article has been used as a battleground between pro-FLG and anti-FLG activists, and resulted in an arbitration case where several editors were banned. Now the pro-FLG camp has basically made the FLG pages an extension of the Epoch Times, the article on "Criticism of Falun Gong" was changed to "Academic views on Falun Gong", the page on "Suppression of Falun Gong" became "Persecution of Falun Gong" ect. You're not the only user with a problem, see here User:Ohconfucius/rant_about_Falun_Gong_pages.--PCPP (talk) 06:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But all such discussion has only ever been personal complaints about how such and such editor perceives the subject. Often it even includes the very propaganda used to persecute the group, according to reliable sources. No reference is made to the highest quality sources to back these views up. But that's what wikipedia requires: "Disagreements over whether something is approached neutrally can usually be avoided through the practice of good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little ground work can save a lot of time justifying a point later." A quick scan of this talk page reveals some cogent argumentation on this point. --Asdfg12345 08:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't see how a lack of references can completely negate an entire point of view on the subject. My main concern is that there is absolutely nothing within the article that even hints at controversies of the Falun Gong. Furthermore, as per PCPP's suggestion, I went through the history of the page, and I see many controversial points that no longer exist in the page that WERE referenced. It's just absurd that pages on the wiki like Bigfoot have more points of controversy and neutrality than one as globally controversial as the Falun Gong. It's almost ironic the amount of propaganda this article possesses compared to that which the pro-falungong supporters frown upon. Seriously, read over the article, an entire country persecutes something simply out of 'personal jealousy'? give me a break, how can you think that a statement like that has more credibility than any of the points that were removed? Uforian (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a few points. "I still don't see how a lack of references can completely negate an entire point of view on the subject." -- please see WP:V; that's precisely what wikipedia is. And the other thing is that there's a long explanation of what reliable sources have said about the reasons for the persecution on the persecution page. To boil it down: your argument is essentially that the reasons for the persecution also have something to do with Falun Gong itself, i.e., it's somehow problematic, or more than a innocent spiritual practice. This simply isn't the view that's been adopted by the highest quality sources on the topic. To give an example, the foremost scholar on Falun Gong wrote a book recently called "Falun Gong and the Future of China", you can look it up. Of course, he raises critical commentary on Falun Gong from the perspective of an academic observer, but basically rejects this approach out of hand. For example, he says the cult label was a red-herring from the start, and the chapter about the persecution is called "David vs Goliath." This is basically the framework that western academia and media have under understood things within, as demonstrated by the hundreds of sources on the persecution page from top newspapers, journals, and reports from HR orgs. They basically argue that the CCP is a repressive regime which does not allow freedom of assembly, belief, etc., and that Falun Gong was competing for popularity among the people and undermining the totalitarian ideological control of CCP rule. I understand your wish to see a variety of views. Wikipedia elevates the views which are more prominent, in the mainstream and in top sources, and gives less space to, or for the unpublished, excludes, those which are non-mainstream. This is in the policies. Overall though, the "motivations" section on this main page could be another couple of hundred words longer.--Asdfg12345 23:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You make valid points on the exclusion of content based on Wikipedia guidelines. and I'm not arguing with the western perception of FLG or the human rights issues of the CCP. However, narrowing it down to specifics, I still want to see mention of the self-immolation and the recent sicknesses of people who refuse modern-medicine in connection with FLG. While I understand that there is no concrete evidence (other than the victims admitting it themselves *cough*) to make the connection, it is a definitely a source of controversy, and I don't see how those arguments have less value than some scholar who says it's because of government suppression. Neither have solid evidence, both have references, yet somehow the article completely ignores negative controversies against the FLG. - off topic on a friendlier note, to help with the task of scanning through the guidelines, does wikipedia require english references? Like you said, the western academia and media have their own understanding of FLG, but I have some references from Chinese and French sources that are of decent-solid quality that emphasize my previous arguments in reference form, which may allow me to stroke my e-peen as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uforian (talk • contribs) 01:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, there's a page on the immolation, which goes over the arguments about whether they were really Falun Gong practitioners or a CCP cook-up. It should be obviously linked somewhere. I've honestly only seen the medicine stuff in the context of propaganda around 1999 in China. This has been taken up by some academics, like Noah Porter wrote of it in his thesis. It's a "controversy", I guess. I'd suggested a section called "Competing representations" a while ago where some notable, competing representations of Falun Gong in good sources could be hashed out. Or there is an "Academic page" where stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere has been put for a while. We lack editors though, so some cool ideas don't end up flying. About the French/Chinese thing: my understanding is that English wiki will prize English texts, French wiki French ones, etc.. But the French I guess we could use if they are top quality, like from academics. I don't know the exact rules, to be honest. I haven't ran into this before. For Chinese, I think it's clear that anything post 1999 from mainland China is worthless as independent commentary on this subject. The CCP controls all the universities. The PSB put up a notice in universities about how they were to write about Falun Gong; it had the core points of Xinhua propaganda, and asked them to fill in the rest with their own expertise. --Asdfg12345 02:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whether "cult" should be in the lede or not[edit]

Asdfg calls this section "controversial" and removed it from the lede:

"The Chinese government considers Falun Gong to be a cult, and has compared Li to various infamous cult leaders.

I dont see anything controversial. It states the view of a major world nation, one quite relevant to the subject, in a brief and NPOV way. -Zahd (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This issue has been extensively discussed. Please comment on the pending arguments instead of starting all over. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 19:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, you please deal with the subject at hand. Its one sentence. -Zahd (talk) 22:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, let's not be uncivil. There's a tag up top which says: "This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed.Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary." Here are some links from the previous archive which I suggest reading. If there is a continued line of argumentation about anything there, responding to any loose ends or whatever, then we should take it up again. This particular issue has been hashed out recently. links: Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive24#Discussing_the_lede, then Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive24#Lead right down to the end. There's a lot of stuff written.--Asdfg12345 22:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it looks like you and Olaf have made a point of removing the term "cult" from the lede, regardless of the argument. Your arguments don't seem to hold water, as the statement merely reflects a characterisation by the PRC, not a fact in and of itself. Its entirely possible that both things are true: 1) the PRC has engineered the term "cult" as a pejorative and 2) FG is a cult. -Zahd (talk) 23:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please indicate whether you've read all that writing on the topic? It's more complex than that. I hope you understand that I'm reluctant to go through another giant discussion if you're not familiar with what's already been said. I understand your point; I believe it is addressed in that discussion, I think even in the first link I pasted above.--Asdfg12345 23:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that everyone must read twenty pages of old conversation, some of which may be relevant, some not, as a prerequisite for dealing with issues in this article? Ive read enough to know you lament not being able to label the CCP (in article) as an "evil cult." -Zahd (talk) 23:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)`[reply]

There's a tag at the top of this page, which I quoted, which says this. It's only from last month, and everything I linked is relevant. Just let me check again. Yeah, basically it's all relevant and very recent. There's no point going over it again straight away. That's also an inaccurate characterisation of my views and what I was saying.--Asdfg12345 23:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC) Or I'd just c&p what's already written, cause they're identical issues.--Asdfg12345 23:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, again the same discussion.... A quick summary: the CCP has labelled Falun Gong as a cult, but western scholars disagree on the label having any basis on reality. This means that the label is reduced to being one more exaggerated false argument of CCP's demonization of Falun Gong inside the context of the persecution of Falun Gong. Now, the persecution is already covered on the lead and it covers stuff like cases of torture reported by several human rights associations. After much edit-warring and a few proposed versions, it was finally agreed that the lead was already too long and the label too unimportant to justify inclusion on the lead, and the sentence was moved to the body of the article under the relevant section. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"The Encyclopedia Britannica characterises Falun Gong as "controversial,"" because of its status in China as a banned practice. -Zahd (talk) 00:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS:One thing is clear. This article, as well as the one on Li Hongzhi have been cleared of certain controversial bits by various editors. Its apparent that certain editors here are Falun Gong students and are editing from a rather biased point of view - one which Li and all of Falun Gong are whitewashed of any criticism, and where such exists, instead representing it as "persecution", just as controversies are now "academic views" -Zahd (talk) 00:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg on the one hand commented on the relevance of China to Falun Gong, asking if China is relevant simply because its the country of origin, or (sarcastically) because FG "is persecuted there." Asdfg doesnt mind however this statement "Ownby also lists its "Chineseness" as a major part of the practice's appeal" being in the lede of the academics views article. -Zahd (talk) 01:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I admit that I haven't read all of the discussion's history, however after reading the summaries mentioned here there is something I’d like to point out. In addition to the PRC, Falun Gong is also considered a cult by other respectable and knowledgeable individuals, including western scholars, and especially by the prominent Israeli cult-fighting group, Yad L'Achim. I refer you to a recent article on israelnn.com titled "Yad L’Achim Advises Chinese on Cult-Fighting"

Here is the link: [4]Gakerman (talk) 16:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TIME: Have you seen human beings levitate off the ground? Li: I have known too many.

TIME: Can you describe any that you have known? Li: David Copperfield. He can levitate and he did it during performances.

Actually, I didn't put that on the academic page. I'm not sure I understand the issue you raise. One thing's for sure though, I'm editing in good faith, and I'm not here trying to cram some status quo down your neck. I disagree with many things on the pages at the moment but haven't got around to fixing them. It would actually be awesome if I were the boss around here. Wiki is a work in progress, things get discussed. I've been trying to focus on research and adding content, when time permits. Overall if editors can communicate in a friendly way, exchange ideas and approaches, refer to wikipedia policies and high quality sources in their arguments, and generally communicate in a way that creates an atmosphere of 'we're working on the pages together', this will help to build better articles. btw: I think at a certain point it was between 'criticism and praise' to 'third party views' to 'academic views.' --Asdfg12345 01:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thats all fine and good. But, one question stands out at the moment: why are Li's comments about aliens and levitation not in his article or in this one? They are well sourced, and provide an important insight into the character of FG's leadership. -Zahd (talk) 03:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you able to explain further what you mean?--Asdfg12345 11:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This should make it clear enough for you: Li_Hongzhi#Comments_to_TIME -Zahd (talk) 16:37, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of his comments to Time, but could you elaborate on how you understand their relevance or relationship to these articles? Having a section called "Li Hongzhi's comments to Time" is a kind of original research. Why not a section called "Li Hongzhi's comments in New York", "Li Hongzhi's comments to New Tang Dynasty Television", "Li Hongzhi's comments in Sydney, at a restaurant" etc.? I thought it would make sense to address Li Hongzhi's teachings in the context of the teachings; there is a page on this which includes commentary on these subjects... Not sure if I misunderstand something. --Asdfg12345 12:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Li Hongzhi's comments about aliens, flying and homosexuality are far more interesting and far-fetched than "Li Hongzhi's comments at a restaurant". Since this is the guy who founded Falun Gong, his personal beliefs are highly relevant if they are controversal. If Jesus believed in aliens and freezing people, you can be sure it would have been mentioned in "Christianity" because it provides a important insight into the mind of the man who founded the religion. If I wrote a book as a prominent Neo-Nazi, and you wrote a article on my book, you would mention that I was a Neo-Nazi. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 21:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it the case that it doesn't really matter what we, as editors, find interesting, far-fetched, or controversial? Apart from the relevant point being what independent, reliable sources say about it, these are aspects of Falun Gong teachings, right? They were actually covered on the Teachings of Falun Gong page in their appropriate context, where they should be, but some of that material was removed, and I couldn't be bothered reinstating it. That's where this discussion is pertinent to, since these are elements of the teachings of Falun Gong. There were a couple of a paragraphs which got into this stuff, including commentary from people who thought it was daft etc., along with a practitioner's response.--Asdfg12345 07:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is, as a whole considered supernatural and controversial to most people who read it. I think that the aspects of Falun Gong that are most important should be on the page. The article should have a rundown summary about the bulk of the teachings and include the most mportant portions of it. This includes aliens, flying and their...other less mainstream views, like their views on homosexuality. An example would be the article on The Lord of the Flies, a very good book. The fact that it said "a pack of painted niggers" in the book sparked this mention of it:"In Chapter 11 of the original Lord of the Flies, Piggy calls Jack's tribe "a pack of painted niggers."[6] This was changed to "savages" in some editions and "Indians" in the mass media publication." The article gave a rundown on most of the book and gave this statement special mention because it is controversial. This is the reason why these beliefs should be included in this article and especially the Teachings of Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi one. Strangely enough, the relation of Falun Gong and these less common beliefs do not appear on any of the wiki articles that mention Falun Gong. --99.224.175.127 (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, they are part of the teachings, and most belong on the teachings page. In the context of wikipedia, they aren't key aspects of Falun Gong's notability, or even key elements of the teachings; they're details about its beliefs and should be addressed in their overall context, right? I understand what you are saying, and of course agree that they should not be excluded. I'm saying they ought to be presented in context. Tomorrow I will restore the material that was on the teachings page which covers precisely what you are mentioning here.--Asdfg12345 09:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also realised I didn't respond to one point. They aren't controversial because you say they're controversial, and other things are a certain way because I say they are a certain way. I've seen no source which argues that these are key elements of Falun Gong's notability. On the other hand, I've seen a bunch, including the best ones like David Ownby's recent text, which see them as details, and approach these elements in their overall context. That strikes me as obviously the most mature and non-sensational way of doing it. We aren't a tabloid, and we aren't digging up things that we think are controversial to make a splash. The articles are supposed to be encyclopedic and informative, right? Doesn't being intelligent, encyclopedic, and informative, require presenting things in context? It's not our personal views on what is controversial and what isn't--wikipedia isn't based on that. This is my understanding. Tomorrow I intend to dredge up the formulation that was on the teachings page which covered this.--Asdfg12345 09:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok fine. It should be put on the Teachings page and the Li Hongzhi page I think...but putting it on the Falun Gong page should be postponed until someone finds a source that says that ÈsomeguyÈ thinks that Falun Gong is bad because of aliens and flying or something like that. PS: The È is what happens when I try to put a quote. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 21:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Organ Harvest Investigation[edit]

Hello regarding this edit: [5].

