Atheism Template‑class

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Atheism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of atheism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AtheismWikipedia:WikiProject AtheismTemplate:WikiProject AtheismAtheism articles Template This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. For more information and how you can help, click the [Show] link opposite: If you would like to participate, you can edit this article and visit the project page. Quick help Project's main talk page Article layout Links to atheism-related information · List of free online resources Writing about religion · Article development Citing sources · Verifying sources · About original research Assume good faith · Be civil Recent activity Core articles the "Atheism" article Articles recently added to Category:Atheism To do edit history watch purge Join WikiProject atheism and be bold. Add a userbox to your page (((User WikiProject Atheism)) or ((User WPA2))) and attract potential members. Help with articles. See this month's adopt-an-article. Help out with this to-do list. Be consistent Use a "standard" layout for atheism-related articles (see layout style, "The perfect article" and Featured articles). Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use ((WikiProject Atheism)) or see info box) Ensure atheism-related articles are members of Atheism by checking whether [[Category:Atheism]] has been added to atheism-related articles – and, where it hasn't, adding it. Maintenance, etc. Find sources for all positions of an article (see Citing sources and atheism references). Try to expand stubs. Ideas and theories about life, however, are prone to generating neologisms, so some stubs may be suitable for deletion (see deletion process). Watch the list of atheism-related articles and add to accordingly. Always write for an encyclopedia. Articles to improve Agnosticism Create Articles on notable atheists Expand an atheism stub Immediate attention State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments. False choice into False dilemma: discuss whether you are for or against this merge here Clarify references in Atheism using footnotes. Secular movement defines it as a being restricted to America in the 21st century.

There are two sidebar templates that are very similar: Template:Atheism2 and this template Template:Atheism and Irreligion Sidebar. See discussion of possible merger at Talk page of Template Talk:Atheism2 --Noleander (talk) 00:14, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The two should be merged and I will make the changes this week. EveryThingIsRelative (talk) 20:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Egyptian Liberal: I see you added a section for "Deism". Can you explain a bit more why you think that should be included in this sidebar? --Noleander (talk) 22:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've read the Deity article and its related articles, and I'd say it is borderline whether it should be in this template or not. The argument in favor of its inclusion is that Deism rejects dogmatism. The argument against its inclusion is that it explicitly recognizes that there is a God that has "that a supreme being created the universe" and " that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe". I guess the problem I have with including it is that there are many religious philosophies that acknowledge a God in a non-dogmatic way - including pantheism etc. If we were to include Deism in this sidebar, it would open the floodgates to potentially scores of other "light" religions that would have to be included in the sidebar. It may be best to limit the scope to intellectual outlooks that do not positively acknowledge the existence of a God. --Noleander (talk) 22:59, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Irreligion is an absence of, indifference towards, and/or hostility towards religion. Depending on the context, it may be understood as referring to atheism, deism, nontheism, agnosticism, ignosticism, antireligion, skepticism, freethought, or secular humanism. Being Irreligious does does mean someone how does not believe in god. some agnostics believe there could be a god but that does not make them any less irreligious than atheist. Muslims, Christian and Jews have huge differences in their idea of god, heaven, hell, and sin but they all fall under the Abrahamic Religion. -- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 08:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you are saying, but do you have any suggestion on how we can limit the size/scope of the sidebar so it doesn't get too large? In other words, what title should it have so that pantheism and deism (and many other non-dogmatic yet God-centered outlooks) are excluded? Perhaps "Anti-theism"? Please refer to the merger discussion at Template Talk:atheism2. --Noleander (talk) 13:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, If you want a sidebar like the one you describe, then it should only talk about atheism. but to make one about irreligion and not to include many other non-dogmatic yet God-centered outlooks, I think it would not be correct. -- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 21:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also: you quote two sentences from the Irreligion article: (1) "Irreligion is an absence of, indifference towards, and/or hostility towards religion"; and (2) "Depending on the context, it may be understood as referring to atheism, deism, nontheism, agnosticism, ignosticism, antireligion, skepticism, freethought, or secular humanism." The first sentence (1) is valid, and confirmed by dictionaries as a good definition of Irreligion. However, the second sentence (2) is suspect, and I see no source to support that statement. I think the second sentence would be more correct if "deism" were removed. Can you find any reliable sources (WP:RS) that include "deism" within Irreligion? --Noleander (talk) 13:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would tell you to read Scepticism and irreligion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries By Richard Henry Popkin and Arie Johan Vanderjagt and Toward a sociology of irreligion by Colin David Campbel -- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 21:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide a couple of quotes from those sources that illustrate point (2) (that deism is considered irreligious)? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 23:00, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another thought: one of the reasons this sidebar template is being proposed for merger with the Atheism sidebar template is that there are several related articles in this encycolopedia that are being edited independently, without much coherence, integration, or cooperation - namely: Atheism, Agnosticism, Irreligion, Non-theism, Criticism of religion, and Anti-religion. What is best for the encyclopedia (and its readers) - in my opinion - is to improve those articles so they acknowledge each other and link to each other in a more useful way. A single sidebar that they all share will help editors achieve that goal. Im concerned that adding articles (into the sidebar) that represent deity-based philosophies will undermine the effort to improve the relationship between those articles. --Noleander (talk) 23:04, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I completely understand what you are saying but I think that solutions is to have editors to monitor the articles to make sure that the editing that is being done is coherent -- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 21:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I wish I had more time to do so :-) --Noleander (talk) 23:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Modocc: do you have some conern with the sidebar? See discussion at Template talk:Atheism Sidebar. --Noleander (talk) 16:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as I wrote at that discussion, that the title "Atheism and Irreligion" is not appropriate, not there (and not here either). For one it marginalizes the agnostics and many freethinkers. For another, not all atheists are irreligious. In accordance with the bold revert cycle, you need some kind of consensus for this change. We can go back to the original organization and title per no consensus. Another problem I fixed with along with my original revert is that many of the articles under the title "Nontheism" were misplaced. Nontheism is not equivalent to Irreligion, because religions are more than just about believing in deity worship. That is why I moved those articles. --Modocc (talk) 17:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Doesnt the title "atheism and irreligion" mean both atheism and irreligion, inclusive? Why do you say the "A and I" title violates the notion that "not all atheists are irreligious"? Do you think the word atheism and irreligion are used synonymously sometimes? Why do you say it marginalizes agnostics (when there is a large Agnostic article group)? What definition of atheism are you using when you make these judgements? Do you think this template should fall under the purview of the Atheism project/portal? --Noleander (talk) 17:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is about wp:due, which does apply to templates. For it would be just as inappropriate to title the template "Agnostism and Irreligion" or "Naturalism and Irreligion". Again, nontheism is not irreligion, thus many of the articles under the nontheism title listed should not be listed there and can be moved directly to under the irreligion title instead. --Modocc (talk) 17:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but could you reply to my questions so I can better understand where you are coming from? --Noleander (talk) 18:05, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We do not need to give atheism greater prominence on the template, but instead we should be putting more focus on irreligion itself as I have proposed, to improve this template. Yes, your proposed title is inclusive, but irreligion is inclusive, so it is essentially redundant to add atheism to the irreligion title. Atheism and irreligion are synonymous for some, such as the american atheists, but the atheism article has a section about how atheist's can include religion. I'm fine of course, with listing atheism under irreligion here, but the atheism/nontheism series has a separate focus concerned primarily with the historical discord skeptics have had with the religions that entail deities. Also, agnostics can sometimes be more irreligous than atheists, but I guess that is sort of irrelevant. As for the portal purview question, I've no opinion on that. --Modocc (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've also noticed that this template is centered too much on atheism rather than the blanket category irreligion. Although you say not all atheists are irreligious, when characterized as the rejection of religious belief, atheism falls under irreligion. I think this is an important distinction since some theological positions wouldn't accurately fall under the category of atheism. For example, apatheism and ignosticism. Here's a few examples of said appeal to atheism:

