Talk:The God Delusion/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6

The Dedication

The dedication of this book to Douglas Adams should be displayed. It appears in the source text for the info box but not on the actual page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ironbellynorton (talk • contribs) 21:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

You need to take this up at the template talk page. --Merzul 11:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Critical reception, is it worth it?

The question is if the time required for what I'm doing is worth it... I really don't have that much time, but if we take it easy, and gradually work through reviews and decide on how and whether to use them... (I hope others will also discuss the various reviews on /reviews sub-page)... perhaps, at some point we could reach an encyclopedic summary of the critical reception. --Merzul 12:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I altered the heading to "Negative critical reception" because not all the critical reception was negative, and to leave the heading unqualified suggests that the section fairly represents the whole reaction. That would at best be misleading at worst a lie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.18.240 (talk) 10:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I would suggest that someone with the time and resources adds a positive critical reception paragraph too, then both could be subsumed under the original title. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.18.240 (talk) 10:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I've reverted the change to the header. There are actually a couple of positive sentences among the many, many negative ones.
In my opinion the whole section about criticism, and apparently most of the criticism that has actually been aired, is an exercise in fighting windmills. The critics focus on one particular aspect, like "does a god exist", and joust with that. They (conveniently, for them) ignore the overall message in the book. To quote what I wrote here back on 15 January 2008:
But to a large extent this is a red herring. What most of The God Delusion is about is not at all the subject of whether a god exists or not, it's about how crazy it is to believe in the particular God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in. How ridiculous the Bible is and how parents do their children a disservice by indoctrinating them with their religion. How nonsensical and dangerous in particular the fundamentalist American Christians and ditto Muslims are. That is the main message of the book, but those who feel targeted prefer to focus on the "does a god exist" business, thinking that gets them off the hook, despite the fact that Dawkins never claims that no god exists.
If someone has the time I think a major overhaul of the criticisms section is called for. Surely there must be some sources where reviewers or debaters have noticed the tendency of negative criticism of The God Delusion to shirk the real message of the book? --RenniePet (talk) 10:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the section structure (needs some tidying; I don't know how!) and now the obvious bias is plain to see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.18.240 (talk) 10:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

A stupid (?) robot has just removed all of your edits. I'm not sure what triggered that, perhaps the combination of me reverting your first effort and the fact that you use an anonymous IP address instead of a user name.
Also, it would be best to discuss major changes here first instead of just doing them, despite the so-called "be bold" principle. --RenniePet (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


Well some ONE has to make edits at the end of they day... Okay, can you then please structure that section properly. As dividing it between postive and negative yield two positive citations and a whole screed of negative. Not exactly NPOV is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.18.240 (talk) 10:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not willing to just restore your edits, although I do think you have a valid point. It would make more sense if you got yourself a user name and did it yourself.
But be aware that there are a fair number of editors who keep an eye on this article, so a discussion will ensue under all circumstances, and it may (or may not?) be most constructive to discuss first. --RenniePet (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. You aren't willing to correct glaring bias. Speaks volumes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.18.240 (talk) 11:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Still no correction of the bias! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.5.223 (talk) 10:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Proof that God exists!

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1599,The-God-Delusion-One-Year-Countdown,RichardDawkinsnet

The book stayed 51 weeks on the NY Times best-seller list... God, omnipotent as he is, pulled it down at the very last moment. Even for weaker souls, this should be evidence beyond doubt that God exists. As soon as I find a source for this argument, I will add it to the article. :) --Merzul 18:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

you cant honestly be serious? Even if there was a source to prove that, it would be in no way credible. Where is the proof? For an organisation that talks about blasphemy Id say that your pretty badly uninformed.~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.183.146 (talk) 22:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

You have to have faith that one of the many Gods did this. We're not suggesting that the Christian god did it out of spite for the recent storm-in-a-teacup as we suspect it would have been delegated to a member of a minor pantheon.Ttiotsw 23:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm convinced it was Baal, jealous of all the attention Yahweh's been getting. Even in the heavens, there's no such thing as bad PR.Barte 23:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary, Baal, Thor, and even the Juju on the top of the mountain have received their fair share of attention. Compared to old-fashioned philosophers, Dawkins is remarkably fair and respectful of religious diversity. Contrast that to Graham Oppy, who in his otherwise very thorough Arguing about Gods completely fails to address any Juju-specific arguments.
It was a mainstream deity, and I will find a source for it! --Merzul 12:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
He may be expert in evolutionary biology though I have slight doubt as to how good a scientist he is given that his field (e.g. meme, selfish gene, etc) seems to be bit on the soft side of science (i.e. lack of chemistry or physics, or for that matter, experimental result). Anyway, his philosophical argument for non existence of God is pitiful. If you want a far better book making case for atheism, I recommend "Atheism: A Very Short Introduction". It is shorter/concise and cheaper too.Vapour (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
>Anyway, his philosophical argument for non existence of God is pitiful.
Philosophical argument? I thought Dawkins used scientific arguments. Even more important, Dawkins does not claim that God does not exist, he says it is not possible scientifically to prove or disprove the existence of God.
What Dawkins does say is that a god is very, very unlikely. And what riles the Christians (and Muslims and Jews) is that Dawkins makes a very strong case for the non-existence of their particular God, and does a pretty good job of ridiculing those who do believe in that particular God.
What seems to be going on here is, "ha, ha, Dawkins fails in disproving the existence of a god", and then a fantastic leap to, "therefore my belief in my God is safe! (Thank heavens, otherwise I'd have to reassess everything I believe in, and, oh dear, oh dear...)". --RenniePet (talk) 17:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
His arguments are hardly scientific. The reason why Dawkins does not outrightly deny the existence of God is because he values his academic integrity more than the integrity of his intellectual honesty. It is a convention among academics not to outrightly "prove" or "disprove" a theory because, according to the philosophy of Karl Popper, the possibility always exists that evidence may arise that overturns a strongly-held assertion (and thus bring embarrassment in some cases). It is clearly obvious that Dawkins dos not believe in the existence of a God, but he will never outrightly state it because of this academic convention. Ekantik talk 19:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'm not an expert on the subject, but I disagree. My understanding, and what I think Dawkins says (I don't have the book here with me) is that in using the scientific method it is possible to prove various things, but certain things can not be disproven. In other words, it may someday be possible to prove the existence of a god, but it will never be possible to scientifically disprove the existence of a god.
But to a large extent this is a red herring. What most of The God Delusion is about is not at all the subject of whether a god exists or not, it's about how crazy it is to believe in the particular God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in. How ridiculous the Bible is and how parents do their children a disservice by indoctrinating them with their religion. How nonsensical and dangerous in particular the fundamentalist American Christians and ditto Muslims are. That is the main message of the book, but those who feel targeted prefer to focus on the "does a god exist" business, thinking that gets them off the hook, despite the fact that Dawkins never claims that no god exists. --RenniePet (talk) 20:18, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Just a friendly reminder. This is not a forum on the book or Dawkins, but a place to discuss edits to the article. Thanks. Barte (talk) 22:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, you're right of course. But it irritates me that 90% (my estimate) of the editing and re-editing of this article concerns the specious controversy, "did Dawkins succeed in disproving the existence of a god?" - "no he didn't, this and this and this world-famous and widely respected scientist, philosopher, religious specialist, etc. has shot Dawkins' argument full of holes" - "no, that person is not world-famous and respected" - "yes, he is" - "no, he isn't".
It's all an exercise in avoiding the real issues. 90% of the book (my estimate again) has nothing to do with the existence of a god, it's a criticism of people's belief in one particular God (well, three, counting the Jewish and Muslim versions). So why are almost all the editing controversies about the non-issue (Dawkins never even claims there is no god), while nobody talks about the real issues, like Dawkins' claim that it is child abuse when parents indoctrinate their children in their religion? --RenniePet (talk) 22:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, we are established editors and know the rules. :) I agree with much of what RenniePet has to say as regards the article (child indoctrination etc) and these points should receive greater emphasis IMHO. I was only making the point that, as an academic, Dawkins would find it impossible to state outrightly that God does not exist (despite holding this opinion in various of his newspaper editorials). I know this because this is what I was taught to do when studying for my degree i.e. we shouldn't claim to have "proven" or "disproven" any theory because our so-called evidence can always be overturned by future research. The proper thing to say would be along the lines of "the evidence strongly/weakly supports the theory" which, overall, are a form of weasel words but has to be carried out in that way nevertheless. This explains why Dawkins frequently refers to and emphasises the "improbability" of God's existence while intellectually admitting the possibility of God's existence being proved one day, it's really a form of scientific weasel-wording. Unfortunately we cannot make this point in the article because it would count as original research. But on the whole I agree with RenniePet's points that the book covers much more than the issue of God's existence.
Don't get me wrong, I read the book but wasn't much impressed by the overall quality of the arguments. This is probably why he has been criticised by religionists and atheists alike, as the criticism section shows. This section is important to remain in the article I think. Ekantik talk 00:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The wrangling is pointless. This article is supposed to be an objective piece on a book about the non-existence of God. Therefore any arguments about the MERITS of such an argument are outwith the remit of the article. I see sense to allow quotation of the general response to the book in the form of quotes and citations, but any argument about the veracity of the book's stance is utterly and undeniably irrelevant.