I don't think that this is correct: "In 2006, two high-profile Canadian lawyers published an investigative report concluding that since 1999, the Chinese authorities have systematically executed Falun Gong" is "giving too much weight to one unconfirmed issue". Because the fact is that they said so, and one of them is an ex-secretary of state.

Also "shortening as much as possible" a few characters actually it's not a good idea because this is something very relevant, since the issue they raised is something new in world history as far as organized genocide go. Thx. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 18:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the report has not been confirmed by other investigations.... --Enric Naval (talk) 11:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's been confirmed by two other independent reports. Have('nt) you read the organ harvesting page? A Yale PhD thesis and a report by the Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Amnesty, US State, Congressional Research Service have not confirmed it, though nor have they refuted it. They raise further questions and withhold judgement, according to my understanding. This is a similar position that many world governments have taken. K/M raise further questions too. K/M are basically saying 'based on what we can see now, we conclude this is happening', but they also seek more info. The CCP is just so tight-fisted though; they don't even have a central donation system, so they simply have no way to account for these massive transplants. They say "executed prisoners," but what's this code for?--Asdfg12345 11:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have read the article, but all the conclusions rely on circumstancial evidence.....

Also, the reason I shortened the sentence is because it makes an appeal to authority by name-dropping the names of the authors in a place where you don't need to mention them..... When a fact is backed by several sources then you don't need to make particular attribution to one of the sources. You just plain state the fact and then put the necessary references right after it. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is another aspect to this.. Kilgour and Matas are not "two high profile lawyers" - For instance, David Kilgour, PC , BA , JD , D.D. is a prominent human rights activist and an ex-canadian secretary of state - it is not acurate to label him a "high profile lawyer". Its much better to mention the names so that the reader may objectively judge for himself - we donot have to make any extrapolations here - its just a simple matter of mentioning the names of the authors and leaving it at that. Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:41, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

outdated britannica source on lead for "controversial"[edit]

Regarding using the Britannica statement, without context, in the intro - all additional reference the brit article mentions are dated before 2000 - infact 1999 or befre. "Controversial" is hardly the stance taken by the academic or human rights community now - including analysis by david ownby, zhao, latest version of worldbook encyclopaedia, human rights reports etc. So the statement being crammed into the intro seems to serve little purpose than push a pov, especially considering the fact that the particular persepective on this topic, on which each day there is additional information unfolding, is very much anachronistic. Note that this a topic on which there was insufficient information for the academics or journalists to form a clear picture on back in 1999. Further I would like to point out that mainstream academics and the human rights community now considers articles such as by jishi ( which the britannica article refers to) to be pure chinese government propaganda. For these reasons, I am removing the particluar line, which seems to serve little purpose than push a pov, from the intro. Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:47, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dilip, just a short comment: I disagree with your edit. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 17:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And may I please know why?

Dilip rajeev (talk) 20:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because I consider it counterproductive and unprofessional. By Wikipedia standards, Encyclopaedia Britannica is a valid source. The same policies and guidelines must apply to everyone. Your reasoning could be used against any material "our" party tries to introduce, and then it will only lead to endless edit warring (you should know) and anomie. Furthermore, the article will not appear credible to any third-party observers if everything "critical" is deliberately removed. We don't need to be partisan in our edits, because the facts are on Falun Gong's side to begin with. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 23:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From where did you get this idea? I have specifically outlined the reasons for my edit above. Have you read the wikipedia policies when using sources such as encyclopaedias? Olaf, its not about personal perspectives or retaining or removing something to make the article "appear" in such and such a way, at all - its about accurately reflecting what the main stream academic community tells us and presenting things in proper context. And am sure you would agree that the article is outdated - there was hardly any information available back then. The later articles, including encyclopaedias , you would know, carry a very different perspective. For instance the 2002 world book encyclopaedia describes the contents of Zhuan Falun as examining "evolution, the meaning of space and time, and the mysteries of the universe." - just to point out how much the perspective had changed within the academic community in the few years after 1999 when the only source was Chinese government propaganda.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I wouldn't say that the mainstream academic community has explicitly defined Falun Gong as "uncontroversial". It would be wrong to state that Falun Gong is inherently something (in a sentence such as "Falun Gong is a controversial spiritual practice from China") in a Wikipedia article, as that would be a weasel word. But attributing this statement to Encyclopedia Britannica is not a problem. See what WP:Undue weight says about this: "* If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."

If we assume that nearly every subject has a "majority view" and a "significant minority view", and that they're two different things, what would you call the "significant minority view" on Falun Gong and how should we include it in the articles?

It's an entirely different thing to quote CCP propaganda (such as "Falun Gong practitioners engage in necrophilia") than report that Falun Gong has been called controversial by a certain reputable source. Of course, we should not give it undue weight, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give it weight at all. You've never fundamentally changed your editing style, Dilip, and I'm worried about that. Even if you feel something shouldn't be in the lead, you should not entirely remove it but perhaps replace it in another section, as long as it's reliably sourced and verifiable. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 08:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This edit had three sources, and it was removed after it was to start of the lead [6] and then it was reduced to the most prestigious one [7]. I knew that I should have insisted that all three sources stayed. The sources were:

Britannica: "controversial Chinese spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992;" [8]
about.com: "Falun Dafa, controversial Chinese sect." [9]
Halifax Daily News (hosted in organinvestigation.net): "Practitioners of Falun Gong, a controversial Chinese religion, will (...)" [10]

to which I add several media reports

LA Times, 2008, "Ties to Falun Gong add controversy to the Chinese New Year Spectacular (...) Some of these dramas depict the persecution of Falun Gong members in China (...) Policemen come in and drag the practitioners off and beat them, including little girls, which is very true" [11]
Television New Zealand, 2007, "Controversial Falun Gong banned from Santa Parade" (notice the controversial word is on the browser title but not on the article title) [12]
abc.net, 2007, "Politicians urged not to attend controversial Chinese stage show (...) In one scene a Falun Gong dancer is killed by dancing Chinese police, who strangle her with a red flag" [13]
reuters, 2001, "Li Hongzhi, founder of the controversial Falun Gong spiritual movement" [14]
cbs5.com, 2007, "Controversial Falun Gong Lunar New Year Show In SF" [15]
listed on a book from 2005 called "Controversial New Religions" [16] "In most ways, Falun Gong was like other schools of gigong, and thus was not particularly controversial at the outset" [17]
gotham gazzete (New York newspaper) "New Year's Show Sparks Controversy"[18]

David Ownby does call Falun Gong controversial. "Neither Li Hongzhi nor Falun Gong was controversial in the beginning. Instead, Li became an instant ..." (this quote is from the preview of a google search) [19]. Also from the Controversial New Religions book "Falun Gong is without doubt controversial." (pag 195) [20], "In the final analysis, Falun Gong came to be controversial because of the extraordinary growth of qigong, and because of the eventual negative reaction of the Chinese state. Otherwise, Falun Gong is largely consistent with certain traditional popular religious practices well known in pre-communist China." remember this book is from 2005.

So, stop deleting the "controversial" thing from the lead. This need a section on the body of the article saying how it makes controversial acts, how it wasn't controversial on the beggining, and explaining why and how it became controversial.

Also, "controversial" is a neutral term on english ("controversial" can be anything that generates controversy, regardless of the reasons or details for the controversy). We shouldn't remove notable adjectives from articles just because we don't agree with them.

All of this was already discussed at Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive24#Lead --Enric Naval (talk) 11:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with just saying that Britannica or whatever regards Falun Gong as controversial, and somehow elaborating on Falun Gong's various representations in different fora elsewhere? I was thinking of a section called "Falun Gong in the media" where this could go. We need to be careful of original research in this case, but it should be fine to say that so and so have regarded Falun Gong as controversial and why, and also the other media analysis related to Falun Gong published by Schechter, Adam Frank, and other writers, newspapermen and academics. This would be good.--Asdfg12345 12:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The term "controversial" carries different connotations - controversial in what sense? We cannot present things without making the context clear and britannica clearly is a rather anachronistic report on the topic. But the thing to note here is that we cant put things in this almost childish manner " Brtannica says its "controversial"". What is that sentence meant to convey? I really dont understand. What about also including the world book says ".... " Thats not how we approach things - we present the issues - without drawing conclusions - in the intro. Further, are we talking about some of the "controversies" surrounding the facts of persecution ? Are we talking about things being "controversial" within the chinese regime ? What does "controversial" connote there? We must present things with proper context - arent we presenting the facts of the persecution , the international response etc? Shouldn't the reader be left to understand these aspects on his own? David Ownby is saying Falun Gong was not controversial with the chinese government's politcal agenda - if my interpretation of his words is correct. Another instance, he says the controversial aspect was the extraordinary rate of growth. What is controversial supposed to mean here in the lead?

Here is what worldbook says:

Falun Gong is a spiritual way of living that emerged in China during the early 1990's. Falun Gong teaches techniques of meditation through exercises as a means of gaining improved physical health and fitness and moral and spiritual purity. The name Falun Gong means turn the wheel of law in Chinese. Falun Gong is also called Falun Dafa (the great law). Falun Gong claims millions of followers in dozens of countries... Falun Gong followers state that the movement aims to promote truth, tolerance, and compassion--universal virtues that cross cultural, national, and racial boundaries. Those who practice Falun Gong seek to guide people to higher dimensions and spiritual enlightenment...In 1992, Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong to a group of followers. It soon grew into a movement that became popular throughout China. Li completed the system's main book of teachings, Zhuan Falun, in 1994. In addition to describing the principles of Falun Gong, the book examines evolution, the meaning of space and time, and the mysteries of the universe...Followers of Falun Gong perform open-air exercises designed to promote good health by harnessing and controlling a spiritual energy called qi (chee). They follow the teachings of Li Hongzhi as published in Zhuan Falun and other books, as well as on video and audio tapes and Internet sites on the World Wide Web....In 1996, Li left China to conduct classes in Falun Gong in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Now if we are to keep that sentence in the intro, perhaps we ought also to say world book says Falun Gong is a "spritual way of living" and teaches "techniques of meditation through exercises as a means of gaining improved physical health and fitness and moral and spiritual purity." Shouldnt we? Why give an older brit article more weightage to a newer, more up to date, world book one? The point am trying to get across is that we cant just randomly cite things in the intro - especially without providing proper context. Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:09, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We make a section called "controversy" where we explain the context, and then we can put "controversial" on the lead. Controversial means that is causes controversy, that's pretty much a direct statement. That the group is controversial is part of the context of the group, that's why it should be there, the context of the controversial word itself goes on the body of the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kind of agree. Though the section should be called "Falun Gong in the media", and should not single out one aspect of Falun Gong's representations in the media, (i.e., as apparently controversial), but engage with the wider discourse on Falun Gong's different media representations. There are sources for this, including a book chapter by a China scholar Adam Frank specifically on how Falun Gong has been represented in different fora. (I say this to avoid the circumstance where we have a section called "praise for Falun Gong" or "positive comments on Falun Gong"--that's not what we want) A different point is, it seems a slightly goofy phrase to say that Falun Gong is controversial. Everything is controversial. I'm not really sure what it provides the reader. For the lede, I have two ideas: remove the paragraph about the scholars saying it's a religion or whatever, this is all quite wordy and waffling. move the persecution para up. Have another para on how Falun Gong is practiced, and its spread in the world, and on the topic of Falun Gong apart from 1. it's beliefs and 2. the persecution. So something like Falun Gong is practiced here and there with no structure and currently these people hold protests out the front of embassies and hand out fliers, something like that. Instead of the controversial sentnece, maybe a sentence which simply says "Falun Gong became the subject of media attention after its immense growth within China and subsequent persecution." -- this kind of opens the door for a section about Falun Gong in the media. These are just some suggestions. These two points of immense growth and persecution are important anyway, for giving context to the "controversial" remark, also. my 2 pence.--Asdfg12345 15:43, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Outlandish" Claims of Falun Gong[edit]

I have been reading the Beliefs and Teachings article. In that article, some of the more outlandish beliefs of Li that are espoused by Falun Gong, according to that article, include:

Related to these ideas are Li's remarks about various topis that have caught the eye of journalists, such as the "Falun"—"an intelligent, spinning body of high-energy substances"; the meaning of sexuality and race—that homosexuality, transsexuality, and sexual relations outside heterosexual marriage are all immoral and a result of declining moral standards in the "Dharma-ending period"; extraterrestrials—who, according to Li, exist in other dimensions and invented modern science for the "manipulation and eventual replacement of humankind"; physical phenomena such as gravity, where "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies"; prehistoric culture—"that there were 81 civilisations before us, that there is a two-billion year old nuclear reactor in Africa", and other "idiosyncratic notions" such as the existence of "separate-but-equal heavens for people of different races."

