Welcome to the resume of my work-in-progress: a topical (though out-of-date) arrangement articles I've improved or created[1]
This is also a proof-of-concept for high school and college reform; an exploration of natural philosophy, ancient wisdom, and experimental science; a course of self-healing from the various intellectual and moral illnesses engendered by certain basic errors in modern thought, accumulated alongside of medieval errors left uncorrected. Subpages hold reading lists, notes, original research, and curriculums for future projects or those in-progress.[2] In the living tradition of aristotelianscholasticism, and in honor of Mortimer Adler, editor-in-chief emeritus of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. We will starting with the Sun and Moon, our two most reliable sources, and foray into the many calendrical methods that civilizations have devised for measuring time, predicting the future, and remembering the past.
הבל הבלים אמר קהלת, הבל הבלים, הכל הבל: מה יתרון לאדם בכל עמלו שיעמל תחת השמש Vanity of vanities, says Koheleth, transistory vapor.[3] What profit hath man with all his labour, wherein he laboureth, under the sun[4]
Koheleth, son of David, king in Jerusalem, the first Encyclopedist
Sun and the Moon: Signs of the Times and Seasons
וזרח השמש, ובא השמש, ואל מקומו שואף זורח הוא שם The sun dawns, and the also sun sets, and to its place glides, and there it will dawn.
The sun sets, therefore it is obviously not a god; it is clearly a subsidiary and dependent power whose (apparent) motion is determined by a higher and more universal law given by a more supreme lawgiver. If you need further proof, Isaac Newton will, at some point in the distant future, demonstrate this by irrefutable mathematical principles of natural philosophy.
We need a second great light to mark the times and to rule the night, and hence the Lunisolar calendars are more natural and powerful than mere solar calendars.
Nor will we make any graven image, for god is not a man and the poets are liars. Sculptors are poets of stone, and even if they could sculpt or paint a likeness of the sun in all its radiance (they cannot), we would be inclined to disbelieve that it is an accurate representation. These mythologies are not reliable sources. Why watch the flickering shadows cast against the wall by the idolatrous fetishes in your cave, when you could step out into the light of the sun instead? Elevate your intellect to the contemplation of that which is universal and unchanging.
Quartodeciman christians end the fast of Lent on the paschal full moon of the Hebrew calendar, in order to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread beginning after the 14th of Nisan, whence the name derives. For the practice of Passover (Christian holiday), they were excommunicated in the first Easter controversy. The orthodox catholics insisted on fasting until resurrection day, for which they appropriated the name Pascha (disambiguation), denying its original meaning as passover, for which Jesus "gave thanks" "eucharisto" at the last supper. The "catholic orthodoxy" then accused Quartodecimans (and Jewish Christians) of celebrating Pesach on the wrong day, and still do. Putting christians everywhere in a double-bind, enforced by suppressing the scriptures. Thus the sacramental invention of the eucharist became a "mystery".
"All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. 8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:7–9
Into English by s:Isagoge (Owen) 1853, and partially onto wikipedia, 3 May 2022. Since this is the most important philosophic work since Aristotle, why was it not yet on wikisource until I came by?
Porphyry introduced a subtle error that spawned the pseudo-problem of universals and thence the nominalist—realist controversy, which plagues academics on and off wikipedia to this day, in which both parties were and are ignorant of the correct understanding of ontology: universals are immanent real within particulars.
It was the scholastic movement that brought about the scientific revolution todo via the 12th century Renaissance.
Isaac Newton was a scholastic natural philosopher, as was Robert Boyle, and they authentically possessed the virtue "science" and practiced it, although they were not "scientists". Francis Bacon, Hume, and Hobbes did not practice science, did not make scientific discoveries, yet they were "scientists" in the original pejorative sense of the word, which is to say, adherents of the mechanistic philosophy (todo) which came to be known as "modern science": an agnostic or atheistic yet quasi-religious belief system that rejects essentialism (todo) and teleology, and subordinates nature to human efficiency in the interest of industrial revolution and colonial empire, and is frequently believed and promoted by many others who do not possess the virtue of science. See below: basic errors modern.
Mortimer J. Adler described Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as a "unique book in the Western tradition of moral philosophy, the only ethics that is sound, practical, and undogmatic."[5]
So-called Postmodernity is merely hyper-mediated late-capitalist modernity in its phase post-decadent despair, IMHO. The post-war Aristotelian revival is the philosophic movement with lasting significance. See below.
Cognitive Science? Alvin Plantinga shows that it is rational to believe in the real existence of God and other minds, even if it cannot be conclusively demonstrated to a determined skeptic.