The article is not called "Scientific proof that God doesn't exist". This article is not here to subjectively debate the veracity of the book. Go join a forum of your persuasion if you want to kick that football about.

It would be equally intolerable to let atheists vandalise and sabotage an article on a theist book. Stick to the remit or this article will just become a dud.

Legal obstacles

'In Turkey, as of late November, 2007, a prosecutor has launched a probe into whether The God Delusion is "an attack on religious values".'

Hmm... I wonder.

Of course it is an attack on religious values, and a wonderful/neccesary one at that. These book-banning nit-wits make Dawkin's case for him, anyway - a bit like the Catholic League trying to boycott The Golden Compass 'because it might lead children to read the book'. I hope Turkish people get The God Delusion, and I hope for a flourishing of atheism in a country gripped by irrationality. The Muslim countries are where reason and secularism are most needed.

Above created 17:30, 29 November 2007 by 84.13.156.36

I created that section yesterday, and now I'm wondering about a couple of things.
  • It should probably not be under "Critical reception". But where should it be? (I do think there should be something in the article about this.)
  • Also "Legal obstacles" is probably not such a good header. How about "Legal consequences"?
It'll be interesting to see what happens, especially considering that Turkey is trying to become an EU member. --RenniePet (talk) 16:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I live in Turkey and I'm reading it right now.. --Armanalp (talk) 08:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Renowned

I didn't want to make edits to the opening paragraph willy-nilly, cause i know a lot of people are working hard to get this page back on its feet. I just think that Dawkins should be called a renowned atheist and biologist, since, for the purposes of this book, it is more central that he is an atheist as opposed to a biologist.D-rew (talk) 23:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


Well, by his own account, he's not *quite* an atheist, and he certainly is a biologist. He explicitly points out that he is an agnostic (page 73,74 of my paperback edition). Admittedly, only he is "agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies...". Anyhow, atheist is not strictly correct, so even if we leave it in, it should certainly not be in the first position. Gpkh (talk) 00:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion about Dawkins' response

I think this article would benefit more by including a summary of Dawkins' responses to criticism of this book. Simply stating that he has done so in the 2007 paperback edition is not good Wikipedia practice and sounds more like an advertisement to go out and buy the new version. So I suggest that a summary of the response would benefit the article greatly. Thanks, Ekantik talk 23:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Since nobody has taken the time to do this, I have taken the trouble of borrowing the 2007 paperback edition from a local library since I want to blog some reviews about it anyway. As I go through the text, I will update this article accordingly. Ekantik talk 22:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

Hi, I will be GA reviewing The God Delusion. I have not read the article yet so expect about two days before I write my review. Note that the article should conform to Wikipedia:Layout: it doesn't now. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've read the article and it is reasonably good. Overall, the article could do with a good copy edit. The article is quite disjointed. For example, three paragraphs begin with "Chapter 5 explores...", "In chapter 6..." and "Dawkins devotes chapter 9..." as if this article is going to present a chapter-by-chapter analysis/critique of the book. But the article doesn't, only those chapters are referred to by name. Almost all of the sub-headings could be eliminated and the text re-organized for a much better read. Contributing editors should refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Layout, and Wikipedia:Writing better articles. I think there are too many external links per Wikipedia:External links. The reference section / citations are not consistently formatted. For example, The God Delusion is used as a source in ref 1, 11 to 14, 15 to 16, and 19, yet all are formatted differently. Several books have been published about The God Delusion - they are listed in the 'See Also' - but do not seem to have been used at all in the citatons. All the sources seem to be on-line newspapers, book reviews and websites. For example, rather than reading and citing The Dawkins Delusion?, an op ed is cited - see ref 27 - and poorly cited at that as the publisher and date are not given. Likewise, no citations come from God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, or The End of Faith but are instead appear combined in a magazine article as references 8 or a blog entry in reference 9. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Fail

The God Delusion fails the Good Article criteria: see Wikipedia:Good article criteria. Specifically, it fails 1 (a) and (b). It is not well written, and does not comply with style guides. It also fails 5, as the article is not stable. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

'See Also' section

The 'See Also' section could be eliminated. It is functioning as a list and should become a list. The "See Also" section should conform to WP policy: see Wikipedia:Guide to layout#See also and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#The "See also" section. The relevant bits of text are:

The "See also" section provides an additional list of internal links to other articles in Wikipedia that are related to this one as a navigational aid, and it should ideally not repeat links already present in the article or link to pages that do not exist. Mostly, topics related to an article should be included within the text of the article as free links.

and

There may be a "See also" section which can include:

The "See Also" section should have links that can not possibly be fit into the text of the article but that may cause a reader confusion. But it is not a substitute 'List'. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The 'see also' section should be eliminated by incorporating it into the body of text or turned into a stand alone list.
Related work — sharing Dawkins' view
Related work — responding to the God Delusion
Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation formats

Please format citations and further reading with the proper templates: see Wikipedia:Citation templates. At least, ensure that the citation is complete with author, title, publisher, date and page number. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Review Review

Hi, I will be reviewing the GA review of The God Delusion. I have not yet recovered from the initial shock, but I'll be back sooner or later. Cheers! --RenniePet (talk) 03:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, first off, thank you to Wassupwestcoast, the effort you put in is appreciated. (Really, seriously.)
Question: When you say the article fails because it's not stable, what the hell do you suggest, considering that this is a controversial subject? There are hundreds of Wikipedia editors who want to paint this book in as negative a way as possible, and hundreds others who want to praise it to the heavens (er, skies), and they will never reach consensus. Never.
Anyway, thanks for your time. Cheers! --RenniePet (talk) 03:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I realize that it is a bit of a catch-22 - being both stable and controversial - but some articles that seem controversial have made it all the way to FA: see Intelligent Design, Evolution and Charles Darwin. So, it is possible! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Grammar

This article suffers from an inconsistency in regards to punctuation/grammar. There are various statements along the lines of "Dawkins's scholarship", "Dawkins's knowledge" and so on. These should be replaced with "Dawkins' scholarship" and "Dawkins' knowledge" respectively across the board. The reason is simple: The latter method is correct English grammar. Ekantik talk 22:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed the Dawkins's issue. Three remain, because they are in quotations. Note that "Dawkins's" is not incorrect (either form is allowed) - but I do agree with you that the shorter version is much nicer, and that's why I have made the corrections. Snalwibma (talk) 23:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Checking apostrophe, which is where the MOS referred me on points like this, as Snalwibma says the 's is optional for possessives ending in 's' (i.e. "Dawkins' scholarship and Dawkins's scholarship" are equally acceptable, grammatically). The deciding factor is which sounds better in spoken English. In my mind, Dawkinz-z is awkward, while Dawkinz is much preferred. As it's optional, we can decide and then edit appropriately. My preference is for a single apostrophe after the 's' with no succeeding 's'. Dawkins' scholarship, Dawkins' knowledge. Looks neater too, more professional to my eye. WLU (talk) 16:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I agree. Dawkins', not Dawkins's. --RenniePet (talk) 17:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Done, will fix. WLU (talk) 17:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
WLU has quite rightly left the Dawkins's form in place for quotations. Would it be preferable to have the [sic] comment (or some other note to editors) as hidden text? There's sometimes a sense of criticism attached to the word these days, although historically it's quite neutral. --Old Moonraker (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Much better! Done. The three occurrences of "sic" are now turned into hidden comments. Snalwibma (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree, I think we ought to use Dawkins's; it is much more common in British English (the author's native), and Dawkins himself always employs s's, right throughout The God Delusion. Also, [sic] should indicate only grammatical incorrectness, which Dawkins's certainly is not; therefore, I also propose that this addendum be removed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam Dinan (talk • contribs) 19:15 29 January 2008
[sic], in my understanding, is that it's a matter of retaining original formatting in a quotation. Given the rest of the page not having the s's form, it's defensible, but I'd say having them as invisible comments is fine. To Adam, the current consensus is for the s' version, but I'd say some good sources backing your version could be convincing, particularly given WP:ENGVAR. Right now though, it looks like there's enough support for s' to leave it up. WLU (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
[sic], according to http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/usage/sic?view=uk indicates a "spelling or grammatical anomaly", which the word Dawkins's is not. With regards to sources for British-English usage, I am relating to personal experience, and so I do need other users to support my claim if it is to be changed. I would, however, note that British organisation 'The Apostrophe Protection Society' (ref: http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/) advocate the use of s's Adam Dinan (talk) 20:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(undent) The Oxford Guide to Style (Hart's Rules) says "No single rule governs the possessive form of singular nouns that end in s. Euphony is the overriding concern." (2002 edition, page 113). I am aware (but I have no source to hand) that a common practice is to add apostrophe-s for a word ending with an unvoiced S sound, but just an apostrophe for one ending in a voiced Z sound. So bus's and miss's, but scabies' and Dawkins'. House style for several publishers certainly recommends this approach. Snalwibma (talk) 22:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

-s' Is typically used for biblical figures especially Jesus, such as 'Jesus' teachings'.