Why isn't any of this information included in the main article? I read the main articles sections on beliefs and practices, and read about Chinese breathing techniques. Then I read about accusations of China suppressing and torturing followers of breathing techniques, and can't understand how even mega-crazy China would care about people practicing breathing exercises.

As I understand it, Falun Gong also teaches that its practitioners can gain "supernormal" powers (a la Dungeons & Dragons) of levitation and clairvoyance. Yet, in the main article on the subject, I read only about breathing techniques.

Now, while I might not want to throw people in jail for espousing absurd and moronic beliefs such as that there are 2 billion year-old nuclear reactors in Africa, I can at least get some sense of what the Chinese government might have against these people.

These claims and beliefs are relevant to this article. Why aren't they in it anywhere? Is the Teachings and Beliefs article being vandalized? Are these not teachings of Falun Gong? A lot of the sources are credible.

I'm not trying to pass judgment on these beliefs if they are what the followers hold. Ok... well... yes I am, but I'm not suggesting that the article passes judgment on them. I'm just suggesting that it would make more sense to readers if it weren't simply the reasonable beliefs of the sect that were presented in the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.77.144.5 (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I've just done a quick googling of some of the above details about FG, and they seem to be correct. These details seem quite notable and worthy of inclusion in the article. Fuzzypeg ★ 05:50, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The second paragraph of the lead of Persecution of Falun Gong explains perfectly why the group is persecuted, and it has nothing to do with aliens. Saying that those parts of their books are notable is original research, as the secondary sources that are currently on the article give them no relevane at all. Same for saying that it has anything to do with China's persecution, as no secondary source says that. Until some good sources are provided, this is all pushing of original research by this IP in order to smear this group, and the explanations about the articles only talking of breathing techniques are false, and are just mirrors and smoke. Stop pushing the damned thing with no secondary sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. One notable problem is that the Chinese scientific community in the 1980s and 90s actually talked about things that seem really far-out to most Westerners. Supernaturality was debated to an extent never seen in Western countries, "so much so that a veritable corpus of literature on qigong resulted [...] [wherein] controversy centers on the question of whether and how qigong can induce “supranormal abilities” (teyi gongneng)." (Xu Jian, Journal of Asian Studies, nr. 58) And it wasn't some mr. Hocus Pocus from the backwoods of Xinjiang who babbled about feudalistic superstition--more like Tsinghua University and Qian Xuesen eulogizing an emerging scientific revolution. David Ownby is completely right in saying that Falun Gong was not particularly controversial in the beginning, even though Li Hongzhi's ideas were put forth already in the very first published texts and lectures. Besides, he was the one who sought to undermine the claims made by other qigong masters about practicing qigong in order to acquire supernormal powers. These things did not cause the persecution. You can find some infomation about these anomalies from completely unrelated sources. Needless to say, they have not been taken seriously in the West by most people. (Which might not prove anything in itself.)

By the way, Falun Gong makes use of no breathing techniques at all. I don't know where people keep getting this impression. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 12:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anon ip is positing a connection between these beliefs and the motivation for persecuting Falun Gong. Any sources for that? Sounds like original research.--Asdfg12345 06:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK Olaf, Asdfg and Enric, you've given me a few points to answer. The first is the general tone of your dismissal, saying "of course this isn't relevant to the article"; well, that editor's comment was deleted without explanation. When that kind of thing happens you can be sure there will be some explaining to do afterwards. I only look in at this article from time to time, but when I see behaviour like that I start to take more interest. Not that any of you did the deleting.

Now, you're getting carried away with the concept of WP:OR. It is not OR to post a suggestion on a talk page. Also he says that he is judging FG himself, but that he doesn't expect the article to follow his judgement. He's also been gracious enough to ask for alternative explanations ("Are these not teachings of Falun Gong?") rather than just jumping in and editing himself. He's also made it clear that he believes the article should remain neutral but that he thinks it would be useful to the readers to hear about some of the more bizarre beliefs of FG. I agree with him; and remember, not everyone who comes here is reading the article because they're interested in Chinese repression. Some just want to find out about Falun Gong. Make sense?

Regarding these beliefs not being present in secondary sources: well, they're mentioned in Time magazine (Monday, Jun. 25, 2001 "Spiritual society or evil cult?"), the New York Times (April 30, 2000 "Rooting Out Falun Gong; China Makes War on Mysticism") and a wide variety of other sources, but more importantly they appear in Li Hongzhi's Zhuan Falun, which makes them clearly relevant to the article. Yes, yes, I know that's a primary source, but it's probably the most reliable source for information about Falun Gong teachings, which is of primary concern to this article. Do the editors at the Christianity article avoid quoting the Bible because it's a primary source? Noooooo.

You guys are tying yourselves in knots trying to argue for the exclusion of information that is neutral, verifiable, is not original research, and is highly relevant to the article. I think perhaps you need to take a step backwards and try to see the forest rather than the trees. I know there's a lot of controversy in this article about the Chinese persecution, but trying to exclude relevant factual information because you think it will weaken your position in that argument is a real problem. This is precisely the reason why editors with a conflict of interest are discouraged from editing. Truthfulness is not achieved by obscuring the facts. Fuzzypeg ★ 22:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Olaf's comment. Those things are irrelevant to Falun Gong's notability, expansion or controversy. Notice that, since the last time you edited, there have been anonymous editors trying to push smears into the article using these writings [21][22], that was two days ago, and it also happened on July [23][24][25][26] (it's 4 inserts of the same info).

This would be similar to saying that Christianity is a bad religion because the Bible says that the Sun stopped on the sky, which is astronomically imposible. The Bible also says stuff about inmortal beings called angels that live on heaven, which is only marginally more believable than aliens and levitation, but the christianity article only mentions them on a caption of a drawing. That sort of detail, without a good published analysis of their importance inside the religion, are just trivia and OR. Those articles you mentioned don't explain why or how those details are important, the Time one is a tease piece for a poll [27], the NYT is using Mr. Zhou's beliefs to fill space[28], and, of course, we have Ownby explaining what is the actual relevance of those details. See page 204 of Controversial New Religions. If you look at the section above I propose making a "controversy" section where the real relevance of that stuff can be explained. Simply dropping "The founder says that aliens exist" just makes the article look bad, and it's just our personal pick of what is important on the beliefs. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so these details "are irrelevant to Falun Gong's notability, expansion or controversy". I'm happy to agree that they're not directly relevant to those things. But I can tell you straight off they aren't irrelevant to Falun Gong in general. The "smears" you mention above are examples of how this information shouldn't be presented, since it's not in context, and is clearly just trying to choose the most bizarre beliefs and list them one after the other. Also some of those edits go out of their way to cast judgement, which is in direct contravention of WP:NPOV policy.

The Christianity article mentions a number of rather odd beliefs, such as resurrection, miracles, virgin birth and so on, but doesn't say "Christianity is a bad religion" as a result. I don't see why the Falun Gong article shouldn't mention some of the important beliefs of FG, particularly those around perceptions of race, sexuality and science/physics. They seem fairly important elements of FG philosophy.

In my experience, too, a good way to shut up people who persistently add poor quality info to an article is to add that info yourself, and get it right. Once the FG article actually becomes more informative in this regard, there will be fewer critical edits.

Rather than simply dropping in "the founder believes that aliens exist" (which is hardly a controversial statement, given the number of stars out there!), I would work some of these key elements into their appropriate places in the "Beliefs and teachings" and "Theoretical background" sections. If neutrally worded, they shouldn't come across as a criticism, and readers can draw their own conclusions.

And please don't invent your own reasons why notable, highly credible sources should be discounted in the same breath as telling me what is and isn't OR. Fuzzypeg ★ 06:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your comment, this needs to be worked into the article. Notice that "beliefes and teachings" on this article is a summary of the main article Teachings of Falun Gong, so it would need to have an extended version there of these topics, and a shorter version here.

About the sources, notice that we two different types of sources talking about the same topic. One type is newspaper articles that mention it but don't go deep into the question, and other are books or scholar sources that go into it. Now, for every topic, I try to make myself a scale of quality of sources, in order to decide which sources should be used (everyone needs its own personal scale of values in order to work). In this case: opinion columns < newspaper articles < investigation articles and documentaries < books < scholar papers on journals, human rights organization reports, government reports (except chinese, because we have so many reports from many other sources saying they are incorrect) < peer-reviewed paper on high-quality history journal. In this scale these newspapers sources would fall lower than Davind Ownby's work, that's why I objected to using them. However, your comment is very wise, so I'm sure that you can use them right :) --Enric Naval (talk) 10:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your ranking for quality/reliability. I only cited the newspaper/magazine sources to demonstrate that there are indeed credible secondary sources, as anyone can find using google, but I don't know the literature so I can't point people to peer-reviewed analyses of FG beliefs. It's ideal if someone knowledgable writes this kind of thing up rather than waiting for a less knowledgable person like me. That way you can achieve a really solid, balanced and informative summary right from the outset, rather than it being an evolutionary process filled with editorial debate. Fuzzypeg ★ 21:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Zhuan Falun Source Material for 66.77.144.5's claims[edit]

Regarding Fuzzypeg's comment, why do we need reliable secondary sources regarding beliefs of Falun Gong when primary sources are readily available? The official English translations of Li Hongzhi's books can be downloaded at falundafa.org. These are the same books that Li Hongzhi sells to his followers in print form and are the definitive word what Falun Gong is. Most, if not all, of the "outlandish" claims brought up by 66.77.144.5 at the start of this discussion can be verified from Zhuan Falun or subsequent official transcripts of Li Hongzhi's lectures. Note, that like many PDF documents, the PDF page numbers in Zhuan Falun don't match the numbers on each page of the document.

Prehistoric nuclear reactor - Zhuan Falun, pg 10 (pdf pg 15)
The 81 cycles of civilization- Zhuan Falun, pg 11 (pdf pg 16)
Spinning Law Wheel in the lower abdomen, Zhuan Falun, pg 21 (pdf pg 26)
The Third (Celestial) Eye - Zhuan Falun, pg 24 (pdf pg 29)
Degradation of human society and recent development of homosexuality - Zhuan Falun, pg 181 (pdf pg 186)
The "Dharma-ending period" and loss of morals - Teachings of Li Hongzhi at the Zhuan Falun Publication Ceremony, Beijing, January 4, 1995, pg 2.

To reiterate, these are from the authorized English translations FG's fundamental literature. Some, particularly the "Law Wheel" and Third Eye appear to be very important to the FG belief system. This is certainly not a comprehensive list, as these and other "outlandish claims" are reiterated in other publications of Mr. Li. By the way, the ancient "reactor" in Gabon is quite real and has been dated by isotopic composition to approximately 2 billion years ago as Mr. Li claims. The "outlandish claim" is that it is man made, while modern science indicates that it resulted from the natural concentration of uranium oxide with a ground water moderator.

I agree with 66.77.144.5 that the "outlandish claims" should be presented in the main article. I think that most readers would consider inconsistency with mainstream western science to be an important aspect of FG, and thus worthy of inclusion in the article. Obviously, many would consider this inconsistency to reflect negatively on FG, which is why FG promotional materials highlight less controversial aspects such as the exercises. Having read both the translation of Zhuan Falun and some FG promotional materials, my opinion is that that the current article follows the promotional materials too closely approaching something of propaganda piece. I would strongly recommend including some of issues 66.77.144.5 brings up, with citations as I have mentioned above or find your own "outlandish claims" on falundafa.org. Bdentremont (talk) 19:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dilip's answer to anonymous IP[edit]

I am assuming its just some misunderstanding that leads the anonymous ip here to make these wild statements. Just to clarify to him: These things are apparently from some journalists - things like the the claim made by the journalist above- "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies" - have absolutely nothing to do with the Teaching of Falun Gong. Neither do they represent the teachings of Falun Gong. For instance, gravity is explained as follows in one of the lectures - its explained in in passing because the Teachings of Falun Gong are on spiritual cultivation practice - not today's scientific theories. The lecture apparently states that, "all matter, including air and water, that are on Earth and within the Three Realms—all things that exist in the Three Realms—are composed of particles of all the different levels in the Three Realms, and different particles of different levels are interconnected. This interconnection can, when there’s a pulling force, extend or move within the Three Realms. In other words, when you pull it, it can extend like a rubber band, and when you release it, it will go back. That is, there’s a basic, stable form of existence among particles. This is why any object in this Earth’s environment will come back to the ground after you move it. Of course, I’m not talking about moving a piece of rock to some different location, in which case it wouldn’t return to where it was. That’s not the idea. The surface of Earth is the boundary of one level. Within this level things can move horizontally since they are all at the same level. But when something moves towards a level beyond its level, it will be pulled back..." The teachings apparently explains that as one moves farther away from a celestial body, the higher dimensional interconnections between particles are broken and density of connections are sparser at the periphery, and thus strength of this pulling force decreases.[29] To summarize my very limited understanding of whats said in the lecture - space here is composed of many material dimensions; an object we see as in existence in this dimension alone has, in fact, its forms of existence in other dimensions; The interaction between higher dimensional matter causes the phenomenon of gravity; the surface of the earth forms a level of the same potential so you may move it on that equipotential surface without working against these connections. But to take it to a higher "potential" takes work/ requires force. Again it strikes me that if the density of these interconnecting particles varied inversely with distance from earth - it would mean the inverse square law! Indeed, this has no relation with the claim made by the journalist.