Plato's Laws renounce the Spartan and Cretan Constitutions idealized in his earlier Republic
Thesis: his renunciation is probably in response to Aristotle, after "the foal" kicked his mother, rendered his criticism and left the Academy. Am I the first to claim this? It seems so obvious upon reading the primary sources: how could this be "original research"? And yet, its not found on wikipedia, and I've not encountered this from the professors of platonic philosophy. Why is that? Because they are neoplatonists fascinated by "the Republic" and don´t want to let it go, because its "noble lies" in support of proto-fascistic elitism and anti-family polyamoristic communism, form the organizational basis for their academies, monasteries, and colleges. These institutions are partial realizations of Plato's earlier ideal, and many of the professors and students don't even know this.
Someone please find a book or academic paper that argues this, cite it on the articles, and notify my talk page. How could this be WP:OR? It is so obvious.
Some background: Rhadamanthus was the legendary lawgiver of Knossos and the Cretan thalassocracy, who instituted gymnasiums and the syssitia (common meals) as a strategy of keeping his men in a state of perpetual war-readiness. This political history of ancient greece is explained by Draft:Cleinias of Crete to Megillos of Sparta and to the Athenian stranger, who is Plato's spokesperson in the dialogue. The interlocutors blame this system for the tradition of greek pederasty, at the end of book III, which they claim "corrupts natural desire" and is responsible for "civil unrest" among the youth.
Draft:Magnesia (Plato) is the replacement for Draft:Kallipolis (Plato).
Yoga Darsana vs. Advaita Vedanta
Yoga One of the six major orthodox darsanas, of Indian philosophy.
I.i This is the authoritative teaching of Yoga. I.ii Yoga is the stilling of the variations of the mind.
See also: todo, yoga has its own pramana - epistemological method, which assumes the ontology and metaphysics of the closely correlated Samkhya darsana. Avidya is given as the first of the five kleshas, the knots of affliction, and the productive field of all them that follow. (Sutra II.3) Individual life comes about through the union of purusa (spirit) and prakriti (matter). There exists a special purusha called Ishvara, which is free of all kleshas and karmas.[10]
Other Indian philosophy:
The four Purushartha, goals of life. (needs a yoga perspective)
The Arthashastra on diplomacy, war, and statecraft
Anne Harrington: In this book Harrington shows that the pathological basis of almost all mental disorders remains as unknown today as it was in 1886. Regarding the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness, she writes “Ironically, just as the public was embracing the ‘serotonin imbalance’ theory of depression, researchers were forming a new consensus” about the idea behind that theory: It was “deeply flawed and probably outright wrong.”
Gregory Bateson's theory of schizophrenia as learned helplessness and confusion in response to double-binds from authorities, incorporated into the psyche. Before theorization of post-traumatic stress disorder - relation? Also pioneered cybernetics, the study of regulatory and purposive systems. Final causes in nature?
Fascism and Absolutist Monarchy of Republic (Plato). He is blameworthy for idealizing Sparta. Some elements are praiseworthy: the Analogy of the Sun, Allegory of the Cave, Analogy of the Divided Line. But Plato must renounce, and insofar as his Laws repudiate, Plato is redeemed, Aristotle is justified, and the Macedonians are lucky.
Thirty Tyrants.
Proclus, Porphyry, Plotinus, St. Augustine, Neo-Platonism,
The so-called Rennaissance todo of ancient pornographic idolatry in the Italian art schools and plutocratic courts,[citation needed] during the 14th century, This was contemporaneous with the translation of Plato and other greek authors into Latin, and it ought to be called the "zombification" (of graeco-roman imperial mythology) instead of "the renaissance". The pornographic mythologizing was an ancient error that was refuted and rejected by christianity, for good reason. Reviving and zombifying the Roman empire is a modern error. This movement did not give us science, it gave merely gave us Modernitytodo, which is to say, style and fashion, art and literary fiction, make believe. Despite claims of the modernists, this movement did not greatly influence the church reformation or the discoveries at the heart of the scientific revolution, which were already underway due to the rediscovery of Aristotle two centuries earlier, the rise of the aristotelian scholastic university and the study of nature and of natural law.
Scientism or "modern science" was an institutional theory formulated by Francis Bacon (who discovered nothing) and developed by Hobbes, Darwin, and the evolutionary biologists and is based on a metaphysical assumption: that there are no specific essences, no knowledge of metaphysics, and no final causes, purposes, or teleology in nature, against all common sense and evidence. Mechanistic philosophy as a replacement for dogmatic church metaphysics.
The scientific revolution on the other hand, resulted from the labors of natural philosophers such as Isaac Newton who practiced science as a virtue. It has been misappropriated by so-called "scientists" who practice it as assumption.