Very well written

I'm no scholar but this is a quality Wiki article. I have not read the book so most everything I read in the article was new to me. The criticisms are well written too and the choice(s) of critics was good too (not just people saying Dawkins leads to herpes). You get to read what the critics say and how Dawkins responded which allows the reader to come to their own conclusions. Nice work. Angry Christian (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Overview and main themes section

Would this section not be better titled as 'synopsis' (a more concise name), and perhaps rewritten in chapter by chapter style? Looking at it a bit closer it is quite similar (especially chapter 5 onwards), though it reminds me of a similar section in Darwin's Dangerous Idea ('Central concepts'), the style of which seems conducive to omissions. If we do it chapter by chapter, it's a lot harder to leave anything important out, and also doubles as a list of chapters in the book. Richard001 (talk) 02:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Try WP:BOOK for more guidance. WLU (talk) 20:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm roughly familiar with that. Is there anything in particular you're referring to?
I think the 'dedication' section I added should definitely be merged into another section. Richard001 (talk) 01:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Not really, I just know where to go : )
I've never seen the footnote used in that way by the way, I turned it into a quote but I don't think it turned out. I can see why you would want to use a footnote, but is there something else we could do instead? Otherwise the refs section interpserses actual references with quotations from the book. Could use the | quote = field in the {{cite book}} template. WLU (talk) 02:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, that's not so good because one quote is by Adams at the start of the book ('In memoriam'), while the other is a quote by Dawkins in the middle of the book. Richard001 (talk) 03:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I've merged this section with the one below now. Richard001 (talk) 04:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Meh, I'm not convinced we need the quote at all actually. Just saying it is dedicated to Adams seems enough to me without the need for a verbatim section but not enough to assert my version is better than yours. I'm also unhappy with the multiple footnotes to TGD as a reference but to different pages. Perhaps the harvard system would be better but I'm not sure how to do that. WLU (talk) 16:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't really mind if the footnote goes either, it's just something extra that adds a little info without overburdening the main body of the article. I don't think you can mix Harvard refs with numbered ones though, so sticking with numbers will probably be the best approach unless we want the article packed with names and dates in brackets. Richard001 (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

PRJS

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 20:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Quality of article maintenance

I've only been watching this for a short time, but since my last edit to the article there have been several bad ones that just haven't been reverted. There's no point working on articles if people are going to do such a shitty job of maintaining them. Richard001 (talk) 06:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I've repaired the recent damage. I'd feel better if I knew someone was maintaining the article, even though I suspect a few people are informally doing so. I'd also have someone more specific to complain to. But what can you do. Richard001 (talk) 07:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
This article is on my watch list, but I must admit that there are so many edits, vandalism, reverting vandalism, changing things one way, disputes, changing back again, that I usually can't be bothered getting involved. Sigh. --RenniePet (talk) 10:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
That, I think, is one of the main problems with Wikipedia. Even with the articles where a few people are actually watching them regularly, they still don't feel like they're responsible for the article, so vandalism and such still finds its way through. For an article like this you really need two or three people seriously watching it with the intent to inspect every edit and let in nothing that isn't an improvement. But as I said, what can you do? Richard001 (talk) 07:10, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Which is precisely why we need Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions and Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Quality versions to be implemented as soon as possible. --Merzul (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Translated editions

User:Dylanpack added pictures of translated editions, which can be seen in this version of the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_God_Delusion&oldid=200306479

I kind of liked it. But they were promptly deleted. Is there any standard for showing or not showing the covers of translated editions in Wikipedia articles about books? --RenniePet (talk) 16:08, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen it before on a book page, and thought it looked awful. WP:BOOK might have guidance on the subject, but a whole set of cover images seems odd to me. The Lord of the Rings, I believe a featured article, has several examples of the same books with multiple titles, in the book infobox. That would be nicer to me, neater and more organized. However, for a counter-point, I believe Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy has several covers in the page itself, and I think it's also a FA. If others prefer it, I'm willing to be over-ruled, but I've other preferences for the use of the covers. Is it really encyclopedic in my mind, unless it's the cover for every single version on the planet. WLU (talk) 00:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Vocal atheist?

See this diff. I think there's merit to making Dawkins' atheism present in the lead, I liked vocal because I thought it would be acceptable to both 'pro' and 'con' contributors. Does anyone else have any opinions on the matter? WLU (talk) 00:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it works. That Dawkins is an atheist is abundantly obvious from the article. His title here should match his professional credentials--the one presumably listed on his business card. Barte (talk) 06:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
As I pointed out when I reverted the original edit, I don't like it. Although I could, of course, live with it, if that's the majority opinion. To me it sounds negative, like saying RD is hysterical about his atheism. Also, being vocal doesn't make anyone's position or arguments more convincing; someone who is totally crazy can be very vocal - so what? It's the fact that he is a renowned scientist that gives his opinions more weight (although not with his detractors). --RenniePet (talk) 17:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
"renowned scientist", as having done what? No kidding, I have no idea what he has contributed to science. Did he discover anything in terms of hard science, or are you speaking of political events that make him famous? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.103.31.116 (talk) 03:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
It's a moot point. The phrase "renowned scientist" doesn't appear in the article, and no one is proposing that it should.Barte (talk) 18:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

GA advice

The recommendation was to cut a few of the headings... let's do that. I will simplify the synopsis even more. Many reviewers, notably Krauss, split it into two parts, the stuff about God, which he didn't like, and the stuff about religion, which he agreed with. This is a fairly nice split I think. Uhm, I changed quite a bit, so I should now give it a rest. Let's revert and discuss. ;) --Merzul (talk) 01:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


Let's see what to do about the GA review then:

  • Overall, the article could do with a good copy edit. The article is quite disjointed.
  • For example, three paragraphs begin with "Chapter 5 explores...", "In chapter 6..." and "Dawkins devotes chapter 9..." as if this article is going to present a chapter-by-chapter analysis/critique of the book. But the article doesn't, only those chapters are referred to by name.
    •  Fixed. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Almost all of the sub-headings could be eliminated and the text re-organized for a much better read. Contributing editors should refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Layout, and Wikipedia:Writing better articles.
    • A few headings have been joined. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
    • would like "Philosophical objections" and "Dawkins' scholarship" to be merged. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I think there are too many external links per Wikipedia:External links.
  • The reference section / citations are not consistently formatted. For example, The God Delusion is used as a source in ref 1, 11 to 14, 15 to 16, and 19, yet all are formatted differently.
    • We need to think of how we want to ref TGD, some of them are easy to fix; but "ref 1" is the preface, which has a convenience link. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Several books have been published about The God Delusion - they are listed in the 'See Also' - but do not seem to have been used at all in the citatons. All the sources seem to be on-line newspapers, book reviews and websites.
    • Hmm... Book rebuttals are indeed not mentioned here. However, it is a mistake to think books are more reliable than reviews. Anyone can write a book, and get it published. The reviews, appearing in Nature and Science, are the most reliable sources here. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Red X Won't fix. I thought about it, and I would suggest that we do not follow this advice. Our goal is not to present here a case for or against the book. We are not concerned with whether what Dawkins wrote there is true or false. The section should be about the critical reception of the book, and news sources are the most suitable material for that. --Merzul (talk) 16:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • For example, rather than reading and citing The Dawkins Delusion?, an op ed is cited - see ref 27 - and poorly cited at that as the publisher and date are not given.
    •  Fixed. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Likewise, no citations come from God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, or The End of Faith but are instead appear combined in a magazine article as references 8 or a blog entry in reference 9.
    • Red X Won't fix. I don't see why there should be any citations from these books, especially since End of Faith was written before TGD, they are mentioned to provide context. I don't see any problem with that. --Merzul (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:Cognitive science literature

The assertion that belief in God is a delusion clearly would fall under that field, but does Dawkins or his publisher classify this as cognitive science? I have no opinion on this matter one way or the other, because I wouldn't file it as cognitive science literature, but this book is not the only such book, so I've raised the question here. What do you think? --Merzul (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

When Dawkins says:

"He asks, "would you commit murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed?" He argues that very few people would answer "yes", undermining the claim that religion is needed to make us behave morally."

