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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by KickahaOta (talk | contribs) at 20:02, 26 June 2006 (Accuracy and sourcing of first sentence). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

This article was nominated for deletion on 2006-04-27. The result of the discussion was keep (and possibly merge).

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Importance

Ste4k wrote: Can anyone tell me the importance of this article? Please leave a message here, and I will be happy to remove the tag that I applied. Thanks!

Ste4k wrote: My questions about importance have not been satisfied. In fact they haven't even been discussed. Please use this dicussion page to come to a mutually agreeable understanding on what basis this article claims to have any importance. This article was up for debate today, and appears to have been rushed through without allowing for an adequate number of people to have the opportunity to review it. You may have had discussions about this article before, but Misplaced Pages has many new users join the effort each day and they should have the opportunity to discuss the fundemental reasons for having an article in the first place. I have read the additions since I originally applied the tag, and they are insufficient as well as unilaterally addressed. I don't see any reason to make a big issue out of this, however. Please respectfully and mutually discuss this issue before removing the importance tag. I am sure if someone can answer my concerns, that there will be ample reason for me to remove it, myself. Thanks!

Importance " Widely debated, source of a lawsuit "

Three hours in the middle of the night is not sufficient time to be drawing such conclusions. The introductory paragraph clearly elucidates the importance of the article. Widely debated, source of a lawsuit. The Importance tag is nonsense. I'll remove it. --The Editrix 14:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Ste4k wrote: I appreciate your help, TheEditrix. Are you calling my use of the Importance tag nonsense? Or are you saying that "Importance" is nonsense? Please leave maintenance tags until we can establish a consensus on such things. Ok? Thanks. :) Could you tell me if I am understanding you correctly, please? Are you saying that the lawsuit is being widely debated? or are you saying "widely debated" and "source of a lawsuit" are two different reasons why this is important? Also, do you believe that there is a reason to be removing tags without discussing them first? Is there a hurry I am unaware of? I placed the maintenance tag on the article to indicate that the matter is unresolved. Should I have placed a WP:OR tag instead? You probably have more experience than I do at these sorts of things and your opinion would be appreciated, Thank you! :)

Original Research

Ste4k wrote: During verification of the citings of this article several were found to be unverifiable.

Contradiction

Ste4k wrote:The court case referencend supports the statement that the 'ACIM' is in the public domain. However, one of the sources cited in reference (notes) clearly shows a registered trademark ( Wapnick,Gloria and Wapnick, Kenneth Ph.D. "FACIM Publication: The Most Commonly Asked Questions about ACIM®".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) pages 102-3) The cited source with the trademark is unverifiable having no reliable published source per Item 6.3. The other cited source is a New York District court which is verifiable.

You should probably do a little research before you place your tags on articles. The book in question was written prior to the court case, and there is nuance to Judge Sweet's ruling. ACIM is now in the public domain, though Foundation for A Course In Miracles still retains copyright of the sentence numbering system in the Second Edition of ACIM (there is no sentence numbering in the first edition of ACIM), as well as copyright of the section of ACIM called "Clarification of Terms," as well as all translations of ACIM into foreign languages (the translations were done under the auspices of FACIM). Your inability to understand an article does not mean the article contradicts itself. Likely, it means you haven't devoted enough attention to understanding the article. SOURCE: http://www.acim.org/news_items/copyright_news.htm

Urantia

Should be a cross-link to the Urantia Book lawsuit, which was argued on similar grounds. AnonMoos

Ste4k wrote:Go ahead and add it then, I will put in the contradict reason, and removed the 'inuse' tag when I saw your note.

The matter here is that original research does not belong in the encyclopedia.

What is stated in the first sentence is NOT what it says in those sources. We can either delete the sentence and three of the cited sources or edit the statement to reflect what the sources state.

It only matters:

1. that what is put in the article matches the sources.

2. that those sources are reliable.

Third Opinion

Hello. A request for a neutral opinion was recently posted on the Third Opinion page. I have not edited this article, nor do I have any acquaintance with any of the authors involved in the dispute; so I will provide a neutral opinion. Neither side is obliged to accept this opinion, but I hope that both sides will consider it.

The third-opinion request, in its entirety, was:

• WP:NOR (Diff) Talk Pertinent History Dispute.

Hmm. Admirably brief, if more than a bit cryptic. :)

I have carefully reviewed the diff in question, as well as the talk page.

I would remind all editors to please sign their comments on the talk page, as failure to do so can make discussions more difficult to follow. I would also remind all editors to be civil and assume good faith.

In the edit covered by the diff, the {{contradict}} and {{OR}} tags were removed.