The negative evaluation of Kantian rationalism - especially in its formulation by Fichte - as a "science of hating Judaism", by Saul Ascher has been credited by historian David Nirenberg as foresight into the development of a pseudo-science of Antisemitism that translated the christian dialectic of supercession into the discourse of "critical reason".[11]
On the Jewish Question, a work by Karl Marx, written in 1843, and first published in Paris in 1844 under the German title Zur Judenfrage. It was one of Marx's first attempts to develop what would later be called the historical materialist conception of history.
Jonathan Barnes holds that our modern notion of the todo is "thoroughly Aristotelian." British empiricists todo and todo brought "outrageous" charges against Aristotle, because they did not read Aristotle's own works with sufficient attention, and unfairly criticized him for the later faults of dogmatic scholasticism.[13]
Richard McKeon concurs, holding that "the philosophic revolt against scholasticism involved Aristotle in an associated discredit, and few outstanding modern philosophers .. took the pains to examine the grounds of the criticism or to re-examine the philosophy of Aristotle." He credits todo and todo as exceptions.[14]
Considering modern philosophy to be an "ugly monument to the failures of education and corruption in the tradition of learning", Adler accuses the moderns of "culpable ignorance", born of "antagonistic attitude and even contempt toward the past."[15]
Wittgenstein concluded that the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus had resolved all philosophical problems,[16] leaving one free to focus on what really matters - ethics, faith, music and so on.[17] Instead of learning from him, the academic philsophers conceptually idolize him, as is their way.
the Spanish Inquisition worsened the problem of Piracy in the Caribbean. Go figure. Would you like to be immediately expelled from the country(todo) and refused entrance into the new world colonies? Or would you prefer to be burned at the stake(todo)? Historian Edward Kritzler (new article) and I would rather join the Barbary Pirates(todo) in Morrocco or privateer for the English out of Jamaica(todo), raid spanish shipping, and help bring down the Spanish Empire(todo).[18] C.f. Antijudaism, Antisemitism
US Ambassador to Italy Breckinridge Long was "somewhat an admirer of European fascism", according to diplomat and historian David McKean. He later organized refugee policy for the Roosevelt administration, and prevented the US from admitting Jewish refugees fleeing the holocaust.
Rejecting neutrality and an offer of reunification in 1952 per the proposals of the (todo), the government of Konrad Adenauer pursued West German rearmament, amnesty for Nazis, establishment of (todo), and membership in an enlarged NATO.
Its long past time for De-Leninization (new article): dismantle the personality cult of Vladimir Lenin, toppling statues of Lenin, many places and building have been renamed and more should be renamed. The demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine called "Leninfall", was an outstanding example. His likeness was removed from the Russian ruble in 1992, but his embalmed body remains on display to the public since 1924 in the Lenin Mausoleum of Red Square, and his mummified corpse should be buried and the Mausoleum dismantled, and Leninist and Marxist-Leninist ideology should be exposed. (Most of these articles had ommissions and gaps that favored a Bolshevik-Marxist POV, here on wikipedia, until I fixed them. The bias on the latter two articles remains yet, and I will work on correcting this in future days.)
Putin is merely a symptom; the problem with Russia will continue even if he is ousted in a coup, because some other totalitarian strongmen will take his place until the idolatrous cult of power is dismantled.
Talk:Russian Revolution § Major Ommissions and Leninist-Bolshevik POV. The rewrite was successful, I'm pleasantly surprised at how well this content dispute went. Some major gaps were filled and totalitarian exaggerations corrected, and now I can say that it has been restored to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, however the Bolshevik-Leninist POV persists on alot of other articles in this content field.
David Shub (new article), active in the 1905 Revolution, exiled to Siberia and USA, later wrote 1930 profile of Stalin and later biography of Lenin.
The Lenin Assasination Plot
DeWitt Clinton Poole (new article), U.S. Consul general in Moscow and America's spymaster in Revolutionary Russia. Poole employed Xenophon Kalamatiano (new article) as his main field officer,[21].
Espionage historian Barnes Carr (new article) implicates Poole and Kalamatiano in the Ambassadors Plot to assassinate Vladimir Lenin in 1918, which the press misnamed the Lockhart—Reilly plot, after two of its principal agents. Besides Reilly, the main Russian plotter was Boris Savinkov, who ran an anti-tsarist and anti-communist underground. which was eventually uncovered by the (cheka todo), and the (bolsheviks todo) responded by escalating the (red terror todo).
U.S. Secretary of state (Robert Lansing todo) initiated the plot[21] after Vladimir Lenin seized power in October 1917 and removed Russia from the World War I, as part of a secret deal the Bolsheviks had struck with Germany.
President Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy was publicly opposed to interference, but he told Lansing the Moscow coup had his "entire approval".[21]
Vladimir Putin's doctorl dissertation had 15 pages were copied from an American textbook.[24]. Since he is obviously an admirer, maybe the US should teach him something, instead of stupid triumphalism and accusing his act of bravely translating suppressed knowledge, of being mere "plagiarism".18 Feb 2022: Vladimir Putin.