Rotation velocity curve of a typical spiral galaxy: predicted using our theory of gravitation (A) and observed (B).

Speaking of this something else comes to mind ( I know I am going off tangentially from the topic here :P .. and my edit may be removed after this discussion is over .. but i'll just point this out :).. ) - the galaxies that we see with our telescopes - they seem to rotate almost like a solid disc. If our theory of gravitation were right - how should they rotate? Well.. put some saw dust into a cup of coffee and swirl it around - the particles inside will rotate faster, while those on the outside much slower. The rotation pattern for galaxies ought to be the exact same way. But rather eerily what we observe is in stark conflict with what our best theories predict. Now what do our scientists do? They are faced with two choices - 1. Admit that current theory of universal gravitation could very likely be completely and grossly wrong. 2. Come up with some "explanations" that wouldn't require the "precious" model to be abandoned

Ofcourse, they chose #2. And came up with an awfully far-fetched explanation - and thats exactly from where the whole concept of "dark matter" comes from. The only way to save the model was to assume that 95%-99% of matter in the universe is invisible ( does not interact with light/ electromagnetic radiation) but produces gravity. ( Infact over 99.6% if we ignore intergalactic gas - according to some models. ) Well the model for gravitation was "saved" but now nobody knows what this "dark matter" thing could be - and by the way are still "searching" in completely futility for this "dark matter". If this cosmological model were true our earth must be passing through trillions of particles of such matter each second. Our best observations fail to detect any. My point being that its very likely that our model/ theory of gravitation itself may be flawed. What Falun Gong's Founder, Li Hongzhi, has said is that "things don’t work as the theory of 'universal gravitation' states" [ please read the lecture here ] and he continues to outline a very scientific explanation for this phenomenon involving the existence of physical, higher dimensional matter.

Regarding cycles of civilization - Falun Gong's teachings mention there were cycles of civilization. In fact even Buddhism does and many oriental and indian traditions do - here in india our traditions talk abut 4 "yugas" or something... smaller cycles within those - something of that sort. First when I heard about cycles of civilization in Falun Gong lectures - i did a lot of online research on this - coz back then i had almost a blind level of belief in mainstream science's theories. In fact, there are many truly intriguing finds that have been made around the world. :

This NBC documentary, the "mysterious origins of man" is indeed worth watching:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4848668803639628771&ei=kC6gSOifJoq0wgOduZg3&q=+mysterious+origins+of+man

I had compiled a short presentation on the topic - hoping you'll find it interesting... http://cid-c170094d7e9be7ec.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/World/Prehistoric-Civilizations.ppt .

(sorry about going completely tangential from the topic - the post may please be removed later) Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find this interesting, Dilip. Others might also like to read it. Maybe it could be moved to a sub page under your name rather than deleted?--Asdfg12345 13:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dilip says gravity has nothing to do with the teachings of Falun Gong, and then proceeds to prove himself wrong by citing Li's rather elaborate explanation of gravity in one of the Lectures (and further fleshing it out himself). Asdfg finds this "interesting", and if it's so interesting then why is he arguing against any of these ideas being mentioned in the article? Wouldn't other readers find it interesting too? Fuzzypeg ★ 23:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to that quote from the journalist( picked by the anon Ip above : "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies.") and stating that its a gross mis-representation of what is said in the teachings. I meant to refer specifically to the journalist quote when i used the phrase "things like 'gravity and deities' hav nothing to do with the teachings". I did not mean at all to imply that the teachings do not touch upon gravity and dieties/Gods as two separate topics. Otherwise - my whole post would be self-contradictory. I assumed the context was obvious since i was replying to the post by the anonymous ip. I have edited my previous post to clear up the issue.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure, they may do. It's all original research from Dilip though. I just thought it was personally interesting. I bet you could write me an essay about ten pet topics of yours and theories you've got nestled away and I'll say they're interesting. I'll even thank you for sharing them with me. In the Falun Gong teachings there are around 2000 pages of what may be termed similar material (to the remarks on gravity, as above, for example). Who's going to pick and choose which parts we highlight? There are some lectures on creating fine art, classical music, all sorts of topics. It seems to make sense to: Firstly, take as a basis the main book, Zhuan Falun, which Li Hongzhi repeatedly says is the main book and everything else supplementary, and which practitioners read every day, and according to David Ownby, the other scriptures "rarely, if ever" (that quote's wrong, just from memory, something like that). Secondly, to present things in a coherent way given their context, since we are making an encyclopedia, not a scrapbook of Dilip's or anyone else's personal theories. Thirdly, quantity and prominence should probably be a factor, I suppose. Since the topics of creating fine art and music each have their own lectures, while gravity doesn't, wouldn't we elaborate on these subjects first?--Asdfg12345 00:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Ownby's perspective was that the Zhuan Falun is "studied by practitioners to the virtual exclusion of.. other writings".. not sure if this is the quote you refer to...

Dilip rajeev (talk) 06:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

lol, and I had to laugh when I read the start of Dilip's note again. Of course gravity and deities have to do with the teachings of Falun Gong! I'm not sure what he meant to say, maybe that aberrant interpretations of these subjects have nothing to do with the teachings? hehe--Asdfg12345 00:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This statement by a journalist [ picked by the anon ip mentioned above: "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies." ] is not a correct representation of what is taught in Falun Gong.That is what I was saying in my post. Its completely mis-representing what Falun Gong lectures have said on the topic. Thats what I meant by "things like 'gravity and dieties' have nothing to do with the Teaching of Falun Gong." - sorry if that created some confusion - i thought it was obvious what i was taking about. I was referring specifically to the quote from the journalist when i said "things like 'gravity and deities' " - it obviously was not meant to be a reference to gravity and deities/Gods as two separate topics. I have edited the post to get rid of the ambiguity. I hope that makes things clear.I had replied immediately under the post from the anon ip, so I assumed the context was completely clear. The post was moved down to this separate section by another editor.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting Kind Attention From The Arbitration Committee[edit]

A user has been adding in material from a clearly propagandistic video made by the CCP and aired in CCP as well as in hong kong based pheonix television. The contents of the program are clearly propagandistic and further, they violate WP:Reliable_Sources and WP:NPOV, . I most humbly request the Administrators to kindly look into the matter and take appropriate action. The page has been subject to a lot of vandalism, removal of sourced content and propaganda pushing form the CCP before. Till a few weeks back a user "bobby fletcher" had been vandalising it - western standard published an article noting that the very person, who had admitted on wikipedia that his real name is "charles liu", is most likely a person hired by the CCP with possible ties to high-level CCP officials. The same user had been spreading mis-information on this talk page also. With the olympics going on and the increased media attention to CCP's crimes, I believe it is no coincidence, such things are being pushed on talk pages pertinent to CCP's Human Rights violation issues and from there, completely violating Wikipedia policies, into articles.

Kindly See:

"Sowing Confusion." This Western Standard article is about the above user, who has been pushing CCP propaganda on wikipedia, and calls himself "bobby fletcher". The last paragraph of the article is particularly interesting.

Sowing confusion: embarrassed by reports of live organ harvesting, China's sympathizers launch a high-tech disinformation campaign.

Now, once again CCP propaganda, things that completely fail WP:N, WP:NPOV, WP:RS and WP:V are being pushed viciously into the article. Kindly see the material added under the section "pheonix tv": http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_in_China&diff=232109812&oldid=232092584

David Kilgour and Matas point out that "what they[the CCP] are engaged in is propaganda and disinformation, rather than real debate."

Kindly look into to RSF's 2005 report "Xinhua: The World’s Biggest Propaganda Agency" for an analysis on the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in disinformation.

Requesting you, most humbly, to kindly look into the matter and take action as you consider appropriate.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt the arbitration committee monitors this talk pages; and they wouldn't open another case on the Falun Gong articles because of a post here. You have to start a request, and I'm sure they wouldn't even look at it. The things you are saying about Liu being an agent are also unable to be substantiated in this forum. The pages are on probation. Anyone who edits them disruptively can get blocked. That includes you and antilived if you edit war on the organ harvesting page.--Asdfg12345 15:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that it is not me who is saying anything about Liu - I am merely bringing to other editors' and the arbitration committee's attention what The Western Standard has reported on him; what Kilgour and Matas, themselves ( please see last paragraph of the article), have said about it.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing I wanted to clarify is that am not at all implying the editor who did the recent edit to the article, introducing material from the so called 'pheonix tv' movie to the article, is an agent or anything - I think it is only that he himself was not aware of the material [added by an anonymous IP to the talk page of the article] as being CCP propaganda - causing him to insist on pushing the material into the article. I sincerely apologize if the above post of mine came across as suggesting anything to that effect.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 18:20, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article is hopeless[edit]

Everytime someone makes an edit in the hopes of providing balance it is almost immediately destroyed. There is no attempt at finding a balance between the claims of abuse that have merit and those that are obviously manufactured. There are nuetral parties interested in the article, but there are far more non-nuetral editors and many of them are clearly biased on behalf of Falun Gong. I've been looking at this article from time to time for the last year and it has gone from bad to worse to worst and back to just bad. Any attempt at nuetrality is shot down and multiple arguments are made for removing anything that casts Falun in any kind of concievably negative light.

I'm washing my hands of this. Just call me Pontius. Beerman5000 (talk) 00:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's really sad. Rumour has it that a journalist at a FG-controlled newspaper has made it part of his everyday work to monitor and whitewash this entry. It's somewhat useful if a reader wants to learn about FG's self-image and propaganda practices, but completely useless as a neutral encyclopedia entry. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 06:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If that is true, can't we just take it to the Wikipedia "authorities"? I am unconvinced we can't do anything about this... (for a lack of better terminology), utter bullshit. Colipon+(T) 05:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now that the olympics are over, the spotlight is off Falun Gong and China, and perhaps this article won't be such a madhouse of trigger-happy editing. I've just read through most of the article as it currently stands, and yes, it does spend a lot of time describing FG philosophy in a non-critical manner, but that's exactly what one would expect from an article about a spiritual movement. There are a few items that have gone missing, such as the Canadian Judge's critical findings, and information about some of the more outlandish beliefs. These should not dominate the article, but they should be present; especially well-sourced critiques from reliable and dispassionate 3rd-party sources. None of this needs overstating, but it does need stating. Fuzzypeg ★ 23:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds very good to me. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 09:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Move Out Info On Persecution From This Article?[edit]

In my opinion, the persecution of FG is not the most important aspect of the organisation, and not the kind of information a Wikipedia user is likely to seek in any great detail when she looks up FG here. There is a separate page about the persecution of FG. Would it be a problem if I edited down the info on the persecution in this article and referred to the specialised article instead? Martin Rundkvist (talk) 20:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Disagree: The vast majority of people outside of China would never even have heard of Falun Gong were it not for China's communist government oppressing them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.114.141.234 (talk) 22:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also disagree. The persecution is obviously central to Falun Gong's notability.--Asdfg12345 01:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Come on now, that's patently disingenuous. We all know that you guys wouldn't want FG to be invisible in Wikipedia if there were no persecution. You're using this as a propaganda platform. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 14:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

dude, there'd probably be a stub or something. If there really was never a persecution (or media attack campaign), Chinese newspapers would have kept singing its praises, and western journalists may have only started to take slight notice, granting only cleverly written, short reports in passing, along the lines of "those wacky Chinese and their mystical disciplines, look at the zillion people meditating every morning--why?", before getting back to their usual grind of economic news and the latest communist press conference; apart from nerdy western scholars writing in depth about obscure historical comparisons, I doubt there would be much else. For now, the persecution is obviously highly relevant to the notability of the subject, and that is without a doubt. You will be hard pressed to find a media report that does not mention the persecution or take the persecution as the main focus of reportage, and in fact, the majority of reports which mention Falun Gong only make reference to the persecution, and don't even make an attempt to engage with a discussion of the practice itself (except perhaps as a means to explain why it might be persecuted--yes, mainstream media is largely hopeless when it comes to certain themes). Suggested reading (see the second page of the first link, at the very least): [30][31][32][33][34]--Asdfg12345 16:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg12345 is absolutely right. In my view, the persecution characterises the Western discourses on Falun Gong to such an extent that there's no way we could cut down on that information.

