Talk:Arianism
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Please, can someone review what is supposed to mean the second paragraph after "Fourth Century", where it reads "At one point... ... but Arians".? Should that be refrased?
"Christological" points to Jesus Christ--do we infer that "Christological" is jargon that simply means "of or relating to Jesus Christ"? --Larry Sanger
- I 'spose. At least it wasn't one of the Pneumatological heresies. --MichaelTinkler
Yes, then we would have to go through the "pneumatic" drill. b-dum tss!! ;-) --LMS
Did the Aryans really invade India?
Yes, around 2000 B.C. they invaded and started making a civilization that produced many works of Hindu sacred literature such as the Rig Vedas and Upanishads. (feel free to put this on the actual page, or start a new topic)
Yes, the Arians lost at the church council, but (as the article notes) there are still Arians today. Is "heresy" NPOV? If not, is there a better term? Vicki Rosenzweig
- Well, but none of these modern Arians or semi-Arians traces an actual connection to the early Christian Arians. It's a similarity or a 'nothing new under the sun' or a re-invention. "Heresy" is certainly problematic given the - ahem - 'broad' way we have defined things here. --MichaelTinkler
- I revised this sentence: The Jehovahs Witnesses continue to espouse a form of Arianism today, explicitly agreeing with Arius. It seems to imply that JWs have always existed and have continuously agreed with Arius. Nope. --MichaelTinkler (although do THEY themselves believe they have always existed?)
I vaguely recall reading that the Nestorian church was Arian, and they were influential in Asia later than this article refers to--converted some significant number of Genghis Khan's followers, I think. Anyone remember this, or do I need to do the research?
The article suggests Gene Roddenberry is a Mormon...uhhhhh, Idon'thinkso. B 14:21, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The Great Hoax that Led to Arianism
Arius was of true coptic african egpytian origin. He disagreed with the roman/greek spin being put on the triad/trinity story. He stayed true to the original deities,(osiris, isis, & horus) vs. The vicar of serapis which gave this great fake, osirian features. Then replaced the sun-god, with the created creature. They were upset that the majority of the real coptic african egyptians wouldn't accept the man created deity. Isn't it funny that the great arianism of today, don't even like africans, and their for father was african? It pays to research before jumping on a band wagon!!! This article states arius was a christian. Wrong!! Christianity wasn't even formed a such yet. It was still being transformed from its original creation story to one that would give honor to roman/greek image vs. The jet black gods whom have not forgotten, and will still ressurect!! Whoa to all the demons who took part in this great switch to allow ra's chosen people to become slaves/servants.. Osiris will live again & right(always over left)the wrong... Ho tep! -- Ra child
- Do you know something we don't? If anyone has any original writings of Arius, please, by all means, tell the newspapers or an Archaeologist or something. Thanks. 24.176.6.165 06:09, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Deeply Confused Paragraph
I began copy-editing the following 'graph, and then realized i had no idea what the author is trying to convey. Can someone with comparative-religion expertise make some sense out of it, and rewrite at a level consistent with the rest of the article? As it stands, it stalls most readers and intereferes with the usefulness of the article.
- In terms of comparative religion, Arianism is seen as an common example of where Christian theology became culturally merged with Eastern religious, "pagan" influences, which tend to have distinct divinities manifesting separated divine and elemental powers. The conflict with the Church, being the vessel by which this past "conflict" is viewed today, was a simple factor of the Church's unique power, growing and far-reaching at the time.
--Jerzy 18:04, 2004 Feb 4 (UTC)
JW and Islamic beliefs
Unless I'm mistaken, Jehovah's Witnesses believe Christ should be worshipped. Also the summary of Islamic beliefs about Muhammed is incorrect, although its unclear to me whether this incorrectness is believed by the source cited.
- I think that you are mistaken about JW beliefs. There may be some subtlety involved here, but the JWs believe that Jehovah, the Father, is the only object of worship. People and angels may bow down before Jesus, but JWs do not believe that they worship him; and the Holy Spirit is not to be worshipped.
- "No, Jesus did not teach his disciples to pray to him, to his mother Mary, or to any other person. But God now requires that we recognize the position of his Son and offer all our prayers in Jesus' name. That is why Christ told his followers: "No one comes to the Father except through me."-John 14:6. For prayers to be acceptable to God, then, they must be addressed to Jehovah God through his Son, Jesus Christ. That is, they must be said to God in the name of Jesus. (Watchtower, 3/15/1988, p.6)
- Mkmcconn — 23:35, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Arianism Swindle
- Arianism and the Arian heresy was actually the belief that Jesus was not divine, but a regular person who was nothing more than a prophet. It was Rome who instead rephrased his argument as a philosophical one. As a matter of fact, the belief that Jesus was some kind of divine being akin to that of Crishna was the minority position prior to Nicea. This constubstantial business was hogwash designed to put words in the mouth of Arius, who was assassinated. The original christians did not believe jesus to be a god, it was Rome who wanted christians to adopt a pagan religion( Roman Christianity ) in order to reestablish control. The idea that everyone immediately adopted a highly complex philosophical idea in relatively short time is ridiculous considering the mass of christians were illiterate. Finally, the trinity is a egyptian/babylonian concept, that was, at the very least, against what Jesus taught.