Russia analyst, historian, and H.Clinton advisor Richard Lourie writes "Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash" (2017), he diagnoses Russia's spiritual ills and estimates Putin's future moves. He call's Tony Wood's book, below, a "maverick, battle cry of the opposition":
Tony Wood (historian) faults everyone for fixation on Putin rather than the dysfunctional system that was present before him and will outlast him. Faults the west and NATO for expanding into the baltics, contrary to assurances made to Gorbachev.
Maria Lipman also reviews Wood's analysis favorably, and so do I. Please read the article.
A City on a hill cannot be hidden.Matthew 5:14 But when Joschka said you are the light of the world in his Sermon on the Mount, was it Salem Massachusetts to which he was pointing, or was it Salem, Oregon? American politicians apparently use it to signify Washington DC as a replacement for London and Rome, supported by a low-church protestantism as a replacement for Canterbury. But as before, this idiom remains problematic for foreign policy.
The name "City of God" when applied to western institutions usually signifies a utopian replacement for pagan Roman, and this derives from Augustine's eponymous classic of "christian" neoplatonism, De Civitate Dei. It is my considered opinion that America would do well to adopt a different approach to political theology.
Al-Quds is cognate with cognate with Hebrew: הקדש, romanized: Ha-Qodesh, lit. 'The Holy', but noone except Hebrew speakers knew that on wikipedia until I arrived in 2022 to inform them, not even on Al-Quds (disambiguation) Go figure. Even the Muslims know that its holier than Mecca. But the WASP supercessionism and cowardice of Bush+Clinton+Obama wanted to entertain the absurdity that, no, Washington DC is actually the holiest, and the policy of our own presidents intersects perversely with that of the Islamism they fight, in promoting unnecessary and and meaningless wars in order to deny the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Neither military hardware, nor advanced technologies, nor millions of soldier, nor billions of dollars are a replacement for sound and coherent strategy.
If you don't believe me, believe the statues themselves. Where are they now? "Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud."Proverbs 16:19
On July 5, 1852, todo delivered a speech asking the question What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Douglass said that the fathers of the nation were great statesmen, and that the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence were "saving principles", and the "ringbolt of your nations destiny". Nevertheless, he maintained that slaves owed nothing to and had no positive feelings towards the founding of the United States. He faulted America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery.
The doctrine of Manifest Destiny led to the settling of the Oregon Country and the state of Oregon. It is an ideology systemically accepted as mainstream, but its not neutral. It is explicit anti-Indigenous hate, and also subtly anti-Jewish. Neither is racism. They are hated because the represent an alternate political reality to that of christian dominionism and progressive modernity. Their continued existence as political entities, exposes the fraudulence of the noble lies on which white American identity is constructed. The Christian doctrine of supersessionism, which brought us the political doctrine of "Manifest Destiny", also gave us the The Promised Land (sculpture), that stood in Portland's (todo) until recently. c.f. (todo). The City government removed it on July 30th, 2020, in response to a petition (that I composed), and to the ongoing todo, but few people know why. There might be an article somewhere about Toppled Statues in Portland. Eventually a paragraph like this will be included on that article. Iconoclasm, however, isn't sufficient to remove the delusions that created particular instances of (todo) and (todo) in the first place, which have been "mainstreamed". These die hard: see Talk:The Promised Land (sculpture) for an example.
The 2021 Western North America heat wave shut down the annual 4th of July Fireworks show over the Willamette riverfront, along with many others throughout the region. For many people who called out for justice and who have prayed for and end to the ostentatious display of military bravado and basic historic ignorance, this was heaven's answer to prayer. However, 90+ died, which was totally unnecessary. It is much better to solve problems through repentance than through judgement. For my part, I petition the city of Portland to permanently end the Firework show, and in its place, host a public reading of the Declaration of Independence, in Jefferson's Original Rough Draft.
New Essays and Contributions to Wikipedia Policies and Consensus Documents
Wikipedia:Bold-refine (new essay) '''is the ideal collaborative editing cycle''' I wrote the essay a year after putting this statement into bold type on the essay WP:BRDR "Refine". That essay is hopelessly confusing, as are the wp policies generally on discussion, reversion, and editing war. Now that the "editors" have been humbled, we can hope that conditions here will improve for writers and researchers.
To accomplish this, I had to coin a new term and write an essay defining it: WP:Obvert (new essay)
Lede sentence on What Wikipedia Is WP:NOT, filled a major ommission: "Wikipedia is a FREE online Encyclopedia." Hello? Important because so many incumbent editors seem to think that they OWN it just because they can quote these WP:3LAs at me in the name of tendentious ignorance.