The {{contradict}} tag is used for articles that appear to contradict themselves. After reviewing the article and the "Contradiction" discussion on the talk page, I would agree that the article does not appear to be contradictory. Some of the sources listed in the article contain contradictory details or positions, as would be expected for a controversial topic; but that does not make the article itself contradictory. As for the specific conflict mentioned in the "Contradiction" discussion, the two parties appear to be talking past each other a bit here, and the two court rulings cited in the article (the Denial of Summary Judgment and the Conclusion) do not quite resolve the matter. Copyrights and trademarks are very different beasts. The text of A Course in Miracles would be subject to copyright; the title phrase--"A Course in Miracles" itself--would be subject to trademark. The original dispute apparently included claims of both copyright and trademark violations. The Denial of Summary Judgment held that there were still genuine issues of fact to be decided as to both of them. The Conclusion held that the work was now in the public domain, meaning that it was no longer copyrighted; but it said nothing about the trademark dispute, suggesting that that issue had been dealt with at some earlier phase of the litigation, after the Denial of Summary Judgment but before the Conclusion. The fact that the work was no longer copyrighted would not necessarily mean that its title could no longer be trademarked; so it appears that additional research is needed here. But in any case, the fact that one cited source to the article claims that "A Course in Miracles" is a trademark would not make that fact true; so the article still wouldn't necessarily be contradictory.

As for the {{OR}} tag, that's used to flag possible violations of the No Original Research policy. The dispute there appears to be about a quote from Absence from Felicity concerning the authorship of the Course. A link to Amazon.com is included as a cite for this quote; when the user follows the link, Amazon.com says that the quoted text is not in the book. However, that appears to be because there are differences in punctuation between the quote that's encoded in the link and the quote that actually occurs in the book. If you use a shorter search phrase, "and as the story of the scribing is usually told", you will find that the quoted text does indeed occur in the book, at page 456. So the reference link needs to be fixed to correctly point to the text; but other than that the cite appears to be accurate, and the No Original Research policy does not appear to be violated.

I hope that this opinion is useful. I will keep this page on my watch list for a week or so; please post here if you would like me to make any additional comments. Kickaha Ota 19:17, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy and sourcing of first sentence

There is a question about the first sentence of the article that appears to have repeatedly been reverted as "vandalism". That's not appropriate, so let me throw the question back in, although in more neutral terms.

The first sentence of the article currently is: "The issue of authorship of A Course In Miracles (ACIM) has been widely debated by "students" of ACIM, as well as by theologians, philosophers, and social critics." Three sources are given for this statement (references 1, 2, and 3). Do these three sources fairly support this first sentence?

The first source begins with: "In 1965 a Jewish atheistic psychologist from Columbia University began to channel messages from a spirit she believed to be Jesus. She ultimately produced, or she says Jesus revealed to her, well over a thousand pages of revelation during the next seven years." Later on, it says "According to the dictated material, the voice of The Course was Jesus." And later still, "its followers believe it to be the revelation of Jesus." Later on, it states "We must be clear that the message of The Course in Miracles is not the message of Jesus Christ." And later still, "It is unequivocally anti-biblical and is without doubt promoted by Satanic deception."

The second source begins with "In October 1965, Helen Schucman began receiving channelled messages from a speaker who would later identify himself as Jesus Christ." It then attacks the Course on the merits; but I don't see anywhere where the article explicitly makes any other claims about the authorship of the material.

The third source -- "A Course in Miracles - Satanic inspired?" is quite clear in its point of view: "'A COURSE IN MIRACLES' was received by demonic revelation."

So the first and third sources would certainly be examples of one particular theory: that the Course is demonically or satanically inspired. The second source would appear to be of more questionable use.

I certainly don't see anything here that would suggest that the article's claim about the 'wide debate' on the matter is false. But the listed sources don't cover a very broad range of opinions either.

Perhaps more to the point, the "debate" suggested by these sources seems to go to a very different plane than the debate discussed in the article itself. The article itself appears to only cover a debate between those who believe that Jesus was literally the source of the Course, and those who believe that the 'Jesus' of the Course is only a symbol. The article doesn't discuss this alternate view taken by the three sources in the first sentence: that the Course was indeed authored by a spiritual entity, but that entity was Satan or a demon, not Jesus.

So currently, the three sources listed in the first sentence seem to cut against the thrust of the article, not support it. And it seems to me that that points out a gap in the article's coverage. Perhaps "The two perspectives" need to be broadened to three: that the Course was divinely inspired, that it was demonically inspired, and that it was simply a work of man. Kickaha Ota 20:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

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