I think this is to an extent true, but I would like you to visit 4chan and come back to me. I'm waiting... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.184.25.146 (talk) 09:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Magick and the origin of God

Magick has been around for millions of years. Don't expect it to just roll over and die. It ain't gonna happen. Magick is very, very, powerful. That is why it has lasted. Magick presents an immediate (sometimes disguised as mystic or spiritual) solution to the mystery of the unknown that requires little or no critical research. Magick was used to empower humanity with improvement and to achieve a clearer picture of humanity's place in the cosmos, LONG BEFORE the concept of critical science. Tales of heroism, goodness and faith endure and easily become sacred within the human heart. Morality has been taught through stories. According to the popular historian Will Durant, "There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion." (The Durant quote DID NOT say religion was necessary for morality. It stated religion was an AID to morality. There is a difference.) Kazuba (talk) 18:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Has this any relation to improving the article? Remember, verification is needed with sources which discuss the book, not eminent historians whose views you think are sort of applicable – that way lies WP:OR. . . dave souza, talk 20:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC) (
eminent historians whose views you think are sort of applicable?)Kazuba (talk) 20:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any reliable sources here, or discussion even remotely related to the article. Wikipedia is not a forum, so please suggest a change or improvement or cease posting. WLU (talk) 20:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Praise

I would like to praise this article for being well written, clear and scrupulously fair to all sides of the argument about this book (a difficult feat given the emotive nature of the subject). For me, this is Wikipedia at its best. Well done and thank you. ThePeg (talk) 18:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Capital 'G'?

This article starts with God spelled with a lower case 'g', but for the rest of it this word is written with the first letter in upper case. An editor has justified that by definding God as an abstract concept (see history). But this is a matter of debate. Since most monotheists would defind God as a personal being (whether is actual or fictional), God should be spelled like a conventional person's name. Dawkins, unlike others (eg. Christopher Hitchens) uses the upper-case spelling, since he mainly attacks the doctrines of monotheistic religions.--79.131.96.66 (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

RV again, then noticed that a discussion was under way here: should have read this first, sorry. I don't deny that most monotheists would use a capital for "God", but the point is that the atheist doesn't have a belief in any of the gods of the monotheist religions (or any of the gods of pantheistic polytheistic religions for that matter). It seems unnecessarily reverential to apply a capital to an entity which, in the view of the atheist, doesn't exist. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
My point is that a person's name should start with an upper-case letter, and therefore God would fit this category even if you think of him as a fictional character. You wouldn't spell Achilles in lower case, not even Zeus. But you are right to use the lower-case spelling at this case (which means I was wrong), but for a totally different reason: there is an indefinite article (...a god), which justifies the abstract use of the term at this time.[I am the above user, but my IP varies].--87.203.95.100 (talk) 21:56, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. --Old Moonraker (talk) 22:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

# of Pages

If anyone knows the # of pages they should add it to the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.140.183.226 (talk) 03:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The Prohlep saga

I'm organising all sections related to this disagreement under a single heading, largely due to prohlep's tendency to make a new top-level heading every time he comments. I'm dismayed to note that this section contains over half the text on this page. Ilkali (talk) 12:04, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Ilkali, but I'm collapsing it. Prohlep is welcome to restate his objection in a manner compliant with talk page policy. Thanks, Merzul (talk) 20:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC).
And I have just moved the latest contribution from Prohlep to the end of the collapsed section. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 07:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


Be polite, Assume good faith, No personal attacks, Be welcoming, No original research, Neutral point of view, Verifiability

You can read the warning at the top of the discussion page: Be polite, Assume good faith, No personal attacks, Be welcoming, No original research, Neutral point of view, Verifiability.

But user:Snalwibma forgot to apply these 7 rules above.

  • Be polite: there is no reasoning for the revert neither in the history (Reverted edits by Prohlep (talk) to last version by PelleSmith), nore here on the discussion page, nore at my personal talk page. This kind of reverting is not polite in the direction of the article and its content, suggesting that you have no kind of good reason to do the revert, and hence the only way to protect the content is what you did.
  • Assume good faith: you forgot to assume my goodwill, you forgot to think over what else could be written instead what I did, or you are not in picture with the outcome of the debate, what you wanted to vanish in panic speed. In fact, what I put there was the most possible and defensive solution in order (1) not to mislead the readers of the encyclopedia, (2) still remain as polite as possible. All the adults are responsible for correctly inform the readers, hence the introduction must contain at least one of the most important debates, otherwies the reader may think, that there is only a marginal problem, mentioned somewhere much later in a longish article of 47 kB.
  • No personal attacks: while I did not do any personal attack, I added well documented and verifiable facts in a very very polite way, you applied your own private opinion in order to vanish one of the really important and verifiable facts, and you put my name into the history comment as if I made some sort of bad thing needed to revert in a few minutes as fast as possible, and as if you were a perfect angle who protect the page against incorrect extending. So you personally attacked my goodwill.
  • Be welcoming: none of the above and the followings can be considered as a welcoming of me, who is primarily informed why and how the time and the scene of the debate was chosen.


  • No original research: obviously there was no original research in the single paragraph what I added.
  • Neutral point of view: obviously not the neutral point of view, that the string "Lennox" can't be found on this page. Hence my paragraph is necessary, otherwise we have to insert the template:POW on the top of this article. In fact, this debate in question, what you wanted to vanish is so essential, that it must be mentioned just in the introductory abstract part of the article.
  • Verifiability: see the resources, the paragraph I inserted is based on the official site of the author of the book!m and the rest in the footnotes are directly from Lennox, see the footnotes.
OK, user:Snalwibma, now I give you 10 days, and when I return from the international competition in mathematics, I will check whether you put back this debate of central role, into the introductory abstract part of the article. If not, then I will put there the template for alerting the readers, or I will do other steps toward the neutrality.

For your comfort, here is the paragraph in question:

As of the 4th of October 2007, after a longish awaiting [1], Richard-Dawkins (Fellow of the Royal Society, Charles Simonyi Chair, Oxford University) had finally a debate [2] with John-Lennox (MA, MA, Ph.D., D.Phil., D.Sc., Reader in Mathematics and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, Green College, University of Oxford), but far away from Oxford [3], in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. The outcome of this debate can be best judged[4] on the base of the original recordings: Part 1 (47:28, 13.6 MB), Part 2 (44:01, 12.62 MB) and Part 3 (27:28, 7.87 MB). The impact of this debate is high, even in terms of Google seraching hits.

Good luck, you have 10 days.

prohlep (talk) 15:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Prohlep. I do not like the threat implicit in your tone, or in "you have ten days". Nonetheless, apologies for making what seemed to me an obvious reversion without explaining in detail why I was doing it. Let me now explain. I deleted that text because (1) it added nothing of substance to the article; (2) it was very poorly written and hard to decipher; (3) it was repetitive, both within itself and of material already in the article; (4) whatever about the merit of including a reference to Lennox elsewhere in the article (between zero and very low, IMHO) it certainly does not belong in the lead; (5) it was expressed in terms suggestive of original research ("the outcome of this debate can be best judged on the base of...", etc.); (6) it looked very like an attempt to push a point of view; (7) do you want me to go on? SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 16:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, I would suggest that in future you use diffs to show what you're talking about. Secondly, in my opinion, your contribution suffers from a number of problems:
  • POV issues (eg "the impact of this debate is high").
  • Unencyclopedic style (eg "longish", direct embedded links to video).
  • Non-reference references. References are not footnotes. They must direct the reader to independent information that substantiates the claim they follow.
  • Unclear notability. The text doesn't even describe the topic of the debate, and it's certainly not the first that Dawkins has engaged in. Why should it occupy so much space in the lead?
  • Poor English (eg "It is a fact, that [...]", "after a longish awaiting", "had finally a debate").
Most of these can be addressed with minor changes, but the notability concern is a major one. Besides all that, I would suggest that you take a more charitable interpretation of Snalwibma's actions. It was perhaps wrong not to give an edit summary, but ranting about it and making such unfavorable inferences only risks escalating the situation. Regardless, I thank you for bringing the matter to the talk page for discussion. Ilkali (talk) 16:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree for the reasons outlined above. The paragraph is not up to Wikipedia standards. Barte (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I also agree. So, now what? We have ten more days... Merzul (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the paragraph now deleted was certainly not up to Wikipedia standards. Possibly something short about it written from a disapassionate perspective should go later on in the article, but the reversion was correct and Prohlep's response ironically uncivil. Doug Weller (talk) 18:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Dawkins-Lennox debate

It might actually be notable: http://www.dawkinslennoxdebate.com/

Obviously, it's not lead material, but I've really wanted to have a section on Dawkins' post-publication promotional tours and campaigns. Some of it maybe belongs to the biography of Richard Dawkins, but some of it is relevant here also. Again since we have ten days, we might as well discuss this :) Merzul (talk) 18:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link--I look forward to listening to the debate. Barte (talk) 02:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers concenring the Dawkins-Lennox debate ...