WP:Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia is an almost perfect policy document, and almost the only one of its kind around here. I added "is an introductory study tool for the many subjects that it covers". Wikipedia is NOT a Bad Idea, since so many editors seem to think it is a bad idea, and so few seem to believe or apply the principle of the encyclopedic mission. It must be frequently cited in content disputes, in order to remind people. I started improving the linked articles: An Encyclopedia is a Compendium of Knowledge.
For detailed contributions (where I cleave to the wikipedia content policies of verifiability, neutrality, and NOR), see the linked article histories. (Subpages contain not resumes but reading lists and curriculums for future projects, likewise with links marked "todo").
Wikipedia is one starting place for research, along side Wikisource, the reference section of your local library, the dewey decimal system, and the collected works of Aristotle, but I would recommend precious few articles for an adequate encyclopedic treatment of their topics. Therefore I intend to travel to some distant point in time past, and try to discover some reliable sources (todo), since caveat emptor: WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
Am I here merely to WP:RGW? I'm here to record verifiable history, and to discover plausible explanations with honesty and transparency about the epistemic foundations of scholarly opinion. And where "great wrongs have been verifiably righted" (in some cases, long ago), I'll resist the attempts to suppress that information. Likewise where powerful incumbents who define "mainstream opinion" are demonstrably in the wrong, I will demonstrate that with reference to the primary sources that may have been misused, and with reference to reliable independent sources that testify to it. In those place where ignorance has been mainstreamed, where denial of history is normative, and where "scholarly consensus" has been vastly overstated and sources misrepresented, fulfilling the Encyclopedic mission is itself the righting of a great wrong. I won't abdicate that merely because the truth happens in some matters to be an unpopular minority opinion. Where I've made errors or oversights, I gratefully welcome other editors to correct them and to teach me something new. By analyzing and publicly declaring my own point of view and agenda, and disclosing my identity IRL, I am committing to the practice self-awareness and transparency about my own POV, which I hope is a scholarly point of view.
Is my answer to WP:BRDBold-Revert-Discuss. Note that my first action on the original article was to BOLD the phrase Bold-refine is the ideal collaborative editing cycle. And now, having written an essay, will link that to it. The error in BRD is one of emphasis, not of intent or process. Editors should consider alternatives to reverting. Like, DO THE RESEARCH. Jaredscribe (talk) 05:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Strategic Retreats and Theaters of Meta-Wiki Cold war (term) (todo)
This is where I keep track of articles needing work, from which I was driven away. This is NOT a boast. As a new user, I lacked the skill to win consensus, or the extensible quotable knowledge of WP:SHORTCUTs necessary to convince my adversary to giving up, as they've done to me. I dearly wish that the upperclassmen around here would read WP:BRDR and try to collaborate and WP:PRESERVE what they can from contested contributions. Refine and WP:PARTR, rather than reverting good faith edits that make small errors or need minor improvements. WP:DONTBITE the newcomers, stop driving away productive editors. Maybe someday these content disputes will be resolved in ways that adequately representwon; hopefully other WP:COMPETENT editors will succeed where I've politically failed to win consensus, due to what I allege is WP:Systemic bias in favor of a NON-WP:NEUTRAL status quo, defined by a normative mainstream Academic bias toward scientism, graeco-roman supremacy, <strikethrough>solarian religions</strikethrough>, christianity and post-christian rationalism. WP:CHOPSY is a good and important essay in many respects - we need to exclude pseudo-science and value real science and scholarship, but it has un-examined consequences. At least now I'm starting to understand the mechanism whereby wikipedia reflects this bias, which is of course in "western society" as a whole.
Systemic Misogyny on Wikipedia only, or in Society as a Whole?
Give your woman some good lovemaking day, has been declared for March 14 to replace Steak and Blowjob Day. It has also been announced on Cake and Cunnilingus Day. Other editors disagreed, and concurred in assessing me as being "not here to make an encyclopedia". Of course, I think the subject matter of the article in question is unencyclopedic. I hope that all will see on this page that I am, on the contrary, quite devoted to the Encyclopedic mission and have made many valuable contributions to subject matter that, unlike the article in question, is actually notable. I've been accused of bias, bad faith, and promoting a lunar religion. (Although, truth be told, I follow a Lunisolar calendar). After reflecting on my behavior in response to vague threats/warnings that I could be banned from Wikipedia over this, I have made a Talk:Steak and Blowjob Day#Sincere apology for disruptive soapboxing. If I have offended anyone, I'm terribly sorry.
hist Stacy Schiff "On July 24th, 2006, Schiff wrote a New Yorker essay on wikipedia itself entitled Know It All. This very Stacy Schiff wikipedia article was created the very same day, which can be verified on history tab above." But the editors here don't want you to know that, apparently.
