User talk:Thepip3r

Pol Pot

You might at least have the courtesy to be consistent. First you remove "atheist" because it's unsourced; then, when it is sourced, you remove it because it's "Not a religion". Kindly make your mind up, and examine the specification for that template to find out what should go in that field. I'm not particularly keen on having my time wasted. --Rodhullandemu 08:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that "Religion" in that template is shorthand for something like "Religious position"; if Pol Pot was an atheist, then "atheist" is what should go there. It's not making any statement about Whether Atheism Is A Religion (my answer, FWIW: no, obviously it isn't), it's not part of any debate about the exact meaning of "atheist" (I'm pretty sure Pol Pot was an atheist by any reasonable definition); it's not trying to provide ammunition to the daft "Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao; therefore God exists" argument beloved of some silly proselytizers; it's just giving as informative as possible a concise definition.

It's absolutely commonplace for these infoboxen to have things like "Baptist" in the "Religion" slot. But "Baptist" is also not the name of a religion; it's the name of a particular subdivision a religion. Should those all get replaced with "Christianity"? Why, no; giving the name of the denomination is more informative. Similarly, "atheist" is more informative than "none". What exactly is the problem? Gareth McCaughan (talk) 18:04, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Gareth, I'm glad you recognize that it's not a religion and while that field is not trying to provide ammunition for the people who try to "religionize" atheism, that's exactly what it does for those people who are looking to further those arguments. Maybe the category of "religion" should be changed to "personal beliefs" or something much less definitive. At least then you include whether they were a naturalist, atheist, secular humanist, agnostic, etc without offending anyone instead of catering to the religious masses like we so often do.Thepip3r (talk) 22:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Nothing personal, but I agree that "religion" should be taken as shorthand for "religious position", and I regard "atheist" as being more strongly stated than "none"; however, it's an infobox, not a detailed argument. It's not intended to be an in-depth analysis, because if that's important enough for that, it will appear in the article. But whatever it is, it must be sourced; that's the way we work here. Regards. --Rodhullandemu 23:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"Personal beliefs" is too vague, I think. I think there's considerable value in having a field that, for religious people, tells you what their religion is. (Because it may make a big difference to how they live, or how they think of themselves, or what others think of them.) Once we've got that, we might as well use it for other things (like the difference between "atheist", "agnostic", "humanist", "takes no interest whatever in any of that stuff", etc.) that fall naturally under the same heading. And, finally, in an infobox brevity is very valuable, so "religion" wins over "religious position". In other words, I really do think that (1) calling the slot "Religion" and (2) allowing things like "atheist" in it ends up being the best option we have.

Yeah, maybe that'll make it infinitesimally easier for some twit to say "see, Pol Pot was an atheist; isn't atheism evil?"; but since, as it happens, Pol Pot *was* an atheist, it's really not a big deal. And maybe it'll slightly encourage some people to think that atheism is a religion, but I find it hard to get very worked up over that. The real problem isn't what terminology people apply to atheism, but what their actual substantive beliefs are about how atheists think. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 15:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess the field of a blanket "religion" is what I have a problem with. And with the first few lines in your post, you're only aiming to please religious people instead of everyone. My point in adding something much more ambiguous is because there are much more interesting categories to describe people with--I mentioned a few earlier but lets expand it by a few, socialist, anarchist, environmentalist, platonist, animal rights activist, etc, etc. In my opinion, if you are going to categorize something as "religion", it should stay with only religious terms. If it's terribly important (in Pol Pot's case) to have "atheist" posted on his bio, all I would suggest is to use a different term for the category--much less definitive in nature. And as was previously pointed out, if him being and atheist really had relavance, it would show up somewhere else on his page not on a miscategorized area of his bio. I do apologize for the rant gentlemen but I simply cannot agree to add information into a field where the field is not representative of the data--even if it's intended to be taken "loosely." Let me try to clarify this a bit furhter by taking it outside of our Pol Pot discussion. One of the primary reasons I cannot agree with a "religion" category in general is because, unless the person being disucssed is a minister, pope, or obviously religious towards one way or another, for many prominent people, their "religion" is solely based off of what historical text one has read. Lets take for example, Einstein and Mark Twain. Both people very famous in their own right, both people have potentially disputable entries for their "religion" category. Einstein was a deist, agnostic, Jewish (to a certain degree), and had some atheistic quotes. So then what trumps the others for the singular category? On Einstein's page, they refer to the body of the page instead of putting one. In Mark Twain's case, there is no "religion" category. In my ignorance about Wikipedia (as Pol Pot is the first and only article I've changed), I cannot say why that is. But, I'd bet anything that if I were to add a "religion" category and add "agnostic" or "atheist," a considerable storm of "back and forth" would ensue. Who is right? I can produce no less than 20 quotes throughout Mr. Clemens' life which would indicate he is either agnostic or atheist, yet he was also a FreeMason and considerable things for Presbyterian churches so, who would be right? I don't think it's a question anyone can universally answer except the people themselves and unfortunatley, the vast majority of the poeple who we're concerned with here at Wikipedia, aren't around to make their own claims. So again, I categorically don't agree with the "religion" field but I have little to no say in the matter so, I'll step down off my soap box.Thepip3r (talk) 21:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)