During the recent years, the arbitration committee has expunged certain people who have tried to use Wikipedia as a platform for ideological struggle. Many of them have tried to remove such information, because they despise Falun Gong but realise that the persecution creates strong sympathy towards practitioners in normal, healthy-minded people. I can only feel sad for those guys.

While I agree that the articles are not perfect, they make extensive use of high-quality sources and esteemed third-party research and, even in their present state, surely qualify among the top 10% of Wikipedia. We can only strive to make them even better and more transparent. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 18:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Penny regards Falun Gong as one of the most important phenomena"[edit]

As I've pointed out before, "Penny regards Falun Gong as one of the most important phenomena..." is not very informative. To my mind it's fluff. I suggest we strike this sentence from the intro. Opinions? Martin Rundkvist (talk) 10:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'It informs us of the opinion of one of the leading scholars of Falun Gong. I certainly don't think it's fluff. It's been there for nearly a year now, why the fuss? --Asdfg12345 16:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What does "important phenomenon" really mean in concrete terms? That FG has a lot of notability. And nobody's disputing that. But that is self-evident since the article hasn't been deleted from Wikipedia. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 09:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the important point in this quote is that he says "in recent Chinese history." Any large spiritual group that gets persecuted and generates a bunch of media is notable, though the context in which that happens is important. His quote immediately and in very simple terms makes it clear that the phenomenon of Falun Gong is a big deal in recent Chinese history. Just having an article on the topic doesn't make that clear. There are articles on all the different versions of Zelda's sword, and those haven't been deleted. Actually, the extent of the ludicrousness of what qualifies for a wikipedia article is laughable. There are articles which are lists of the abstruse powers of comic book heroes. I've seen something like that. So an article isn't enough, but this is a sinologist that gives the reader immediate orientation to the import of Falun Gong. The point you raise is that it may be a little non-specific. While it is a useful quote, it could still do with minor substantiation. Then there is one more thing we should add to the lede: say why. Yuezhi Zhao gets into this, and it would be possible to find a one sentence note which sums this up. I'll add it now, even. --Asdfg12345 12:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But a reader who has never heard of FG is highly unlikely to be impressed by the mention of sinologist Penny. It adds no useful information. We can't have a bit in the article's intro to the effect that "even though other articles are about unimportant things, this article is about an important phenomenon, because Penny says so". Martin Rundkvist (talk) 18:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a good argument in favour of keeping the "most important phenomena" comment in. I will delete it soon unless somebody makes a brief convincing argument for its retention. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 11:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do not delete it. I gave you a reason. It establishes context and makes clear that Falun Gong is one of the most important phenomena to emerge from China in recent years. This is precisely what articles are supposed to do. Establish context, orient and familiarise the reader with the subject. Quotes from Zhao, and the actual content of the articles make it clear as to why, but Penny immediately lets us know that it is an important subject worth paying attention to. The existence of the article itself doesn't achieve this, as explained above. You already raised this several months ago and no one agreed to it then, I think just drop it, dude.--Asdfg12345 14:35, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Asdf, we all know that you are a one-trick FG pony on Wikipedia. I'd like to hear from somebody who doesn't spend all his time monitoring this article. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great. Personal attacks. And you seem to have sought out people who love Falun Gong to come and comment. That is rather interesting. It's a strong comment from a leading sinologist in this area. It establishes immediate context, and completely conforms to WP:LEAD which requires that the scope of the subject be briefly presented. It's impeccably sourced, highly relevant. Your argument to delete it is based on your opinion that you think it is "fluff," and your response to my argument from policy is ad-hominem and a search for co-conspirators. I don't know what to say.--Asdfg12345 15:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop putting that silly emphasis on the first words, both of you. I know Asdfg12345 is just parodying Mr Rundkvist, but I believe it simply doesn't belong to proper Wiki etiquette.

There are plenty of reasons to include that specific quote in the introduction. I don't know any serious sinologist that would not consider Falun Gong as one of the most important phenomena to recently emerge from China. David Ownby has named his latest book "Falun Gong and the Future of China", implying that we're dealing with questions of considerable historical weight. On the other hand, we know that the pro-CCP (and/or blatantly anti-FLG) parties have tried to downplay the importance of Falun Gong, from belittling the actual number of Mainland practitioners to doing all kinds of venomous lobbying behind the scenes. Wikipedia articles should be based on high-quality research, not wishy-washy opinions or patent falsehoods. Inclusion of that comment is all the more necessary as a scholarly rebuttal of the anti-scholarly discourse that downgrades the subject out of purely ideological motives. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 18:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As Olaf says, the scholar sources indicate that it's an important phenomen in China. There should be no problem on adding that quote on the lead. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:23, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just went through the current version of the lead - seemed quite comprehensive to me. A minor issue with it that struck me was the britannica statement in the lead - the one going " Britannica 'characterizes' Falun Gong as 'controversial'. Such phrasing, I think, could be very misleading to someone new to the topic. Mainly because - the statement does not, in anyway, make clear what is implied by term "controversial" there and, further, because of the various connotations the term carries, it could very likely create a deviated understanding in the reader's mind - one not implied by the term in the context in which it was used in the original article.

I feel it serves little purpose to put something like this in without providing the appropriate background/context. Just to make my point clear - a newer britannica article on a related topic -in particular, the 2008 Britannica article Li Hongzhi, states "...cities as Chicago, Toronto, and Houston, Texas, had honoured him by proclaiming “Master Li Hongzhi” days in recognition of the positive contributions of Falun Dafa." Now, how helpful would it be, if an editor picks on the statement and writes into the lead that "Britannica "characterizes" Falun Dafa as having positive contributions ...recognized through proclamations by cities such as Tonoronto, Chicago,..." My point being that the "britannica characterizes" statement currently in the intro, can, for the uninformed reader, be quite misleading and, further, it serves little purpose there other than, perhaps, push a paticular POV or create a misunderstanding in the reader's mind through name-dropping. The purpose of having something in the lead must not be to drag the reader's impression on the subject in a particular direction - but to provide an, objective, informative and scholarly perspective on the topic - and, to this end, I think, the statement contributes very little . For the reasons I adumbrate above, I am, for now, removing it - I'll reinstate it if other editors see issues with the edit. Also, another strong concern with it I had was (I think I mentioned this in an earlier post) the date that Britannica article was authored - the references used there don't go beyond 1999!

Dilip rajeev (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've read the Britanica article, and to be fair, they perhaps had something in mind when they said that Falun Gong is controversial, however they did not say in what way do they think that the practice is controversial. So I don't see how can, this source, be used to highlight in the lead that Falun Gong is controversial. Since controversial, when just this one word is used, can mean a million things. Best --HappyInGeneral (talk) 17:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There used to be a segment of the article explaining what the controversy is, but it was blanked repeatedly by the same group of wikipedians who remove the word itself. Come to think of it, the word "spiritual" is rather versatile as well, however that adjective is allowed to stand. PerEdman (talk) 19:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can hardly follow, see Spirituality and you might want to elaborate. But be aware this is not a place to push strong POV's. This is an encyclopedia. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 00:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That Falun Gong is controversial is not a strong point of view, it is an observation that there is a conflict between other people's strong points of view. If you have any strong points of view about an article subject, you would do better not to write anything in that article as it becomes increasingly more difficult to separate objectivity and the personal opinion the stronger your opinion is. Wouldn't you agree? PerEdman (talk) 11:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Genomic Profiling Study[edit]

I was wondering why this study is not touched upon by any of the articles. Yes, am aware its a preliminary study but is one published in a leading peer reviewed journal in the field - The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine published by Mary Ann Liebert and the official journal of The International Society for Complementary Medicine Research . Further, I see many almost irrelevant stuff being mentioned in the article - for instance, a casual statement made by a late psychologist, one not based on any study, has been cherry picked and embedded into the article - a statement made at a time when many in the west were highly influenced by CCP's propaganda. This, the very least, is a peer-reviewed, scientific paper based on a scientific study conducted by scientists from leading research institutions - obviously worthy of attention. The results of the study also seem quite interesting to me.

I quote from the paper:

The changes in gene expression of FLG practitioners in contrast to normal healthy controls were characterized by enhanced immunity, downregulation of cellular metabolism, and alteration of apoptotic genes in favor of a rapid resolution of inflammation. The lifespan of normal neutrophils was prolonged, while the inflammatory neutrophils displayed accelerated cell death in FLG practitioners as determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Correlating with enhanced immunity reflected by microarray data, neutrophil phagocytosis was significantly increased in Qigong practitioners. Some of the altered genes observed by microarray were confirmed by RPA.[35][36]

Among 12000 genes tested in the Affymetrix chip, about 200 genes were consistently altered in the FLG practitioners, and we have discussed some of the changed genes...[37]

Ribosomal proteins are very important components of protein synthesis. Downregulation of 10 out of 11 genes for ribosomal proteins suggests that protein synthesis might also be lowered. Ribosomes are the molecular machines that manufacture proteins (Maguire et al., 2001). Downregulation of both genes for ribosomal proteins and genes for protein degradation may lead to reduced protein turnover. In correlation with downregulation of protein degradation and synthesis, the genes coding for proteins involved in DNA repair, cellular stress, and antioxidant enzymes are also lowered (Fig. 3C). Decreases of those stress-associated key enzymes, along with other stress-responsive genes, may implicate limited oxidative production and macromolecular damage...[38]

Any suggestions on how the results of the study could be summarized and mentioned in the article - perhaps in the academic perspectives stub? Dilip rajeev (talk) 13:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really get that last paragraph. Actually, I don't really get any of that, to be honest. Could someone spell it out for me? By the way, another editor complained about this once, but I'm not sure what the complaint was. I think it surely belongs in the article though, judging from the source. The academic section would be the place for it, too, I suppose. If there is something notable here--which there seems to be--and the source is fine, whoever has the wits to understand that and summarise the message, they should go for it.--Asdfg12345 16:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consummation[edit]

I noted (in hunting down misspellings) that at least /Archive 14 has numerous uses of the misspelled term "~~consumation~~". No harm on the talk page, but editors are cautioned that

The correct spelling has, for etymological reasons, a double M: "consummation".
The expression "a consummation devoutly to be wished" is a fairly well known expression, usually, i think, about something pleasant and unexpected, with the word "devout" in it sounding to modern ears like an using religious devotion as an ironic metaphor -- but to those who know Hamlet well, it refers to death, especially by suicide ("with a bare bodkin"):
... To die: to sleep:

Nor more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to; ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.
Although the senses that are synonyms of more generic words like "fulfillment", "completion", and so on are technically correct and quite understandable, "consummation" is both a legal and colloquial term for sexual activities, so that editors may at least want to be aware what the joke is that may be occasionally made (perhaps by vandals, in the accompanying article) about its use.

(Hmm, that may be the germ of a Consummation (usage) article.)
--Jerzy•t 20:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time, dude.--Asdfg12345 00:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I remember, it was Tomananda who always wrote the word that way. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 13:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2¢ from a reader[edit]

I know next-to-nothing about Falun Gong. I came to the article hoping for a brief summary of the movement, it's beliefs and the controversies that surround it, particularly in China. I read the intro and the first ("beliefs...") section of the article, and I found little in the way of illuminating information. Indeed, the article seems untrustworthy; it reads like a whitewash, even though I don't know what is being hidden. The intro should summarize the whole article, and in this case it should include some description of the controversies and politics in which Falun Gong has been embroiled, shouldn't it? I'm not going to get involved as an editor here--I'm just posting this in the hopes that a "reality check" from a reader with no axe to grind might be useful. Seems to me there's major change needed before this becomes a credible encyclopedia article. 75.79.57.162 (talk) 21:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point, and the articles need more high-quality references in order to become even better. But they are already far more balanced than what some people suggest. Whatever popular myths are spread about Falun Gong have not stood in the face of academic inquiry, and we should be clear on that. If this were an article on Jews, you probably wouldn't say, "it doesn't mention the international conspiracy, so it seems like whitewashing". ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 01:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References are valuable, but I don't think lack of references is the problem. The problem is the way it's written. The article suggests whitewashing because it describes Falun Gong only in gauzy promotional-sounding phrases like "seeks to develop practitioners' hearts and character according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance." The article also does a poor job of explaining the terms it introduces. When it jumps to protests against persecution, there is no description of any history that led to persecution or any attempt to represent differing perspectives on the group, their leaders, beliefs, etc. An obvious question emerges in a reader's mind when reading that the Chinese banned the practice: why did they ban it? This isn't addressed. Even if the basis for suppressing Falun Gong is outrageously false, as with the Nazis and the Jews, their stated rationale still needs to be described, and perhaps other perspectives on the Chinese government's motives could be introduced as well. In other words, the article (I'm restricting myself to the first couple of sections, nothing there motivated me to read further) does not read like it was written by a disinterested third party encyclopedist trying to explain the movement and their history; it seems more like not-very-slick public relations material prepared by the group itself. I'm just responding to the quality of the writing: truly, I don't know enough about Falun Gong to have any perspective on it or opinion of it, either as a political phenomenon or a spiritual practice. I was just disappointed that the Wikipedia article didn't seem enlightening. I suspect that virtually any article about Falun Gong from a major newspaper would be much more informative than the current Wikipedia entry. BTfromLA (talk) 09:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

pls finish reading and share your thoughts.--Asdfg12345 10:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I echo Asdfg12345. Please read through the entirety of Falun Gong articles. You'll find plenty of sourced material from top researchers. While I agree that none of the articles are extremely well written or structured, I'd argue that ample information on the issues you mentioned has already been added. Making the articles' style more encyclopedic definitely needs more work. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 17:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just another personal opinion from a slightly different angle. I have recently came back from Taiwan where I had multiple opportunities to meet and observe, over a period of years, some of the Falun Gong practitioners and their families from rather quite close perspective. For the sake of.. hmm, lets call it: "social responsibility" I feel strong urge to voice my support to various people who raised their concerns about the accuracy of the FG articles and the objectivity of the editors who seem to have taken over the FG articles. The reasons why it still hasn't found its place among such phenomena as Scientology is that it is still young and fairly unknown in the English side of the Wikipedia (which still lacks resources that could provide critical and objective analysis) and insurmountable amounts of personal time "practitioners" spend marketing the movement. I hope, and believe, that once the movement gets more attention from "non-practitioners" (which seems to be a primary way the FG "practitioners" partition people) the articles become more critical and more accurate as to portrayal of various external aspects of the movement. -- Tch77 (talk) 13:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This entire article, indeed, looks like a piece of not-so-well-written marketing pamphlet on the group. I've noticed that since two or three months ago, when I've last checked on this article, even the slightest hint at criticism has been removed from the page. This article represents one of the fundamental and systematic flaws with Wikipedia. Third party editors have tried to make a more balanced view presented, but have been constantly discouraged by editors who will revert any critical information, sourced or not, within a few hours. It is interesting that with two distinct sides to the issue, those who are reverting do not come from the Communist Party of China side, but from the Falun Gong side. It is clear which side is trying to hide information.