Although the foregoing was accepted into the article (in the year 2021, 13 years after the fact) the contents of his essay have not: Wikipedia already maintains verifiability standards and a presumption in favor of privacy on biographies of living persons, that already protect the encyclopedia from abuse, so why maintain a separate one for notability? As a case study, he uses this very wikipedia article on himself, which had been nominated for deletion in 2006, as the record will reflect, but immediately reversed after his Slate article that cited the case. But that is in order to draw attention to the more notable case of the lack of an article on Pulitzer prize winning writer Stacy Schiff until she too wrote an article about Wikipedia biases for the New Yorker. Noah contrasts her notable absence with the presence of many wikipedia articles on fictional characters and porn actresses, suggesting systemic gender bias in wikipedia standards and processes. Both pairs of articles are now featured in the Wikiproject to counter systemic bias.[26]
hist Antony_Blinken The problem we're facing here is not with this particular WP:BLP, but with the policy on WP:PUBLICFIGURE that does not distinguish between a movie star and the secretary of state. Also, the policy on WP:USEPRIMARY does not distinguish between, say, the personal homepage of said movie talking about his recent divorce, and congressional testimony given under oath by a public servant about his strategy of US foreign policy and distributed and transcribed on C-SPAN. Hello? Are you really going to call that "self-published"? This a major problem in wikipedia's content policy, and its why so many politics articles suffer from whatever partisan bias that is reflected in the news media, along with its bias toward recentism and americanism. I'm grateful to have discovered the reason for some of the systemic biases in wikipedia. Because of this, I've been unable to dislodge the managing editor who is consistently rejecting good faith, well sourced, encyclopedic content on an apparently mistaken understanding of WP:NOR. The policies need to be clarified. Cherry picking is not a problem unless it misrepresents the source. Primary sources are not bad, as long as we avoid analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis. But as a new editor, I didn't know how to deal with the problem of the WP:PETTIFOGG that this managing editor threw at me, without even attempting to refine or improve my contributions. Its exhausting. I got a dozen or more significant contributions in, but have now given up editing that article until the policies are clarified.
Cultural Appropriation from the Jews enables the "noble Myth" of the American West and systemic Anti-Indigenous Ignorance
The_Promised_Land_(sculpture) has same problems - the same managing editor is refusing to allow the TEXT OF THE MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION on the article about the monument, added by myself and other editors, claiming it is "unsourced". That is absurd, clearly he misunderstand WP:RS. His insistence on this misunderstanding is WP:Disruptive, IMHO, even though I assume he may be in good faith. He is auto-reverting good faith edits claiming "vandalism". I remind him that WP:Competence is required, however other editors (including some admins) have driven me away, twice, choosing to maintain the status quo of ignorance. It boggles the mind. Rather than risking a indefinite block on spurious charges of "harrassment", I gave up and declared a "loss". Eventually, someone else will figure this out and dislodge this incumbent, and I'm confident that the verifiable facts will vindicate my cause, but in the short term the whole encyclopedia loses with me, and so does the public. Very disappointing.
The sculpture represented not just manifest destiny, but also christian domionism, with its anti-jewish supersessionism, and also anti-indigenous, and unbiblical. The wikipedia article, though, treats the sculpture as if it has no historical or political meaning at all, and is merely an object of aesthetic appreciation. That is a POV in an of itself, in addition to the POV of white supremacy, and neither are neutral. Its a privelege of the ruling class to assume its neutral merely because its "mainstream". I tagged the article with a neutrality disputed template before I was driven away from the article.
Not just the wikipedia page, but the the sculpture itself was vandalized during the 2021 protests, and eventually removed by the city in response to a change.org petition. Apparently the city agrees (belatedly) with this analysis. Indigenous and Jewish groups have been saying this for decades but their voices had been systematically ignored, as they are on the wikipedia article still.