• "a series" link goes to Category:Atheism
• Picture is a papyrus parchment with atheism written in Greek
• Bottom link goes to Portal:Atheism

Anthonyisageek (talk) 21:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't you think the "Books" section is unnecessary? Just because those are main books about atheism does not mean they should be listed to look solely as the only ones. There are other books and piece of literature that touch or focus on atheism. Modern books such as the ones listed are not the only “pro-atheist” literary sources in the word. The section of the template should be removed. It is just extra junk that is listed else ware on Wikipedia. Andrew Colvin • Talk 23:52, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was adding secularism to Related when I noticed it had been recently removed from the Nontheism category. Secularism relates to irreligion? Have I placed Secularism in the appropriate place? I see there's been discussion about secularism as a title on Template_talk:Irreligion jrun (talk) 10:40, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, the pretitle and title lines of this template read "Part of a series on Irreligion". At Talk:Nontheism#Part of a series on Irreligion - disputed, an editor raised the issue that there are nontheistic religions, which makes at least a part of the topic of nontheism somewhat incompatible with being called "irreligion". Perhaps we should re-title the template display. I think one possibility might be to delete the "Part of a series on" pretitle, and to make the title "Irreligion and Nontheism". Would that change be OK? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I dispute that the Nontheism article should be “Part of a series on Irreligion”. Given the role Nontheism plays in Unitarian Universalism, Nontheist Quakers, Religious humanism and other religious groups, placing it in “Part of a series on Irreligion” in not a NPOV. Also, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states “With some exceptions, pantheism is non-theistic, but it is not atheistic” and “Not only is pantheism not antithetical to religion, but certain religions are better understood as pantheistic rather than theistic when their doctrines are examined.”^[1] Gouncbeatduke (talk) 03:41, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure whether you saw the thread above, which is about the same thing, but I just merged them into a single thread. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree changing the title would be an improvement. I thought removing it from the series might be the best solution. When I Google Nontheism, there appears to be two groups of thought. One group claims nontheism to be a synonym of atheism, in which case it probably does not need a Wikipedia article separate from atheism. The other group uses it as an umbrella term to cover a range of thought including atheists, agnostics, Unitarian Universalism, Nontheist Quakers, Religious humanism, the Bishop John Shelby Spong flavor of the Episcopal Church, etc. The second group's definition doesn’t sound like it really fits in Irreligion. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good, thanks. I think a potential problem with removing it entirely from the template is that there are quite a few subtopics under nontheism, that really do fit with the template subject matter. On the other hand, removing any mention of a "series" from the top of the template has the same net effect of removing it from the series, and changing the title line to "Irreligion and Nontheism" accurately but succinctly describes the whole area. I'm going to wait another day or two in case anyone else objects, and if not, I'll go ahead and make that change. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]