However, if you look at the FLG article on the Chinese Wikipedia (which is edited by mostly HK and Taiwan editors), it does provide a more balanced look, with some academic criticisms of the practice. Colipon+(T) 17:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Second that, in fact I was trying to edit this article few months ago but it is just impossible because these professional Falun Gong editors, I don't get paid by editing a Wikipedia article but they does, so I guess they won, and Wikipedia lost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zixingche (talk • contribs) 23:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hilarious. My salaries must be seriously overdue in that case. Where can I cash in? ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 17:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I read everyone's remarks. I'll just quickly write my thoughts. I agree that it would be good to have a balanced, neutral, and intelligent treatment of this subject. I don't want to defend the status quo, but just to address things and make the article better; improvement is good.

BTfromLA: The apparently gauzy phrase "seeks to develop" was changed to "teaches", which is more straightforward. I can see the point there. About doing a poor job of explaining the terms--which terms? Finally, the explanations for the persecution, according to the Party itself, scholars, and Falun Gong, are addressed--maybe you did not read that far, though. It would be good for another assessment after you have read the whole article.

Tch77: It would be good if your comment was more specific, I think. For example, are you able to list some similarities between Falun Gong practice and Scientology? It would be good to substantiate a comment like that. I don't see how they have anything to do with each other. On a side note, such comparisons aren't anywhere to be found in the literature as far as I am aware of, and this particular comparison (along with the general claims of evil, murder, insanity, beggar-poisonings etc., about Falun Gong practitioners) first came from the Chinese Communist Party. It was part of the propaganda campaign. I've never seen it substantiated or hashed out in any depth. It's unclear what you mean by social responsibility, and the other remarks. That practitioners refer to people as practitioners and non-practitioners is often the case, but I have to ask, so what? Please help editors to understand in what way wikipedia could more accurately portray "various external aspects" of the activities of Falun Gong practitioners, or of the practice, as you indicate.

Colipon: It would be good to understand which parts of the article appear to be marketing for Falun Gong. Specific comments allow for improvement, whereas sweeping remarks makes it difficult to identify the problem. Also, are you able to provide a few references for some of the most prominent criticism you are aware of, coming from scholars or other high-quality sources?

Zixingche: That's not even a serious claim. You've swallowed the communist propaganda hook, line and sinker. Of course a neutral article on the subject won't conform to your tastes.

Finally, I have to also ask something else. The article currently gives a fairly routine and neutral presentation of the historical context of Falun Gong’s emergence, its beliefs, the persecution in China, and touches on the development of the practice outside of China. The information here is drawn from the highest quality sources; the article is basically a synthesis of the best sources available on the topic. I won’t even bother saying that the content of the article at the moment is simply true and historically accurate, but just emphasise that all of the information is drawn from impeccable sources. If you find it unsatisfactory, and not confirming to your prejudices, perhaps it is those prejudices that should be changed, rather than the sources? The sources here are the highest quality available, so who is right?

Finally, I remember reading a short remark on a UCLA blog from a Chinese student’s class. This is what one person wrote: Subject: Wikipedia on Falun Gong (and bonus link). “I hadn’t looked at the wikipedia entry on Falun Gong until this morning, and was expecting it to be heavily tilted in one direction or the other. The author is sympathetic to Falun Gong, but overall this strikes me as a useful, mostly balanced account, with reference to most of the scholars who have written on the topic. It is also up-to-the-minute, noting that Falun Gong appears in the lyrics of the new Guns N Roses album.” There is still room for improvement. --Asdfg12345 01:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes this article about Falun Gong is super good, however:

1, Why this article does not mention that Falun Gong claims that it can in fact cure cancer?

2, Why this article does not mention that Falun Gong claims that it is in fact an anti virus software?

3, Why this article does not mention that Falun Gong claims that it can in fact save you from car crash? Zixingche (talk) 02:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please read this: [39] -- you should be absolutely clear about what you have signed up for.--Asdfg12345 15:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey will you stop playing this game? Chinese government sucks, however just because Chinese government sucks does not make Falun Gong rocks, they both sucks, they both kills! Can you please at least answer my question above?Zixingche (talk) 23:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's random, irrelevant information which is not notable. Please read the wikipedia policies and content guidelines. A key factor is how much attention things have received from media, scholars, and other reliable sources. I've never seen claims like that reported in third party sources; they are not notable. It's also an absurd claim to say that Falun Gong kills people. It feels dumb to even bother saying there is no evidence for it. I'm surprised that you do not realise that the communist party simply fabricated the large majority of its reports on Falun Gong after July 1999.--Asdfg12345 00:54, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, all those information are from either clearwisdom.net or minghui.org, they are CCTV of Falun Gong and are directly owned & operated by Falun Gong, and now these information become irrelevant? If we are talking 100 million practitioners believing that practicing Falun Gong can cure cancer, I don't think it is irrelevant!.Zixingche (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from the fact that Li Hongzhi's new articles are first published there, Minghui is mostly a forum of individual practitioners sharing their experiences. You post your experience, it's published on Minghui if it qualifies -- there's no "central organisation" communicating some "official" Falun Gong stance through these articles. Besides, the Chinese government heavily endorsed Falun Gong because of its health effects. By 1999, Chinese officials went so far as to quantify Falun Gong's benefits. One official from China's National Sports Commission declared that Falun Dafa "can save each person 1,000 yuan in annual medical fees. If 100 million people are practicing it, that's 100 billion yuan saved per year in medical fees." The same official went on to note that, "Premier Zhu Rongji is very happy about that." (Source: U.S. News & World Report, 22 February 1999) ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 15:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You know what, it is a pity that you are not a Chinese, and I assume that you can't read Chinese, Minghui is A FORUM, that's funny, sadly you don't understand the quote by Master Li: "重大问题看明慧网". Zixingche (talk) 12:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So Minghui is concerned about "major issues"? So what? Everybody knows the Minghui editors occasionally comment on some things, and they've issued warnings regarding fake jingwen and stuff like that. Call it a site for sharing experiences, or a forum, or whatever you wish, but a great majority of the articles you see posted there come from individual practitioners all around the world, including all the news on regional activities. The Minghui editors are just doing their share by taking an important role in running this particular project. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 17:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article is missing an explanation of how Falun Gong practice is actually carried out (as in, carried on in three dimensions); maybe some of the information from the Overseas page could be transported here and a small section made. At the moment it seems unclear on that point.--Asdfg12345 17:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Zixingche. Regarding points 1, 2, 3, in which you say that Falun Gong claims that it can cure everything, could you please cite the only authority in Falun Gong, which is it's founder, where he is saying all these? Actually during this exercise you will find that there are no 100% magic pills, and you will find that he explains that only when your virtue ascends, by conforming to the principles of Zhen Shan Ren, can good things happen to you. In Christianity there are the 10 commandments for pretty much the same principles, and in ancient China these principles are even more pervasive, but for that perhaps you should ask a Chinese guy who did not change completely his mindset after German guy named Karl Marx. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 17:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Falun Gong can save you from car crash

Reference: Directly from Zhuan Falun Lecture 3, by Master Li: a practitioner crossed the street on her bike. At a turn of the street, a luxury car came and knocked down this practitioner, a woman over fifty years old. It collided with her at once and hit her very hard. With the sound of "bang," it hit her head, and her head hit the car roof squarely. At that point, this practitioner’s feet were still on the bike pedals. Though her head was hit, she did not feel any pain.

Falun Gong can cure any disease

Reference: Directly from Zhuan Falun Lecture 6, by Master Li: One must truly practice cultivation and pay attention to one’s xinxing. Only by truly practicing cultivation can one’s illness be eliminated.

Falun Gong is an anti virus software

Sorry I can't find any references in Zhuan Falun about Falun Gong is an anti virus software, may be Master Li didn't have a clue what a anti virus software is when he was writing Zhuan Falun, however I can have another 100 funny story from Zhuan Falun, such as the Third Eye of a human being which has television ability.

And to all of you professional Falun Gong editor, your logics are all the same and simple: if anybody says Falun Gong is bad, then you will accused that he/she is supporting CCP, this is funny, is it? oh and another rules is: all information from CCP are fake, except those say Falun Gong is good. Excellent, you should all get a pay rise in 2009. Zixingche (talk) 12:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good quotes from Zhuan Falun :) . And if you are a CCP agent or not, I don't know, but it's not very much relevant anyway. Best wishes, --HappyInGeneral (talk) 06:34, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent point, now even Zhuan Falun is no longer relevant anymore, great finding, congratulation! Zixingche (talk) 22:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry you feel that way, however that is your point of view, see WP:POV, that I will respect as such. Still I can assure you that Zhuan Falun is very relevant for me. Best wishes, --HappyInGeneral (talk) 14:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As Zhuan Falun is your bible, can you please kindly answer my question: "Can Falun Gong cure cancer?" A:Yes, B: No, please choose from A or B Zixingche (talk) 03:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To follow your logic, your question is similar to this one: People have babies, so in mathematics how much is 1+1? A:3, B:4, please choose from A or B :)

Mathematics itself has axioms, so what I'm trying to point out that the answer is not as simple as you want to make it. Not everything is based on your axioms, that is on your version of truth. At this point I can only repeat what I told you before: study Zhuan Falun and you perhaps will find that there are no 100% magic pills, promised by Falun Gong. As I understand it, one of the main idea's is that when your virtue improves, by conforming to the principles of Zhen Shan Ren (Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance), the universe will let you ascend (in many ways), or more simply puz it will let you have good things, and that is not limited to healing.
Based on your questions my impression is that you only want controversies, in that case I will point to wikipedia policies, like WP:SOAP, by which you should understand that discussions that are not aimed to improve the article, have no place on wikipedia. So in that light, I will also stop here and I will not answer provocations/questions. Because if I do that I myself would be breaching the policies. PS: we can always discuss on the user talk page which is more appropriate. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 11:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This answer is what I already expected, you just can't directly answer my question, because either way you are screwed, answer A and people will find out that Falun Gong is in fact a cult offering cancer cure, answer B then you are talking about everything on minghui / clearwisdom / Zhuan Falun are lies. So what you can do is just playing game, "well the answer is somewhat this and that, well.."

Not to mention your "People have babies, so in mathematics how much is 1+1? " doesn't make any sense.