Talk:The_Promised_Land_(sculpture) The aftermath will probably be discussed here, and quite likely on other talk pages as well within the subject matter category
Traditional Antijudaism intersects with modern Scientism in unsound, ignorant, and dogmatic minimizing of the Hebrew Bible
YHWH The editors here, quoting supposedly "reliable" sources, claim that the Jewish God "absorbed the all positive qualities of baal and ashteroth". The falsehood of this claim is easily ascertained by referencing Moses and the prophets, but they are systematically ignored in the article, as is also the Talmud, midieval and even all contemporary Jewish scholars, as if they no longer exist or never had anything relevant to say about their own God. This appalling claim is counterfactual, and if the "smith" who who is cited for this does actually claim that, the source is unreliable. The Jewish God specifically DOES NOT have the supposedly positive quality of corporal existence: he does not have a body, cannot be represented in images, is not a man OR a woman, does not have a consort, does not mate with human females, and does not desire the ritual prostitution of the baal and asthoreth cults, or the child sacrifice of molech. The prophets denounce and renounce all these things, as do the Jewish sages from the second temple period to the present day, unanimously. The Jewish God did not "absorb" these so-called "positive qualities", he repudiated them. How can this be seriously denied by anyone? This process is borne out in the name Elijah, which literally means El (deity) is Jah. His challenge to Baal at Mount Carmel is an example of this rejection. When I added these wikilinks, they were reverted. Whether or not it actually occurred is irrelevant to the point that it represents a repudiation of paganism, not an "absorption" of it. I thought this would be something on which Jews, pagans, and christians could all agree on. The article ignores the primary sources - the prophets entirely. Other than Moses/the pentateuch, there is not a single hebrew prophet quoted inline. Of the 102 footnotes, not a single one cites any of the hebrew prophets or Jewish sages. There's nothing wrong with an article on the pagan pantheon, or on Wellhausen's discredited documentary hypothesis, but they shouldn't masquerade as an article on the Jewish God. This article should be deprecated and merged with the articles on baal, ashtoreth, biblical minimalism, the documentary hypothesis, and anti-jewish propaganda. It doesn't even bother to quote a Jewish source post Moses as a minority opinion on the Jewish God. It is not encyclopedic - it is IGNORANCE. Jews will recognize this immediately and avoid the article, but the typical gentile reader will be confused, and our readers deserve better.
Of course, there is a separate article God in Judaism, as I recently discovered, covering the post-exilic and patriarchal conception of God. Although the disambiguation link described as a "Modern theological discussion" in yet another denial of Jewish history and text, coming from wikipedia's systemic anti-Jewish bias. I changed that to "post-exilic and primordial", and added mention of Noah, Adam, and Eve - whom Torah law and Judaism hold to be universal human ancestors. Heavy on Maimonides .. I credited Aristotle. Needs more on the Prophets' conception of God.
Alot of other articles in the content field of Judaism are given titles in the "Yinglish" / transliterated hebrew. See below for some examples. No wonder that the Jewish editors seem to have resorted to "Yinglish" and made separate parallel articles, and avoid translating. And an editor like myself who is fluent in hebrew, and trying translate for the benefit of the uneducated and the gentile readership, is typically driven away by the minimalists and eventually will probably give up and start writing in Yinglish or on Hebrew wikipedia instead. While the ignoramuses who enforce the status quo will probably congratulate each other on removing my undue POV so that they can persevere in their ignorance. The readers deserve better.
Passover The lede has no mention of the Haggadah (telling the story), Matzah (unleavened bread) or the Chag haMatzot, the "feast of unleavened bread" (which actually redirects here), nor the month of Aviv (barley harvest / spring), nor the counting of the omer (sheaves), which begins the day after. Each one of these is a major omission. I added them all just before the holiday began, and but my edit was reverted. However, it was a valid concern and in good faith, since I was contributing in "Yinglish", and late on a friday afternoon when the Jewish editors would be offline for sabbath preparation, and the editors eventually accepted my submissions after the weekend; and I appreciate the honest dialectic. This was a successful content discussion; the encylopedia wins.
Passover (Christian holiday) This was a theological crime scene. Also historically uninformed, not neutral, and basically ignorant. Not a single mention of the Exodus, as if the Jewish passover doesn't even exist. I significantly altered and improved it as of Maundy Thursday 2021. ##Meaning section now has the more honest title ##Typological Meaning in post-Nicene Christianity. Thats for the supersessionists, who replace it with easter/"pascha" and assumed it to be "universal" for christians, in wikivoice. No more of that, please. This is an encyclopedia. For the hebrew roots Christian, there section is called ##Celebrations, which I didn't touch, in which they culturally appropriate the seder, without even acknowledging the Exodus or the violent history of christian antijudaism. There should be citations from their prominent pastors and leaders, which are lacking at the moment. The excommunication of the Quartodecimans is mentioned at the bottom, it could be expanded and moved to the top in a section on ##History or ##Pauline Christianity and Ante-Nicene observance. Also added a new section at the top ##Meaning in Jewish Christianity, that may need some more work from historians and Jewish editors.