... since quite a few of your opinions support my editing, even if the explicit intention was the opposite. Hence now I go sentence by sentence, and explain why quite a few of those support me, or at least demonstrates that my opposer runs sometimes into stating not valid fact.

  • it added nothing of substance to the article - OK, if it is not substantial to add, then why it is missing from the whole article, namely even at the present (20:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)) moment, the Ctrl-F FIND functionality of the worldwide accepted Gecko based browser still can not find the string "Lennox", while it is a substantial leading material, that Dawkins came out not as an obvious winner from the debate with Lennox. Naturally, in the article itself I was much-much more polite, I did not mention any evaluation, instead I simply encouraged the reader to see the video as a primary resource, what can be found, where?, you see, on a Dawkins-friendly website! I think, this case I was much more fair, than needed. I could simply put there the evaluations with dozens of primary resource-references. I did not do that. I was really polite and defensive.
  • it was very poorly written and hard to decipher - even if someone is out of real deletion arguments, even then it is a poor reasoning, that something is poorly written. Perhaps this answer could be a call for contribution, that please whose native language is the Englis, please polish the paragraph in question. But why to delete, if your second problem was my poor English? You do not need to apologize, I do not need to be proud of having good English, I have quite a few other more important goals to satisfy, say just one example: developing of automatic notion recognition, generation and language expansion with the notion automatically recognized, - this is the real bottleneck today of the artificial intelligence, that's the real reason, why the mankind got stock with AI.
  • it was repetitive, both within itself and of material already in the article - this supports my feeling, that you are not in real picture, what is really in the article, and what is in your mind about the article. See above, even the string "Lennox" is missing form the article!
  • whatever about the merit of including a reference to Lennox elsewhere in the article (between zero and very low, IMHO) it certainly does not belong in the lead - a LEAD can be misLEADing, if it does not LEAD the reader into the direction of the whole truth, instead it misLEADs the reader to the POV-alike half of the truth. Reading the stub-lead what you prefer, tells the reader, that (1) there is an academically highly accepted professor, (2) there is a book ..., and immediately a citation, that "... When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.", an explicit offensive sentence against the wast amount of religious people around the world, not only Christians, Muslims, but in overall "religion"., and finally (3) this book has a huge celebration all around the world, millions of copies sold and so on. This intro itself is enough to put {{POV}} classification on the artcile.

In the 44 years under communist pressure in Hungary we suffered a lot from the scientific atheism forced by the communists, and this and other similar articles on the English wikipedia remember me for exactly the same approach what the communists pushed: the science proved this, the science proved that, and so on, while we know from the Theory of Knowledge, that the science can not support none of the religions, including the both of Christianity and atheism. OK, I know, many of the atheists suffer from the delusion that atheism is logically and scientifically based, that atheism is not a religion. What can we do? The minimum is to inform the reader in the LEAD, that huge portion of the mankind thinks that what in the book is, simply an atheistic speculation but not a clean science in opposite to the tune of the current stub-LEAD.

I have quite a few clever atheist friends, who know that atheism is their believe, and their believe is a result of rational speculation, but not the consequence of scientific truths.

OK, I understand, that my warning had angry tune, but sometimes I am tired to star over from ground level again and again, and this situation was a surprise for me here on the English site, I simply expected a bit higher level.

OK, I understand, that if someone had no possibility to enjoy the communism, then that person missed to possibility to understand, what atheism really means. Aggressive communist propaganda helped us to understand the real nature of the connection between atheism and natural sciences. Why?, because the aggressivity rarely clever enough to hide the insufficiencies in the reasoning. Hence if someone kept the eyes open, could learn where are the gaps starting from natural sciences arriving to atheism.

Do you realize, how defensive and polite my paragraph was?

I did not mention anything about these fundamental problems!

  • it was expressed in terms suggestive of original research ("the outcome of this debate can be best judged on the base of...", etc.) - could you read your sentences again? Do your realise now, that that your second sentence is a refutation of your first sentence. Hence there is no need to answer it, you gave my answer, you only have to read yourself, that is my answer! For those, who do not know, what is at the there dots, here it is: on the base of the original recordings, and there I did not put any kind of opinion! Probably you think, that if we offer an original primary resource of the facts, than it is an original research. But better, if you yourself read the link what you offered me, the full name of it is Wikipedia:No original research.
  • it looked very like an attempt to push a point of view - sound good, but the opposite is the truths, see above. Scientific atheism is not an NPOV! And the stub-LEAD is clearly a promotion of scientific atheism, without balanced amount of critics, hence it is an NPOV. If your goal is to conserve this NPOV situation, then clearly an NPOV template is neded there on the article.
  • do you want me to go on? - why not? You clearly help me. You unburden my reasoning position! Let go on! SNALWIBMA, many thanks for your valuable sentences. We may end up that way, that you yourself will put back my paragraph, perhaps polishing my poor English, but basically leaving untouched the logical structure of my paragraph. Great portion of my personal friends are atheists, and I am sure, that almost all of them would put back my paragraph, just because of the fairness against the reader. My friends are atheists, but not atheist solders. Now it is your turn, who you really are.
  • I do not like the threat implicit in your tone, or in "you have ten days". - OK, I think it is a fair thing to inform you, that in the next ten days I have probably no access to internet, and I will be heavily occupied in an international jury of a mathematical competition, and hence you have 10 days to think over. And I also fairly informed you, that I am serious, and plan to make definite steps to make the situation clean. Everybody knows, that there are religious pages, and usually nobody requests, that the LEAD of the article on Bible should contain a fair amount of warning, that it is heavily questioned all over the world. However, the situation of atheism is different. The followers of atheism (including the communists) try to interpret the atheism as if it was the only supposition compatible with the contemporary natural sciences. Hence there is a continuous bias at the universities toward the atheism, since it is simply allowed everywhere and every time. It considered scientific. It considered neutral. Etc. Due to this privileges of atheism, the default is that if an opinion or article is atheistic, then it is often hided behind the science, and as a such, many uneducated people may think, that the content is some sort of absolute truth. Hence, if there is neither religious nor POV classification on the atheistic contents, then it is simply misLEADing, misinforming. We have to find a solution in order to the whole wikipedia back to serve neutral and not misLEADing information. That is exactly, what must be done after 10 days, in August. So, not this particular pages is the real question, but the proper classification of the atheistic pages.

It is a totally acceptable solution, that all the religious pages, including the atheistic pages get a one-sided classification. And then, you can make a LEAD for this Dawkins book just in the same way, as the Bible page has a one-sided LEAD. But my feeling was, that in short term, it is not feasible to make such a huge decision. Therefore my idea was to make the LEAD of this Dawkins book balanced. Otherwise the current stub-LEAD misLEADs the readers daily, even in the next 10 days! I am really defensive, because I disregard of these 10 days, while your unbalanced LEAD misLEADs the poor readers. What do you think, if quite a few of my students fail on my exams, then they mind is sharp enough to discover, that these atheistic pages are in fact one-sided? So the responsibility concerning the next generation is high, and I do not like if some of the atheist make a religious war, the 44 years of communist pressure was enough!

I am a scientist, a special kind, a mathematician. I refuse any kind of misuse of the science. My opinion is, that the clean science is not suitable to oppose none of the atheism nor any other religion. Hence the clean science is neutral. What was hard for Dawkins in debating with Lennox, that the latter is a very talented good mathematician, and Lennox neither accepts the missuse of clean science. But I was polite, and I did not mention anything in the article about this problem of Dawkins.

If you are educated in Christian sciences, then you probably know, whenever diverse kind of scientific methods were applied to testify the diverse Christian resources, the Christian resources came out with a stronger validation. Just one example: it was a trial from the historical direction, that Bethesda never existed, and hence the Bible tells a simple lie. The final result of this trial is, that today you can visit the site of the remaining parts of Bethesda!

I am on the side of clean sciences. And you?