I read Zhuan Falun more than 10 times already [redacted--Asdfg12345], Asdfg, stop editing my comment, to me, Zhuan Falun is a piece of shit!. Zixingche (talk) 21:56, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Take your squirming flamebaits to personal talk pages. Thanks. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 22:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Please don't feed the trolls by responding to Zixingche. This user (judging by his contributions) does not spend any time working on articles or anything else for the project, and just comes here from time to time to pick fights. It's in the article's best interest just to ignore him and not respond. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah you are correct, if you check my previous comments (which are already archived), I already said that I will not contribute to this article, it is not because I do want to, but because I knew that my English is not good enough to contribute, however what I can do is post SOURCED & RELIABLE references in the discussion page to help other sane contributors. Zixingche (talk) 10:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Video[edit]

Video collection of Li Hongzhi (Falun Gong sole founder) talking about curing all kind of diseases using the power of Falun Gong. These videos are taken from Li's presentation, many years ago, while Falun Gong was then still legal in China.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1waDp9p6tU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujmepkAVBV0&feature=related

Zixingche (talk) 07:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zhenyu21's comments[edit]

[moved by Olaf]

I have been pointed out by one of my friends to check out this article. And I have read through what I thought was in my opinion, a very biased article. I believe that both sides of the views should be given which is why I do not agree that this article should not have a controversy section dedicated to this specific topic. The views presented here solely lopside towards the pro-FLG section. With that (i have to say) very dedicated users editing/discussing (and in his case defending) this information with, in my opinion, a very biased view on the subject. I would like to propose that this article be given to a third party (with no affiliations what so ever to both sides) to edit and maintain. This I have to say, is one of the worse articles I have read on Wikipedia. Also, referencing from the Epoch Times is as bad as referencing Xinhua or People's Daily. It is very hard to dissect propaganda from the truth in all of these newspapers.Zhenyu21 (talk) 18:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These articles are full of references to high-quality, peer-reviewed academic publications. It may be that genuine research does not match your prejudices; this is not uncommon. While I agree that the articles need balancing, they are far from being "very biased"; actually, they are rather objective, provided that we're aiming for a comprehensive, hermeneutic understanding of Falun Gong in the appropriate context. No equality can be assumed between "both sides of the views" [sic]; there is the side that is based on research data, fieldwork and historical documents, and there is the side of the anti-FLG crusaders, many of whom resemble holocaust negationists in their ideological frenzy. This is all very transparent to those who have done serious research on the subject.

Using Epoch Times as a secondary source is problematic, but as a primary source it is OK. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper). As long as its use complies with these policies, there shouldn't be a problem. You are welcome to point out any specific text passages you find distressing. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 18:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another bad article documenting the failure of WP policies[edit]

[moved by Asdfg12345] There isn't any neutrality in this article where emotionally supercharged adherents of the cult have basically won the edit war and removed any kind of criticism towards their movement.

Falun Dafa is one of countless asian religious groups that merely stands out due to the lack of ethics of its leadership and its political motivation. The believers are exchangable zombies who do the will of their leaders, like in any psycho cult.

The only thing that makes Falun Dafa stand out is the massive money behind it and its political motivation.

Viande hachée (talk) 09:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your first paragraph is the only thing related to the article. The rest is simply slander and using the talk page as a forum. Your comments are also quite vicious and completely unfounded. It is acceptable for other editors to delete material not relevant to improving the article on talk pages. Please read the Talk_page_guidelines, respect wikipedia policies, and consider changing your post to reflect them. --Asdfg12345 12:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg12345, You makle Xenu proud! 99.244.189.150 (talk) 13:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg12345, you are not improving the article by deleting all edits to it that you do not like, including blanking reputable sources. That is not consensus, it is monopolization. PerEdman (talk) 18:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg12345, you know what, you are hopeless, the more you edit this article the more you are ruining wikipedia, again, let me make this clear: we don't want professional paid editor on wikipedia, thank you but no. Zixingche (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty broke at the moment, actually. Some extra cash would be nice. Where can I pick it up?--Asdfg12345 06:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would also explain how you can spend working hours reverting any changes to this article. PerEdman (talk) 19:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A messege of hope to those who value NPOV.[edit]

Just a quick story to those of you who have tried to add any semblance of neutrality to this article.

I've been to China twice. The second time for the Olympics. When getting my visa, I saw a whole bunch of Falun Gong people with literature and stuff, but paid no attention.

Then one day, on one of my many Wikipedia nights, I decided to learn about them. How shocked I was! How could China do such things? How could they torture such wonderful, innocent people, with not a bad intention, only love and peace in their hearts?

I told my friends about it. I told them how I'd canceled my plans to go back to China for a third time.

But then I met a friend who gave me the best Wikipedia lesson of all: don't believe everything you read.

So after a few hours internet searches and talks with those on both sides of the story, I learned of the controversies surrounding the Falun Gong. Why, oh why, was that not in the Wikipedia article, I asked.

And then it was time for this naive Wikipedia user to glimpse at the dark side.

So to those of you who have silenced any mention of the Time interview, or the word "cult," or the word "controversial," congratulations, you have lost my sympathy. You have convinced me that the Falun Gong are, indeed, a cult, for only a cult would make such a concerted effort to silence anything that challenges that which they have devoted so much to. Does it hurt you to know that some people think the Falun Gong are a cult? Does it hurt so bad that you must delete it from the screen in the hopes of deleting it from your mind?

I can't wait to return to China.

I'm a Jew, and while I think those who deny the holocaust are either evil or stupid, I fully support their right to voice their theories here and elsewhere. So I say to you, Falun Gong, take a deep look in the mirror. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.95.58 (talk) 07:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dear anonymous IP, There's a lot of material outside of wikipedia you could look into to get the facts straight. Schecheter's research, David Ownby's research, reports from The Amnesty International, Kilgour Matas Reports, etc - to mention just a few ( perhaps you could skip a few of your "wikipedia nights" to go through them). Enough material and top-quality scholarship to bring your "lost sympathy" back and make you want to cancel your next three planned trips to China. Also note that academic perspectives on the "cult" label, what Kilgour and Matas refer to as "a manufactured tool of repression", has been discussed in detail in this and related articles. Note that leading scholars like Ownby state Falun Gong is "by no means a cult." They discuss in detail the origin of the term, how Falun Gong was first labeled a "cult" months into the persecution, how the label was used a tool of repression, academic perspectives on it etc. Have you really read these wikipedia articles?

Anyways, must admit.. easily the most theatrical of all comments I've seen to date on wikipedia!

Dilip rajeev (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dilip, Don't you yourself find your selection of sources somewhat one-sided? PerEdman (talk) 11:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very dramatic, indeed. You spelt the word message wrong, but you have half of my agreement. Firstly, no one is running the article, certainly not the dastardly "organisation" you have in mind. Anyone is free to edit wikipedia, discuss changes, and bring sources to bear. The main issue, I think in the end, is that the "cult" argument isn't supported by reliable sources--wikipedia isn't a vehicle for communist party propaganda, nor for non-academics like Rick Ross and their agendas (to note, Ross is the main "Falun Gong critic," who claims Falun Gong is a cult, and frequently attends conferences defaming Falun Gong set up by the Chinese embassy). If there are actually reliable sources on these issues, they should be represented. Except for in the context of the persecution, the cult label really has no meaning. It isn't backed up by any research, studies, fieldwork, or even plain old reality. No serious academic supports it as a meaningful way of characterising Falun Gong. Check out the recent work by David Ownby called "Falun Gong and the Future of China" and see how much play the cult argument gets. He is a serious researcher and makes it clear that it was a furphy from the start.

With regard to the apparent controversies about Falun Gong, what are they? Where are the sources? Wikipedia has clear content standards for what should and should not be in articles. If there are high-quality sources dealing with these issues, then no one can stop them from being in the article--they just get summarised and relevant material grouped together, presenting according to relevance, notability, etc.. If something important is missing from the article, what is it? Let's put it in. My half agreement with you is that of course relevant and notable material should not be left out--but it needs to be backed up by reliable sources. Making a fuss that has nothing to do with wikipedia's content guidelines is a waste of time. Can't we see some quality sources?--Asdfg12345 09:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lastly, that the wikipedia article doesn't match your expectations doesn't change the reality of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The logic that "the wikipedia article does not match my expectations therefore I have no more sympathy for the people getting tortured to death for their beliefs" doesn't make any sense whatsoever. By the way, did you hear about Lawyer Gao? He defended Falun Gong practitioners in China. Consider reading his recently released open letter. Best. --Asdfg12345 09:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again we have a personal experience from a brand new IP. Please keep in mind this is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, not "rumor pedia". See WP:V. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 11:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also I find this quote, from the genocide article, very useful in this context: "Also required is a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators" --HappyInGeneral (talk) 11:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, HIG, this is the talk page, not the wikipedia page. Furthermore, I can't see how vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators is at all relevant to the personal experience related to us by the anonymous poster. He certainly was not dehumanizing anyone by saying that he believes wikipage is unreliable and biased. (My interpretation of Anonymous IP's opinion would be that the wikipage is what we wikians would call "Whitewashed", but as this is the talk page, I hardly need a source to state my belief.) PerEdman (talk) 11:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@anonymous IP: Well since you are jewish and made the comparison to the holocaust yourself, you must know the propaganda the Nazis spread about the jews at that time. All they did was just make them look like some kind of evil cult. That was it. That was more than sufficiant to de-humanize your people. Of course more specificly the National Socialist German Workers Party labeled the jews as an evil capitalist organization with the goal of exploiting it's members as well as the rest of the world, as having brutal satanic rituals involving self-mutalation and sucide and as simply being "anti-German", "anti-patriotic", and "anti-socialist". I wouldn't have mentioned it, but you are the one who is asking for it to be included - and maybe you are right. Maybe this Propaganda should get mentioned. Because after all this kind of propaganda still exists. And we could ignore - but that will not make it go away. Only by exposing this kind of smear-propaganda as what it really is, can it no longer play it's role in de-humanizing our people and thereby "justifying" their attempted elimination. --Hoerth (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hoerth's comment seems to make sense. It is not about "exposing" anything though, but simply presenting relevant information to the reader. This is an encyclopedia, and the policies like WP:NPOV WP:V etc. are strictly procedural--you don't start with your objective then make the articles into that, but start with the sources and just fill things in. If anyone has some good sources on these things, please bring them up. Otherwise when I get some time I will go digging for some. What's needed are reliable sources detailing these claims against Falun Gong, preferably in specific terms and without vaguery if possible, and then to find the Falun Gong rebuttal, and some analysis by third parties. PerEdman, if you're reading, you may have some leads--this seems to be your field. --Asdfg12345 22:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess this is a futile exercise, but I shall give it another shot. Others have quite convincingly argued that there are parts of the Falun Gong dogma that are being actively excluded from this article (see Talk:Falun Gong#"Outlandish" Claims of Falun Gong and Talk:Falun Gong#Zhuan Falun Source Material for 66.77.144.5's claims, for example). I don't think I can do much better (or care to spend my time trying) than them.

Is the Time magazine article not a good source? Is the fact that the leader of your organization himself has discussed levitation, alien races, alternate dimensions, in the primary literature of your practice? I say these things wihtout any intention to judge them, just to state that they exist, and they leave a deafening silence in the article. Again: some facts can be interpreted in a negative light, some can be seen in a positive light, some can be seen in no light, but the fact is that they exist, and they are being suppressed such that a naive reader (such as myself) does not get the full story, or even equally partial parts of both sides of the story, when reading this article.

I apologize for giving the impression that, since there are a few people trying to actively suppress some information about the Falun Gong, I have lost sympathy for those who are being tortured. This is certainly not the case. All torture is evil and should be abolished from the Earth. But I guess all I'm saying is that there are other ways to achieve your objective besides suppression.

And yes, Jews were dehumanized before, during, and after the holocaust. Yes, is it a common way of achieving genocide and torture. But I am not calling for the deletion of the organ harvesting article, nor have I challenged its validity. I have not called for any of your claims of torture to be deleted. It's just the facts that you omit (or delete) with bogus logic that disturbs me. Again, I reference you to the aforementioned discussion topics. I mean, why not mention them, and discredit them at the same time? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion article is a great example: it's a featured article that calmly and academically rejects one of the fundamental arguements used by anti-Semites. The fact that you delete any of the aforementioned claims instead of taking them on raises my suspicion, and that may be doing your practice a great disservice.

My apologies for the emotion of my writing, and I thank you all for keeping a cool head. I'm a seasoned reader of Wikipedia, but am green when it comes to editing or talking. It blows my top when reality creeps in and tells me that not all Wikipedia articles are telling the whole truth. But let's not let my emotion cloud the main point:

If you believe in Falun Dafa, if you love it so and want everyone to know both its beauty and the trials it is facing, godspeed. But you are doing a disservice to your faith by supressing any sort of (referenced) material that could be seen as controversial, or out of the norm, or whatever. You are doing it a disservice by not taking those facets and expounding on them, discussing them, and giving them their fair shake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.95.58 (talk) 06:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@anonymous IP: No, your post was not futile, as at least I for my part can now understand you better and I tend to agree with you: having an entry similar to the entry on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion might be necessary. But i am not actually involved in any of this either and my english wouldn't be good enough for this task. There actually ARE many things similar to those protocols. Like the alleged 10. Chatper of Zhuan Falun published by the 610 office etc.. Or for example the Communist Party's claim that there would be only 2 million Falun Gong practitioners in China and that of those 2 millions 1600 would have died of their illness. And they use that to show that Falun Gong would harm people's health. But if you think about the number, you realize that it is propaganda and doesn't make sense as the national average death rate due to illness in China is way, way higher. There are many such things and they are easy to refute once you think about it - but of course ussually people DON'T think about it. So having an article that rationaly analyzes such claims without using any weasel words like "cult" etc. might be necessary and doesn't necessarily have to comprimize Wikipedia's NPOV. Some people might have not understood that so they just ignore those things, resulting in your having the impression you descriped. --Hoerth (talk) 11:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@anonymous IP: the best article to read is from Falun Gong itself, the Zhuan Fa Lun, the bible for Falun Gong, inside the book you will enjoy at least 3 hours of fun reading jokes you will never read from other book, example like Falun Gong save from car crash, Falun Gong give you teleporting and television ability, Falun Gong cures every diseases in the earth including AIDS and cancer, and Li himself fighting with a Ming Dynasty snake ghost (or whatever). This is the story you will never read in Wikipedia, actually Wikipedia is a very good source in most of the time, but Falun Gong is just not the case, this article is totally ruined by these professional paid editors, as you may noticed, should you say anything negative towards Falun Gong and they will beat you in group. Anyway, welcome to China, though I can't welcome you in person as I am oversea, have a nice trip! Zixingche (talk) 21:32, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zhuan Falun can be downloaded here. The Nine Lecture Videos (with voice over English translation), also cover the same content as Zhuan Falun ( a work described by the World Book Encyclopaedia as examining "evolution, the meaning of space and time, and the mysteries of the universe" and a best seller in China in before onset of the persecution). Both Zhuan Falun and the Nine Lecture Videos are comprehensive expositions of the Teachings of Falun Dafa. I would urge anyone interested in understanding the system to go through them first hand.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 01:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good, just to list a few pages which to me are the funniest (I am referring to the PDF file here Zhuan Falun):

Page 104, a snake in Ming Dynasty (at least 400 years ago) toke someone's body and cultivated into human form, and Li with his super power called "Dissolving Gong", "melt its lower body into water".