Sanhedrin trial of Jesus Factually inaccurate, not-neutral, and basically ignorant. I significantly altered it and improved it as of Maundy Thursday 2021, but still needs alot of work. I added a section /* Jewish laws on the conduct of capital trials */ that should also be included in the Sanhedrin article. Including excerpt from Sanhedrin (tractate) 32a demonstrating that this was an illegal trial according to Jewish law. Moreover, it was an unlawful assembly in its very presence, it being the eve of the Sabbath / Festival. These facts had been mentioned on the talk page, back in 2006. Appalling that it has taken until 2021 to correct this error. Wikipedia ought to stop driving away productive editors writing from a Jewish POV Someone made a quite convenient "harmony of the gospels" table, #Narrative Comparison from the NIV translation. I think this should replace the "Trial" prose section, which I deprecated and split into two sections needing expansion - /* Midnight inquest at Caiaphas' house */, /* Morning arraignment by the "sanhedrin" */
After the spring holidays of 2021, I moved on to other subject matter. Starting for the year 5782 which began after rosh hashana 2021, I began the editing on the yearly torah cycle on the hebrew wikipedia. I don't intend to waste much more time here on the english wikipedia on the subject of Hebrew bible until the bias issue is dealt with; I think the rest of you should learn from this case and increase your threshold of tolerance for the minority but notable POV that God exists and that God is one. When I return to editing in the common tongue, it will probably be in the spanish or french wikipedia.
I Will Sing of the Contributor and His Content Disputes
Moral of the story: Disputation and dialectic are a necessary part of this project, but in a successful "content dispute", both and all parties are focused on seeking knowledge, not on winning or losing. Putting our own pride and privelege aside, we seek knowledge in humility, and the winner is the encyclopedia and everyone who edits and reads it. The "contributor" is justified or corrected, the "editor" withdraws or better imroves on the first draft, but no one "wins or loses". The managing "editor" also benefits from having been taught a lesson. I will not humiliate any of my dialectical partners in a scholarly content dispute, I value them. I list these disputes in order to demonstrate how the encyclopedia can be changed for the better, because some of these patterns repeat.
Rather than war with the WP:WikiKnighthood and the WP:WikiElfs, if you are a young newbie editor, walk away rather than fight.
Become a WP:WikiHobbit and become a reader of the encyclopedia first and foremost, follow the citations to learn more. As you learn new subject-matter, copy-edit where you can, learning the technique and culture of the encyclopedia by working as a WP:WikiGnome and WP:Fairy.
Then go for a walk with the WP:WikiDwarfs into our sister project WikiSource, pick a book you would like to study, and learn something that you can later contribute. Make use of the public library and study what the WP:Secondary sources say about that book, and cite them on its Wikipedia article.
I will sing of the Writer and His WikiWars
Spanish–American_War_Soldier's_Monument. I'm declaring victory in this edit-war, and the encyclopedia is now better for it. I wish the revert warriors would learn from this please WP:PRESERVE, and WP:DONTBITE next time, so that we can avoid this kind of unnecessary conflict.
many others, that I will list later when I have time.
Moral of the story:
When possible have "content disputes" rather than "edit wars", and engage with your colleague using dialectic in your edit summaries. Learn the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. However, some editors here do not explain in their summaries, and merely revert. This is perceived as WP:Tendentious editing. In response it may be sometimes necesssary to humbly, but WP:Boldly persist. For this, Discussion and WP:Obversion are both necessary.
Restoring Aristotelian Perspective in the face of persistent Neo-platonic bias in Christiantiy and Epicurean bias in Modernity
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.
If you are new here, wp:Be bold. If they revert you, refine and improve the contribution and add it again. wp:Competence is required, and not all of the managing editors cum knights-errant possess it. Many prefer to destroy rather than to wp:improve, to revert and challenge rather than to research, collaborate, or wp:FIXTHEPROBLEM. Worse, some of them have become sophomoric bureaucrats and seem to want it to stay that way.
If you know that your assertions are verified, and encyclopedic, then admonish your challenger. wp:Wikilawyering with references to wp:Policies and guidelines is no excuse for subject matter ignorance and wp:tendentious laziness and semi-automatic reversion in order to preserve the status quo. If rules are stopping you from improving wikipedia, Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Undo the reversion, making whatever improvements you can, and boldly restore. The WP:5 pillars are principles, not rules.
^under=without, sun=law (as the proverb says "the commandment is a candle the LAW is LIGHT") interpretation based on Rashi's commentary {without the law, the source of light}?
The words of the wise are like goads, like nails driven by a master craftsman, given by a single shepherd. Beyond these, my son, beware! Of the writing of many books, there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.
Adler, Mortimer (1985). Ten Philosophical Mistakes: Basic Errors In Modern Thought - How they came about, their consequences, and how to avoid them. Macmillan. ISBN0-02-500330-5.
Aristotle (1941). Richard McKeon (ed.). The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House.
Knobel, Peter (1995) [1983]. שערי מעד The Gates of the Seasons: A Guide to the Jewish Year (3rd ed.). Central Conference of American Rabbis (reform). ISBN0-916694-92-5.
Vermes, Geza (1981) [First published by William Collins, Sons & Co. Ltd. (1973)]. Jesus the Jew: a Historian's Reading of the Gospels. Fortress Press. ISBN0-8006-1443-7.