  • I would suggest that in future you use diffs to show what you're talking about. - move your eyes please upward. There you will find two sentences: (1) For your comfort, here is the paragraph in question: (2) Good luck, you have 10 days. In between you will find the paragraph in question. Actually, that single paragraph is the result of the diff what you are missing.
  • POV issues (eg "the impact of this debate is high"). - quote the rest of my sentence plesase, and try to understand what it means. Namely the whole sentence sounds like: The impact of this debate is high, even in terms of Google seraching hits.. The meaning of it is, that at the time of writing tahat sentecne 14000, fourteen thousand hits were on the internet! That is a considerable amount of impact, not? Each of that hit reports, reacts or comments somehow that important debate. In addition to this, my schoolmate is a well accepted professor at the university in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, and his office is near to the place of the debate. In spite of this, he was not able to get a ticket to enter the huge hall of the debate. All the tickets were sold out far in advance! Hence the debate had not only a great impact after it was held, but the debate itself appeared to be interesting enough in advance.
  • Unencyclopedic style (eg "longish", direct embedded links to video). - may be you are right, but the real truth behind these words is much more uncomfortable for the atheists. Namely in spite of the fact, that the two scientist are from the same university, Oxford, Dawkins was not accessible for public debate for a longish period. An when after a longish period accepted the debate, then it had to be done far away from Oxford. You know, if I have a good scientific result, then my first goal is to present it at my university and I welcome any kind of question, debate, since I believe, that what I made is free of scientific errors. Lennox had to make nontrivial efforts to organize this debate. I understand. Lennox is a really bright brain. But the both of "longish" and "video" are encyclopedic, since if you track down, how longish Dawkins did not give opportunity for Lennox kind talents to get involved in a public debate, then you immediately will recognize, that this particular "longish" is simply a fact, a part of the history, etc. But if you wish to make my paragraph more ecyclopedic, then you have several days to insert the encyclopedic references which explain in an encyclopedic way, what is really begind the "longish". If you want to blame Dawkins, then pleas do not hesitate, go on! But keep in your mind, I did not blame Dawkins! I only provided a verifiable information for those readers, who are ready to be more precise and are ready to track down the real truth. Video, a primary resource is not encyclopedic? Interesting to know. OK, next time I will put there a reference, that in the food market the housewives were talking about the debate, that Lennox came out much better than Dawkins. Is it better for you, than pointing to the original video without giving any hint how to evaluate it?
  • Non-reference references. References are not footnotes. They must direct the reader to independent information that substantiates the claim they follow. - better if you read scientific publications, where huge portion of the references are really pointing to other written resources, but quite regularly you will find references which point to oral communication of an other scientist. My footnotes are referencing, see public oral information 4 months before the debate, everybody can track down (say asking directly form Lennox), that Lennox and me were at a conference of over 300 participants, and almost each of these huge amount of audience is a witness for the truth what I wrote. Consider the other reference as well: far away from Oxford BEG_REF the both of the writer and the his challenger are from Oxford END_REF, in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. If you wish, you can insert there a googlemap link, which shows in miles or kilometers how far away from each other the common residence city and the place of the debate are. Or you can remove the reference, and incorporate the information right into the sentence, the the two colleagues from the same university city somehow had to travel to an other continent. Interesting anyway, not? The both fact is uncomfortable for atheists, because Lennox was ready for a long time to go into a public debate at any time at any location. Dawkins was, who needed longish time and a location on an other continent. But I was polite to partially hide this information. If you find it more encyclopedic, then you can put it directly into the LEAD, because it is a raw truth, at all.
  • Unclear notability. The text doesn't even describe the topic of the debate, and it's certainly not the first that Dawkins has engaged in. Why should it occupy so much space in the lead? - well, if there is a book reasoning about something, an author and and mathematician (mathematics is the art of reasoning), the what do you think, what can be the topic of the debate? The cover of the book, or the weight of the book, or the publisher of the book, or perhaps, not entirely sure, the reasoning problems in the book? I tell you the big secret: the reasoning problems. We do not have to mention this, because in the context of this article that is the default, that the debate goes on the book. You think, that certainly not the first that Dawkins has engaged in, it is true, but probably you know, that after a few light weight debate Dawkins was not available longish for heavy weight partners. Even quite a few atheists were afraid, that the book is a bit too week in reasoning, and an easy target for experienced scientific apologists, like Lennox. For your question, whether this debate is essential or not, the answer is, that I put it into the LEAD of the article! If the reader finds this particular debate in the LEAD, then perhaps understands, that this debate is essential. I gave the same chance for you. Why should it occupy so much space in the lead? In order to make balanced of the LEAD! Otherwise the reader could think, that this book is similar to the 9th symphony of Beethoven. NO!, the content of this book is questionable in contrary to Beethoven's famous work. This book itself is a POV, but camouflaged as if the content was a logical consequence of pure sciences.

If The God Delusion had sold over 1.5 million copies and had been translated to 31 other languages. is notable enough for you, than compare these small numbers with the statistics of Bible, and then you can draw your conclusion, which resource is more notable for you. The practical truth of the Bible is tested against the everyday reality during the last two thousand years each day by billions of people. What do you think, is it notable? Any of the natural scientist would be proud, if his/her result was tested against the reality of the nature so deeply and so many times. Unclear notability? I demonstrated, that there are diverse magnitudes of notability.

But anyways, the debate in question is notable. Dawkins can not state, that he clearly won the debate. This simply makes questionable the content of the book. It must be mentioned somehow in the LEAD. And if you noticed, I only give an opportunity for the reader, if the reader is not lazy to watch the videos, then hi/her can form his/her own opinion concerning Dawkins and the book in question. I was very defensive.

  • Poor English (eg "It is a fact, that [...]", "after a longish awaiting", "had finally a debate"). - see me, poor English is less shame than poor reasoning! Poor English is not a reason for deleting, it is a reason for polishing, not?
  • I agree for the reasons outlined above. The paragraph is not up to Wikipedia standards. - does this mean, that according to the Wikipedia standards, the scientific atheism considered as a clean neutral point of view???
  • I also agree. So, now what? We have ten more days... - yes, it is enough time for all of us, including me, to cool down, and to ensure somehow the well balanced neutrality of the LEAD.
  • Possibly something short about it written from a disapassionate perspective should go later on in the article, ... - I understand: something short, later on in the article, somewhere into a dark corner of an article of length 47 kB. This is the method of the printed newspapers. The big banners tell what the editors want to program into the readers, and the small letter part of the content ward off the legal actions against the publisher. The same way, in the LEAD you want to tell your one-sided view, and if I occur her with my complain, then as a last solution, you can imagine a dark corner hidden in a very long article. Nice! But not conform with the wikipedia neutrality standards.
  • ... but the reversion was correct and Prohlep's response ironically uncivil. - We had 44 years to practice the civil shut up: "oh yes, everything is derived from the pure sciences, all the religious people are class enemy", and so on. I completely understand that it is uncivil not to shut up is the atheists make a one-sided misLEADing of the readers.

You know, the main reason why I became mathematician, that the mathematical truth was the only truth, where the communists had no tool to shut up me, even if almost all my ancestors were class enemy of the communists. They wanted to take away my right to go to secondary school. But due to my competition results in math and physics, the best secondary school of Hungary had to declare, that I will become a student there. After this, when I won again and again, but in that secondary school I got very bad marks from almost everything, except for math an physics, this is called "class fighting". Again my experience was, that the pure science is the only truth what can not be shut up. Finally, at the university I got again a very dangerous attack, it made questionable whether I can become a teaching staff at any Hungarian university. And so on. Now I am very sensitive, if the scientific truth is misused, and the scientific atheism is supported in a fraud way.

The pure science is - in a wider sense - holy for me, because that was the tool what protected me against the fighting atheist communist.

The pure science can not support any viewpoint of the world around us, neither atheism, nor the other religions.

  • Obviously, it's not lead material, but I've really wanted to have a section on Dawkins' post-publication promotional tours and campaigns. - well, to make a section you suggest is independent of the main problem, that the stub-LEAD is now one-sided. A section is not a solution for the problem of the LEAD itself.

The fundamental problem with this LEAD, that it suggests, as if a pure scientist wrote a very successful book against the stupid religions, don't forget the quotation right in the paragraph of the LEAD: "When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.". Somehow nobody wants to hide this offensive quotation into a dark corner of the lengthy article. Perhaps you noticed, that I did not remove this quotation. I did not evaluate the debate. I just mentioned it, and gave a possibility for the reader to discover the truth. That's all what I did. And somehow it made excited quite a lot of editors. Why?

Why do you think, that the debate is better to hide?

Perhaps you are not sure in the "facts" what are "cleanly derived" by the author in his famous book?

If you think, that the book is so perfect how you interpret in the LEAD, and later on, and Dawkins has so firm truth, then why are you so afraid to mention the debate without any evaluation in the LEAD?

Somehow your anxious reactions suggest, that something is odd in fact around the content of the book, and Dawkins debate success.

If you were firm, then you could accept in a relaxed way my extra paragraph into the LEAD.

