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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jehochman (talk | contribs) at 15:55, 3 July 2008 (→Buddhism and Christianity: Revert to pre-PHG version and restore subsequent helpful edits, if practical.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Buddhism and Christianity

Previous AfDs for this article:
Buddhism and Christianity (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article is a hopeless mess of original research and fringe theories. No information is better than wrong information. I suggest deleting and then starting from scratch. Jehochman 10:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete and start from scratch It just needs to be deleted and then restarted. --Meldshal42 (talk) 11:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak keep I don't want to see a snowball delete of what appears to be a good topic, if not a good article. If deleted, I endorse the "start from scratch" idea. I've saved it on my computer, and hope that the author(s) will have that opportunity before a deletion takes place. Mandsford (talk) 13:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep First off, just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean that it is wrong. There are many books and research out there about the connection between Buddhism and Christianity. It is not original research, in fact the article itself is filled with references. It is also not a fringe theory, many people believe in this theory which is supported in the article with all the references. --Pinkkeith (talk) 14:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Also see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Buddhist influences on Christianity which was the former name of this article. There are some good arguments why this article should be kept there. --Pinkkeith (talk) 14:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep If a topic is encyclopedic and notable, there is no established practice or guideline in the English language Misplaced Pages for deleting it so that in the future someone can create an improved version. That proposal seems more like a way of getting rid of an article which is upsetting. If it has problems, fix it. In the previous AFD, which resulkted in Keep, I said "Strong Keep This well referenced article about a notable topic has twice been placed up for deletion and twice the attempt to remove it failed. Scholars were discussing this since the late 19th century. The content has been the subject of aan ongoing edit war. Editing is preferable to deletion, and the argument that we have to delete it and start creating it again is completely nonsensical. Just keep the good parts and delete the unreferenced or POV or OR parts. There is a long scholarly history of comparative religion, taught at major universities, comparing the doctrines and beliefs of Christianity with those of Buddhism. This is an important and encyclopedic topic, but the article is obviously undergoing a polemic edit war. Those who have studied comparative religion should take a look at the article and use Misplaced Pages edit policies, and perhaps RFC to straighten out any POV edit warring going on under control using the tools available. Disruptive editors can be controlled via RFC and blocking if necessary." Edison (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Note The nominator failed to mention that this article has previously been nominated for deletion three times:* October 25, 2006, when titled Buddhist-Christian parallels. Result Keep. January 8, 2007 when the title was Christianity and Buddhism. Result No consensus. July 10, 2007, when the title was Buddhist influences on Christianity. Result Keep and the closing admin, Daniel Case noted "As the keep votes note, the topic is eminently worthy of encyclopedic attention and we have never AFAICR deleted an article just to rebuild it. In its present form, it is beginning to show a lot of promise and might well, once the major cleanup is done and it is fully sourced, be a good candidate for GA status. I do implore the keep voters to continue working on the article, though." Edison (talk) 16:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep Clearly, a great deal of time and effort went into creating this article. Its main sin is a lack of focus. It needs a good, solid rewrite -- I don't see how Misplaced Pages benefits from having it deleted. Ecoleetage (talk) 17:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep This is a really challenging topic to gather and summarize sources on, let alone stylize. Reading through the article, I don't see any WP:OR or WP:FRINGE, because to several editor's credit, each section of the article includes a whole spectrum of well-referenced statements. Clicking on section 2--Buddhism and Christianity#Christian awareness of Buddhism, one discovers the referenced quote from the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism (2004) that "speculation concerning the influence of Buddhism on the Essenes, the early Christians, and the gospels is without historical foundation." Clicking on section 4--Buddhism and Christianity#Buddhist influence, one discovers another well-referenced section with the sourced quote from Jerry H. Bentley that "the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity". Bentley observes that scholars "have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus." So in terms of WP:5P, I see the article meeting the basic standard for both our blue Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and green Misplaced Pages has a neutral point of view standard pilliars. --Firefly322 (talk) 17:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