Page 32, teaching and explain the ability of Remote Vision, or tele-vision, which allow you to view Beijing or Washington, live, from your human eye, or Third Eye.

Page 67, telling about Li's Law Buddy, which will protect you from any danger (Quoted: you have my Law Bodies protecting you, so you won’t run into any danger.), in this case, car crash, a 50 year old female practitioner got hit by a moving car at her head, because Li's Law Buddy is protecting her invisibly anywhere, the practitioner is completely fine without any injury after the crash, however, the car's bonnet is broken.

Page 67 - 68, Quoted: "There was also something that happened in Changchun. A building was being built near a student’s home. Nowadays, buildings are built so high, and the scaffolding is made up of steel rods that are two inches thick and four yards long. The student was walking not too far from home when a steel rod dropped from that tall building, and it was coming straight down toward his head. Everyone on the street was petrified. But he just said, “Who patted me?” He thought that someone had patted him on the head. Then, he turned and saw that a big Law Wheel was there rotating over his head. The steel rod had slid down along the side of his head and stuck into the ground, sticking up. If it really had hit somebody, think about it, it was so heavy it would have gone all the way through his body, like a skewer through marshmallows. It was that dangerous!"

Well, to me, if this is not a joke, then it is a cult. Zixingche (talk) 02:08, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@Zixingche, Gross distortions, exaggerations, cherry picked stuff presented completely out of context, outright lies, etc. are not likely to interest editors here the least. One could pull random statements from Buddhist Scriptures and claim Buddhism is about whatever. You could pull statements from The Bible to characterize Jesus Christ's teachings the way you want. But such meaningless distortions are not what anyone here is interested in nor does it contribute, in any way, towards improving the article. Even facts can be made to sound ridiculous: One could make a big brouhaha and go around claiming Aikido and Tai Chi practitioners are so silly that they really believe they can overcome an aggressive opponent without resorting to aggressive physical force; that quantum physicists are really so absurd they believe a particle can simultaneously exist in two places at the same time or that Einstein really 'believed' that time passes slowly in a moving body. But could such out of context characterization of things help rationally understand or appreciate any of these sciences? To understand any tradition or science, you need a holistic perspective on it. Presenting things without the appropriate background and context serves little purpose - especially when we are all here to contribute to an encylopaedia.

Falun Dafa is a Xiu Lian tradition for mind-body cultivation - and it is repeatedly made clear in the teachings that it is not to be understood as something to be used for the purpose of healing one's illnesses. Yet, mind-body cultivation practice, rooted in cultivation of one's Xin-xing ( heart/mind nature), can have the effect of gradually achieving a state free of illness. Medical science researchers in US have published the results of preliminary research[40] into these and their conclusions are quite interesting. If the teachings interest you try to understand things in their appropriate context and substantiate your contributions on talk with quality academic scholarship - but this kind of incessant hatred-mongering serves little purpose.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 10:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I must say, those quotes do interest me. They look very much like the outlandish statements you can find in most religious literature, and if I really wanted to, I assume I could download and read the PDF file and find out the context. If I find the same text in there, it can hardly be an exhaggeration, could it? PerEdman (talk) 11:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, a quick question to the ip guy who first raised this issue: which articles did you read about all these things you say weren't included in the article, which you thought should have been? Could you give some links or details of the specific sources? I'd like to take a look at them. --Asdfg12345 15:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I plan to archive this talk page and start the new one with a note for brainstorming ideas on how to move forward, and looking for some of the sources that people keep referring to. The more specific the better, and it would be good to get something done about this.--Asdfg12345 22:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg, That's an honorable cause, but how is it going to work? People who used to try to inject criticism are hardly going to come back out of the blue just because you archive the current talk page. We can hardly canvas wikipedia to inform them of this New Deal and that they should come back. Are you and I going to go back and reverify old edits to see if there's anything in them? I suppose I could help with that, but it seems like very much work. PerEdman (talk) 11:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asdfg, I have a very important question to you, and it is important because you are constantly asking for a "actually reliable sources, backed up by research, studies, fieldwork or even plain old reality", that Falun Gong would be a "cult". The question is this:

What, in your mind, would actually constitute an "actually reliable source backed up by research, studies, fieldwork or reality" that Falun Gong is a cult?

If you can think of no material that could be used in this manner, you should immediately cease to request it. This is the scientific principle of falsifiability. PerEdman (talk) 11:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just meant cause the page is so long already, and it would be great to get some clarity and work out what needs to be done. Doesn't matter, I'll just let someone else take the lead there. About your other question, it's not my responsibility to actually find the sources. It's possible that they exist, I don't really know, but until someone brings them out then we can't put them in the article. Despite that, it's not like the cult label shouldn't be addressed, there are some sources on it, for sure. What I've maintained is that the sources refuting it (David Ownby, Benjamin Penny) are better than those putting it forward (Rick Ross, the CCP). I'll assume this is true until there is evidence to the contrary.--Asdfg12345 05:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Practice vs Cultivation[edit]

Why use such a obscure and agricultural term as "cultivation" when you are really trying to describe the practice of a religion/spiritual excercise?Sjschen (talk) 19:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think thats how the term 修煉 - Xiu(修) Lian(煉) got translated from Chinese. The sense is not the agricultural one :)...is, in my understanding, a bit closer to( but not the same as) the meaning the word coveys in :

It matters little whether a man be mathematically, or philologically, or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.
— Goethe

Talents are cultivated in solitude; character in the stormy billows of the world.
— Goethe

Translating from one language to another is no easy thing.. a culture would have forged, over thousands of years of tradition, an understanding of a certain concept ( for instance The Buddists and Daoist 修煉 traditions of ancient China) .. while another culture would have no equivalent concept and naturally its vocabulary becomes inadequate to convey the exact meaning conveyed by the original term.

Perhaps the best way ( in my opinion, the only way! ) to really comprehend what is meant by term cultivation(修) in Falun Dafa is to go through these lectures: http://www.falundafa.org/bul/audio-video/audiovideo_9video.html

Dilip rajeev (talk) 23:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To me the term simply seems a bit too linked with moral associations and to me seems a bit non-encyclopedic and non-neutral. I'm sure its not intended but somehow reading "cultivated" in terms of the rest of the text seem as if it is proselytizing the religious instead of just providing facts... Sjschen (talk) 16:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Dilip rajeev because throughout the article, the word "cultivate" and "cultivation" are used either within quotation marks or in a context where it is clear that the word is being described in the context of Falun Gong. I do however agree with Sjschen that the way parts of the article has been written, carries proselytizing forms. It is just a bit too explanatory, just a bit too apologetic, to be considered encyclopedic, but I have too little time to devote to one single article about one single religious expression and will have to be content with returning every now and then to find that all my revisions have been raked over with salt. Not particularily cultivating, if I allow myself to use that term. PerEdman (talk) 09:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

6-10 Office[edit]

In the article, it says that "An extra-constitutional body, the "6-10 Office" was created to "oversee the terror campaign,"[57]", but when i looked at the source cited, http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/09/falun-gong-china_cz_rm_0209falungong.html it said that "The Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong followers is allegedly run by the notorious Office 6-10,". But the sentence in the article states it as a fact. I propose it be changed to this: "~~An extra-constitutional body~~, The "6-10 Office" was allegedly created to "oversee the terror campaign," as I feel this would be more accurate, as the source says nothing about the office being extra-constitutional or even if it actually exists, it just notes hearsay from Falun Gong practitioners. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 22:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we could easily source to Kilgour Matas, or Amnesty International Reports - with no need to introduce "allegedly. " These reports carry entire sections on the 6-10 office. Dilip rajeev (talk) 22:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be cool if you got a Amnesty International Report source that explicitly says that the 6-10 Office exists and is a extra-constitutional body. However, I wouldn't be happy with Kilgour/Matas because they agree with anything Falun Gong says. They are heavily biased towards Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners lean heavily on these two guys for credibility. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 23:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

..I remember reading a rather detailed discussion of the 610 office in Amnesty International reports... but here is another source I could find: Congressional-Executive commission on China Annual Report 2008:

“An extrajudicial security apparatus called the 6-10 Office monitors and leads the suppression of groups that the government deems to be `cult organizations,' including groups that self-identify as Christian. ”

"On June 10, 1999, former President Jiang Zemin and Politburo member Luo Gan established an extrajudicial security apparatus called the '6-10 Office.' This entity was charged with the mission of enforcing a ban on Falun Gong and carrying out a crackdown against its practitioners, which commenced on July 22, 1999, when the government formally outlawed the movement. Falun Gong practitioners describe it as a `traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that is Buddhist in nature,' which consists of `moral teachings, a meditation, and four gentle exercises that resemble tai-chi and are known in Chinese culture as `qigong.' ' Tens of millions of Chinese citizens practiced Falun Gong in the 1990s.. "

"Publicly available government documents detail the central role of the 6-10 Office in the persecution of Falun Gong..."

"6-10 Offices throughout China maintain extrajudicial 'transformation through reeducation' facilities that are used specifically to detain Falun Gong practitioners who have completed terms in reeducation through labor (RTL) camps but whom authorities refuse to release. The term `transformation through reeducation' (jiaoyu zhuanhua) describes a process of ideological reprogramming whereby practitioners are subjected to various methods of physical and psychological coercion until they recant their belief in Falun Gong."

Dilip rajeev (talk) 23:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From.. Congressional-Executive commission on China Annual Report 2008

Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who has defended various Chinese activists, exposed numerous forms of torture and violence employed by the 6-10 Office against Falun Gong practitioners. Gao describes the 6-10 Office as a "Gestapo-like organization" with "powers that no civilized state in the world would even consider trying to obtain." He further notes that "of all the true accounts of incredible violence that I have heard, of all the records of the government's inhuman torture of its own people, what has shaken me most is the routine practice on the part of the 6-10 Office and the police of assaulting women's genitals." Gao went missing in September 2007 following the public release of a letter he sent to the U.S. Congress and remains in detention at an undisclosed location.

Gao Zhisheng and his family, including children, suffered extreme persecution at the hands of 6-10 office after this.. you can read about it online.. his family managed to escape to US recently. This persecution is very real friend, none of this is "alleged" .. even top journalists like Ian Johnson didn't dare continue in China after writing reports on the persecution .. concerned, in his own words, that the Chinese authorities would have made his life there impossible. The extent of brutality involved and how widespread it is just shocking. Dilip rajeev (talk) 00:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the US government is a good source, can you replace the old source with the new one? And would this be OK for a new sentence: "An extrajudicial entity, the "6-10 Office" was created to head the suppression campaign against Falun Gong. ~~which was allegedly driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspapers, radio and internet.~~" I think this would be more accurate and succinct. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 00:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'll add the new source. Just to point out - the large-scale media propaganda is a verifiable fact - you get to see, read and experience it every day if you are in China and Human rights organizations have reported extensively on it. I'll be contributing on that section of the article, later today after looking into the Amnesty reports as well. Dilip rajeev (talk) 00:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that really is a much better source for the 6-10 claim. I am very happy that this comment could result in such an improvement of the article. Keep it up! :) PerEdman (talk) 09:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know man, it sounds better and is way more concise this way because they already mention the media thing earlier in the paragraph. I don't deny that the persecution is happening, but Falun Gong practitioners have kind of turned this article into a very pro-Falun Gong article. The persecution has been magnified by Falun Gong and they claim that things are a lot bigger than they are. The number of deaths in the first year of the banning of Falun Gong is 10 people. This is because most of the arrested Falun Gong practitioners are sent to "reeducation camps" where they work in a attempt to get them to renounce. The Government makes money that way. The Falun Gong media outlets such as The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television regularly produce propaganda and ad-hominium attacks against the Chinese Government. The Nine Commentaries of the Party is a farce. I'd be happy to debate about it. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 00:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Archive[edit]

Might be time to archive pre-2009 threads, this page is getting rather long. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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