Your behavior is an implicit sign that there is somewhere an essential incoherence, lack of harmony.

prohlep (talk) 01:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we will incorporate the debate by the time you're back. You said we have 10 days, it will take 9 days to read your recent post, and then we'll get to it... Merzul (talk) 02:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Prohlep - you might want to take a peek at WP:TL;DR. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 06:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
All I can extract from this rambling, barely-coherent rant is that you have a bone to pick with atheists and you want this debate to have as much prominence as possible because you think Dawkins lost it. At the very least, you need to read WP:LEAD. Ilkali (talk) 12:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Policies

OK, the situation here is familiar to me, let us see in detail.

  • Wikipedia:TL;DR = "Too long; didn't read" is an often humorous reply to someone who spent far too much time describing something, when the description could have been sufficiently clear and complete with fewer words. - I suggest to read Gödel's incompleteness theorems from the Fall of 1931. But, it is not the only article what fails to describe important, notable information, hence better if your ask a mathematician around you.

Anyways, since 1931 we know, that these theorems have an essential impact on the outcome of discussion/debates, where there is a forced limit on the length of reasoning, say the "Too long; didn't read", or the usual time limits in democratic parliaments, etc. Namely, we know, that for any reasonable rich topic and for any multiplier m, there is a true statement such that any valid reasoning proving that true statment must be m-times longer than the statement itself!

As a consequence, whenever in a debate/discussion a limit is applied, where the reading or listening to the reasoning is simply given up, then also some FALSE statement can be defended successfully!

Quite a lot of the NPOV-sensitive questions suffer from this time limit, or effort limit. As an NPOV question, in my childhood I was curious whether the God really exists, or it is only an illusion. Applying time limits (a youngster is trivially time limited because of his/her age), my impression was, that there is a collision between the contemporary results of natural sciences and the existence of God. Later, at about of the age 14 or 15, when I read the famous undergraduate text books The Feynman Lectures on Physics, then the philosophically correct and precise work of this author opened my eyes, and I as an autodidact discovered quite a lot of reasoning holes in the science based atheism! Here is no room for writing the whole story, but it took additional 20 (twenty) years for me, when I was learning really advanced mathematics and analysed the fundament of contemporary physics, and as a result today if I get that m-times longer than the statement itself time (see above), then I feel myself ready to disprove any fundamental dogmas of the scientific based atheism.

Summary: if anybody devotes the m-times longer than the statement itself time for the questions, than he/she can understand, that the clean, pure natural science does not better support the atheism, than say the Christianity.

Consequence: the accelerated life style of the last two centuries obviusly helps the people to become atheist, since they do not have enough time to devote for the fundamental questions. Instead, they simply read your one-sided LEAD, for example.

The present LEAD does not inform the reader about this stage of the contemporary science. It does not inform, that for a Christian scientist comparing to an atheistic scientist, is not a bigger problem to work on, and develop the scientific theory of evolution of big bang. The only but essential difference is that the Christian scientist has no desperate need to believe in these theories. The Christian teachers in the Hungarian secondary schools run by the church teach these theories without any religious difficulty. In contrary to this, the present LEAD paints a picture as if any scientific theory was a real problem for a well educated Christian.

I could be much-much more shorter, if you had these facts in your personal information base. I am lengthy not because of me, but because of you!

prohlep (talk) 17:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Prohlep, only a small fraction of any comment you've made here is about the content in question, with the rest being rambling complaints of supposed bias, detailed autobiographical anecdotes, or essays on irrelevant subjects. Your job here is to convince people that you are right, and thereby achieve consensus for the change you want to make. You will not do that if nobody bothers to read past your first paragraph. Ilkali (talk) 17:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for your cross editing into the middle of a partially saved sentence! OK, I continue. It makes me clear, that you first write, instead of first carefully read and interpret.
  • Wikipedia:Lead section = ... The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies that may exist. ... - THANKS VERY MUCH THAT YOU SUPPORT MY EXTENDED LEAD PROPOSAL, MANY THANKS!!!
  • All I can extract from this rambling, barely-coherent rant is that you have a bone to pick with atheists and ... - as if the atheists had no passion to derive their believe from natural sciences! I can understand the atheists, they have no supernatural fundament, therefore they make desperate efforts to get the answers for non-natural scientific question from natural sciences. It will fail forever, I can guarantee, because it is a philosophical nonsense. I did the same error, when I was young. I completely understand this stage of believe. The only thing where the atheists have right, that neither the Christianity can be derived from natural sciences. But it is well known fact even without the kind help of atheists.

Anyways, if you read the whole twice and try to analyse the structure, it will be no longer rambling, barely-coherent rant for you.

BTW, how coherent are You? First you oppose me, and second you submit that brilliant link to Wikipedia:Lead section, which makes almost obligatory for any administrator to put back my paragraph into the LEAD.

You know, Lennox is a much brighter mathematician than me, and Dawkins was informed about this danger, because the both of them are well known at their university in Oxford, and hence easy to check the intellectual reputation of the prospective partner for a debate.

This discussion is long just because the time wasters who spend my time instead of running to a library of pure mathematics an pure physics and study there for 20 years!

  • the rest being rambling complaints of supposed bias, detailed autobiographical anecdotes, or essays on irrelevant subjects.

SORRY I HAVE TO BE EXPLICIT: I have no supernatural abilities to understand the text instead of you. Just now I have described, that what you think anecdotes is simply a warning for you, if you did not spent enough time with advanced study of natural sciences, then you have a less chance to understand what is going on here. It can happen, where the other person is lost, and therefore think something totally irrelevant. READ PLEASE THE WHOLE MATERIAL.

Just an other story: the proof of the last century has an estimated length of 10 000 pages. If you have no possibility to read that proof, then you are allowed to neglect the result of that proof in any debate? READ a lot, THINK a lot!

prohlep (talk) 17:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

"Many thanks for your cross editing into the middle of a partially saved sentence!". I replied to a body of submitted text replete with signature. If you'd rather people not reply until you've submitted your entire post, can I recommend you don't make it piece-by-piece?
Anyway, it's clear to me that I can't work with you. I give up. Ilkali (talk) 18:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know the existence of the 20th century was in any doubt. Doug Weller (talk) 18:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I give up. - OK, the MediaWiki engine has not the best merging facility in case of editing collision, but this is not a reason to give up.
  • I didn't know the existence of the 20th century was in any doubt. - sorry I am not a native English speaker, and somehow hard to parse and semantically evaluate your sentence, if I know, that the only explicit reference in my text to the 20th century was "the proof of the last century". Simply I do not really match up what your complain refers to.

Yet another story, what got again the two interrupts above: List of atheists (science and technology) states, that Richard Feynman was an atheist, and if you really read the story what you don't like, then you probably remember, that the correct interpretation of the limits of physics by a famous atheist professor in physics made it clear for the thinking readers, that the atheism itself can not be derived from natural sciences. But all of these are irrelevant for you. You probably prefer Dawkins rather than the atheist professor Richard Feynman, who is a Nobel Prize holder, and widely respected because of his clean science! QED.

You do not understand the NPOV problem of the current LEAD just because you consider off topic quite a lot of relevant information. This way you blame your favorite version, since everybody can see, that you are moving on the surface only!

prohlep (talk) 18:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience and competency

prohlep (talk) 10:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Dear friends and everybody else who could be a friend but I offend!

I was not born to be a fighter, be relaxed, I do not plan to attack the article by hostile reverts.

In my close friendship there are 2 Christians (including me), 9 atheists and 1 somewhere between, but all of us mathematicians, only one computer scientist. In the last 6 years we were continuously investigating the fundamental questions of the men, the society and the mankind using email-replies. In top periods daily 160-170 not short emails, but in the long run the daily average is well above 20, including the weekends.

Somehow the situation here was surprising for me, because at the beginning I somehow projected the knowledge of my atheist friends onto this situation. As you remember, it did not fit, the tension only mounted.

Then I tried to summarize why I think the LEAD should be changed. This you could find too longish, however if I compare it to the several gigabytes of the RAW ASCII letters between these 2+9+1 friends during the last 6 years, then what I wrote it was extremely short. In fact, this is one of the reasons why your opinion did not became similar to my 9 atheist friends.

All of you are right, if something is long, then the people tend not to read it. But this is the clue in many cases for the under-information or even questionable point of personal views.

It is clear, that the context of the wikipedia is not suitable for such a longish debate, as it is still in progress between the 2+9+1 friends above.