    Comment Firefly noted refs in the article which deny a historical foundation for saying Buddhism influenced Christianity. If that is a well supported conclusion, then it would provide a negative answer to scholarly discussion in the late 19th century about possible influences. We should absolutely not be in the position here of voting as to whether we think Christianity was devinely inspired or whether Christian views owed something to pre-existing Buddhist views. The point is whether this has been a notable topic, with scholarly references in books, refereed journals and encyclopedias. If scholars over 100 years ago wrote about parallels between Christianity and Buddhism, then it cannot be original research to include it in Misplaced Pages. Edison (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
    Comment I completely agree with Edison's comment. My intention was merely to highlight the range of sourced views in the article. I tried to get one from each side of the spectrum to show that the article is balanced. --Firefly322 (talk) 18:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

KEEP- Reading this page has convinced me that there is an wreckless attempt to bury critical thinking as I cannot find one valid reason to scratch the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.117.90.80 (talk) 19:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC) This article is biases towards Christianity, for instance, one chapter is named only "Buddhist influence" in which several well respected scholars state that Christianity has been influenced by Buddhism, yet, several chapters down we find the chapter that begins, "Christian influence on Buddhism" which does not give any possible explination for what Christianities influence on Buddhism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.117.90.80 (talk) 19:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep Notable, sourcable and sourced. Throw this AfD out and block future ones. This is a waste of everyone's time, and, potentially-- eventually, some seem to hope-- a loss of a lot of perfectly good information at Misplaced Pages. Dekkappai (talk) 19:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - as someone who watched from the sidelines during that arbitration case, I would like to support Jehochman here in his concerns. His nomination is a good-faith effort to address potential problems with this article. Sometimes, just as for copyvios, you do have to start from scratch if there are deeply embedded problems. I would, however, like to see some actual problems pointed out, not just hypothetical ones. Carcharoth (talk) 21:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
    • When it has been established that an editor has engaged in a systematic pattern of misrepresenting sources, and we see here the same pattern of "Eastern thought lead/influenced Western thought" on a topic that is covered by same editor's topic ban, I believe the assumption flip flops. Note that the editor in question uses obscure resources that are not available at my local library. I am challenging the validity of the facts in this article. Those facts which cannot be verified should be removed. I believe the burden in this case must fall on those who claim that facts are accurate because Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance has created a presumption of unverifiability for this particular editor, writing on this topic, at the time the writing occurred. Jehochman 22:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Comment If User:Jehochman knew of this issue, why wasn't it stated up front in nomination argument (which as written is miserable in doing the article justice)? Moreoever, why did User:Jehochman as the nominator add a !vote? Such a stilted AfD argument, an unnecessary !vote, and then later on bringing up this PHG issue pushes this process towards that of a kangaroo court, i'm afraid. --Firefly322 (talk) 06:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
        • AfDs are dynamic, and opinions change during the course of the discussion, though I agree Jehochman should have raised this issue up front. When I first saw the article my immediate reaction was "PHG". It is just the sort of "compare and contrast" topic that he writes on, and the article name changes in the past are another red flag, of PHG trying to find somewhere to place the stuff he wants to write about. I absolutely agree that an article is needed on this topic, but unless someone will commit to going through the whole article and verifying the sources in detail (and not just that they exist, but that they have been properly represented in the article), then I am afraid the article may be misleading. A good start would be to compare the article with our articles on Buddhism and Christianity. Any differences would need to be discussed, as it is possible the editors of those articles have rejected stuff that is being allowed here. Carcharoth (talk) 07:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Looks like an interesting and well sourced subject.Biophys (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • CommentI think there is a serious with the way that very good references are mixed up with very unreliable sources and it might be better to start the page again based on the reliable sources from the old article. At the very least a very solid effort needs to be made to remove the dubious references.Coffeeassured (talk) 02:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment O, I have an idea. Quit not ready to on this article I am (as yoda might say). Looking through the diffs, I see that PHG does in fact do some weird editing. These concerns can be addressed if we revert the article back to . This version predates PHG's nonsense. --Firefly322 (talk) 15:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I'd be satisfied with that. However, several subsequent editors have made helpful additions since that time. Could we possibly identify the major helpful additions and add them onto the version you linked above? If so, the result of this discussion could be Revert to pre-PHG version and restore subsequent helpful edits, if practical. Jehochman 15:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
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