Hence I see very low chance to convince you. In order to get a success, we had to go into a very longish common exploration of the knowledge theoretical problems of the contemporary natural sciences. I am in a very special position, namely am in a close tutor/student relation with an elder scientist (he is atheist as well), who explored that even the amount of the mathematical facts, the society has the possibility to find the proof for that facts, can depend on the trajectory of the mankind in the time-space, in other words, the mathematics is not absolute in the space-time, similarly to the time. Only the classical, nature-independent mathematics is absolute (but due to the nature-independence it is questionable to use it for exploring the question of origin), but the mathematics of the nature is relative to the path in the space-time, it is not well examined, it is the work for the future, and the research of the origin would need that future results what do not exist right now (excursion: the only other collision at an other page based on the fact, that and other editor is not really up to date, or better to say, up to future, to know the importance of the notion trajectories in the spatial-temporal space, but I decided to leave him and his favorite version alone, I have no time to teach the whole World). OK, turning back, in brief, we have informatics as a science, we have faculties of informatics as units of universities, but quite a lot of people do not notice, that we have no satisfactory definition of what does it mean one single bit piece of information, or even better: you have any kind of information channel, made by small green extraterrestrials, decide please the direction of the resulting information flow. If you had a good definition of information, then you could handle this simple silly question! The same way, we have classical physics, relativity where the notion of time got a minor enhancement, but quite a few scientist even does not detect the problem, how to define the time, when the universe is still so hot, that it is not frozen enough to have particles at all! But almost everybody feel himself/herself free to speak without any apologizing about the first tiny fraction of the first second.

In fact, the natural sciences are in a nontrivial fundamental-notion problems due to knowledge theoretical leakages of their foundation.

The natural sciences have never did the real revision of their fundamental notions, what mathematics did at around 1900 in response to the occurrence of logical antinomies. The relativity theory and quantum physics is only a partial revision of the fundamental notions. The contemporary physics is still not clean in its bases!

But, quite a lot of people are ready to found their answer for fundamental existence question, including the question of origins, on these immature natural sciences.

None of these are really important for me, because I do not hang alone in the World. I have an illusion why I am here, I have an illusion what is my mission and what is the goal of my life. You do not have to think me silly, and I can make a difference between empirically touchable things and some sort of illusion mainly mediated by the functionality of the brain. But in the same way, that people like to swim or ride, my overall impression on myself, i.e. where I am from, where I go, etc, is simply much better since I have this illusion. I feel myself in harmony in contrary to my childhood (14..35), when I suffered under the rationality of my brain.

In order to lower the tension, I decided now to give up that silly 10 days limit, and I suggest you to feel yourself free to make any kind of decision.

I ask everybody to forgive me.

prohlep (talk) 21:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't think of a way to say this without sounding rude, but it's for your own sake: look up the word "illusion" in the dictionary, and you will find you've used it incorrectly. Rather amusingly so! BillMasen (talk) 22:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Using talk pages as a soapbox

I have just reverted a long edit from User:Prohlep and left him a Level 1 warning for using the talk page as a soapbox -- his edit was simply an attack on atheism, calling it offensive, etc. Doug Weller (talk) 21:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC) And before he comes back and says the article's lead is offensive, let me make the point that offensive articles are not a problem with Wikipedia, Wikipedia is not censored and has a lot of articles that will offend someone. But adding personal viewpoints in the way Prohlep is doing is a very different thing. --Doug Weller (talk) 11:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I further archived the above, WP:FORUM, WP:NPA, etc; and it simply takes up too much space, and distracts from actually discussing something that might be relevant, the debate itself: http://www.dawkinslennoxdebate.com/ Merzul (talk) 20:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Prohlep - if you would focus on what you think should be added to the article, and leave out all the stuff about your life story, others here would be only too happy to discuss it with you. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 07:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Dawkins-Lennox redux

I listened to the debate. Unlike some that Dawkins has participated in, this one focused expressly on the book, not just the broader topic of atheism, with the participants asked to address six areas quoted directly from TGD. Sounds good on paper, but unlike a critical book or essay that (hopefully) makes a reasoned argument, the conversation was more like a bus tour. How do you summarize that? To Merzul's point, there may be room in the article to cover the considerable post-publication activities spawned by the book, and this debate could be cited there as an example. But I don't see it standing on its own....or standing out. Barte (talk) 06:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Featured on Family Guy

Now the world shall know of this book.

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.230.28.95 (talk) 08:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

  • And promtly forget about it in favour of a fart joke, given Family Guy's base audiance. There will be some that learn of the book, but as the exception; not the rule. Kalga (talk) 17:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Jesse Kilgore's suicide

Would [http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81459 this tragic case] be appropriate for mention in this article based on the source? If not, would it be if a better media outlet reported on it? PSWG1920 (talk) 21:40, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Really? Looks like unsubstantiated rubbish to me. Leave it out. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 21:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I would suggest not being presumptuous about this story. Dawkins brags in his books about converting people to Atheism. This turns out to be a tragic conversion. I would suggest holding on for now, if the story gains any traction, we could include some information. Shashamula (talk) 22:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree about the need for traction. Let's see where it goes. If, say, the AP picks up the story, I think it should be included. Barte (talk) 23:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Where does Dawkins "brag" about conversions? --Dannyno (talk) 21:52, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Dawkins discussing conversionsWapondaponda (talk) 22:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Can't say I'd bother including it - while it's a sad story, WND appears to be utterly without any journalistic credentials. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
True there are few reliable sources covering the story. However there is significant coverage in the blogosphere. We should only consider covering it if some reliable source also do so. Wapondaponda (talk) 22:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
A "tragic conversion"? how do we know he committed suicide because he "converted", assuming he did?

I would suggest reading the whole article.Wapondaponda (talk) 01:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I've read it. I'd submit that he committed suicide because his community told him that atheists were evil and worthless. Plenty of other people stop being Christians without topping themselves. BillMasen (talk) 15:05, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, he probably adopted Dawkins' view on the Moral Zeitgeist. So he is unlikely to have believed that atheists were evil. This is a quote from the article.
"He was pretty much an atheist, with no belief in the existence of God (in any form) or an afterlife or even in the concept of right or wrong," the relative wrote. "I remember him telling me that he thought that murder wasn't wrong per se, but he would never do it because of the social consequences - that was all there was - just social consequences.
Wapondaponda (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
This podcast discusses the controversy. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Extensive content about Dawkins in Anthony Flew article

The article on Anthony Flew contains a great deal on The God Delusion. Surely this page is the place for content on Dawkins? Notably, one of the editors, Khamosh) has stated:

BUT, ok, I agree to remove [the content on Dawkins] IF AND ONLY IF you could add it to the Wiki article "The god delusion". and I know you won't do that, and if you do, I'm pretty sure, Dawkins' bulldogs will remove it from the article in an hour. The reason is clear and simple: They cannot tolerate criticism like Dawkins himself (as Flew indicates in his review of the book)

which suggests that the article is being used as a WP:COAT. (Note, I have posted a similar message to the Richard Dawkins talk page.) — Hyperdeath(Talk) 10:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The article on Flew looks like a sorry mess, and a battleground - rather as the various articles on Dawkins and his books have at times looked, as people try to use them as hooks on which to hang anti-Dawkins diatribes. And if Flew has commented on The God Delusion then I agree that here would be a better place for the bulk of such material, leaving perhaps just a brief summary at Anthony Flew. But that does NOT mean that we should be blackmailed (or allow others with an interest in the Flew article to be blackmailed) into adding a load of half-digested junk here, just to get it out of the other article. Yes, there may well be a place for Flew's review of Dawkins' book here - but it should be treated in the same way as other reviews of TGD, with a brief summary, and it can not be allowed to be a hook on which to hang one editor's opinions. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 10:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Not only is it a sorry mess, but it's a viciously protected sorry mess. Whenever a modification isn't to Khamosh's liking (which, roughly speaking, is whenever an edit is made), he reverts it as "vandalism". He has even accused me of being paid to vandalize Wikipedia. — Hyperdeath(Talk) 11:50, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Flew footnote needs fix

Northfox's synopsis of Flew's critique includes a footnote that cites "Times Online", but instead links to a blog. The blog says it has reproduced Flew's article, but doesn't say where it was first published. Barte (talk) 06:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

sorry for being lazy here. I just assumed good faith of the blogger and that Flew's article was reproduced without change, but I did not verify it by looking for the original source. Northfox (talk) 14:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Where is the original source? Do you have a URL? Otherwise, it might be better just to reference the blog itself.Barte (talk) 15:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ the challenger Lennox in Oxford wanted to challenge the writer of the book much earlier. (public oral information 4 months before the debate). It is a fact, that there was a longer period without any debate with similar challengers.
  2. ^ original video resources of the debate between Dawkins and Lennox
  3. ^ the both of the writer and the his challenger are from Oxford
  4. ^ instead of an evaluation given here by the encyclopedia, better to listen the debate itself
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