- that's all very correct, but you'll have to rephrase it without "hogwash" or "swindle" if you want to say that in the article. dab 09:24, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Finally, the trinity is a egyptian/babylonian concept, that was, at the very least, against what Jesus taught. I object to this statement. If the bible is accurate then I don't think there's anything that Jesus taught which is contrary to the concept of the trinity, and if the bible is not accurate then we have no idea what Jesus taught so we cannot say that it is contrary to anything.
- that's all very correct, but you'll have to rephrase it without "hogwash" or "swindle" if you want to say that in the article. dab 09:24, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- John 17.3 - right there you've got Jesus (recorded by John) as contradicting the theory of the Trinity, also this was supposed to be Arius' favorite proof text, along with Col1.15 and Pr8.22. For details see Theological Studies #26, 1965, p.545-573, by Raymond Brown, titled "Does the NT call Jesus God?" Also, the later Trinitarian proof text that made it into the Textus Receptus, the Comma Johanneum, was exposed as a forgery.
Removed section
I removed the following section from the article, as it is POV. Feel free to reword it and reinsert it. – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 14:55, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
- Really? In that case all of Christianity is a POV, more importantly the minority POV prior to Nicea! These things were simply stated historical fact. The trinity is the Horus/Osiris/Isis Father/Son/Holy Ghost theology of egypt-babylonia. This information should be in the article! The Catholic Church does not own Wikipedia! Those people who are interested in what Jesus taught should know that he did not necessarily teach the trinity. History indicates that he did not.
- hello? he didn't say the info shouldn't be included. He said you should rephrase it to sound less like a pov crusade. The point you are making is valid indeed. This is about the style of the paragraph (you cannot always rely on other people to fix your text for you). dab 21:57, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- also, there is an important distinction between an avatar Krishna (not Crishna) and God incarnate as seen by post-Nicean orthodox Christianity. Again, sometimes people will fix your inaccuracies for you, and sometimes they will just dump your paragraph on Talk with an encouragement to try again. dab 22:00, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Errors and omissions.
The article fails to mention that the Arians believed Christ to be a divine, pre-existent being. It is therefore wrong to say that they saw him as "a man like other men."
The claim that Arianism was "brutally enforced upon the Christian community" is patently false. Arianism was never forced upon anybody.
There are other points which need to be mentioned. I shall return to this article and correct it when I have more time. --Teutonic Knight 09:57, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think this sentence (about "brutal enforcement") is supposed to refer to Trinitarianism, not Arianism. It's been inserted badly (or mangled by editing). I will comment it out. Gwimpey 01:26, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Arianism certainly was brutally forced upon the Christian community, under the Emperors Constantius II and Valens. Str1977 23:25, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Answering a question about the Nestorians.
Somebody asked:
- I vaguely recall reading that the Nestorian church was Arian, and they were influential in Asia later than this article refers to--converted some significant number of Genghis Khan's followers, I think. Anyone remember this, or do I need to do the research?
Nestorianism was definitely not Arianism, for the Nestorians believed that Jesus Christ is God incarnate. However, Nestorius was accused of dividing the Son into two separate persons (which he vigorously denied.) See the article on Nestorianism for an excellent summary of the Christological issues involved. Nestorianism is alive and well today in some of the Eastern churches - most notably the Assyrian.
In passing, it is interesting to note that Nestorianism was the first form of Christianity to reach China. --Teutonic Knight 14:11, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Arianism and the JWs.
The article currently states:
- For example, the modern Jehovah's Witnesses have some similar beliefs. However, Arius viewed the Holy Spirit as a person, whereas Jehovah's Witnesses do not attribute personality to the spirit.
The Arians did not ascribe personality to the Holy Spirit.
- Jehovah's Witnesses also, unlike Arians, deny belief in a disembodied soul after death, eternal punishment of the unrep
entantly wicked, and episcopacy: doctrines to which the Arians did not obviously object.
This is irrelevant. Belief in the immortality of the soul, eternal punishment and episcopy is not what makes a person Arian. Arianism is a doctrine about the nature of Christ and his relationship to the Father; anyone who confesses that doctrine is therefore Arian by default, regardless of whatever else they might believe on any other subject. Since the JWs subscribe to the Arian formula (namely that Jesus pre-existed as the firstborn of God; that the creation was formed through him; that he was raised from the dead to the Father's side, yet remains distinct from Him; that he is a superlative divine being, but not Almighty God) they are Arians by definition.
- In some respects, there is a closer analogy to Socinianism, than to Arianism, in Jehovah's Witness theology (Socinians similarly were called "Arians" by their detractors; see also Unitarianism). Jehovah's Witnesses, unlike Arians, do not direct prayers to Jesus.
There is no evidence that the Arians ever directed their prayers to Jesus. --Teutonic Knight 16:15, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
most of what is on this page is half-educated bs
Hello! PLEASE STOP THE CHRISTIAN CRUSADERS FROM ERASING THE VERY PERTINENT INFORMATION REGARDING THE NATURE OF ARIANISM. The original christians DID NOT BELIEVE JESUS WAS DIVINE OR BORN OF A VIRGIN. It is an absolute tragedy of history that the truth of what happened at nicea cannot at least be represented on Wikipedia. PLEASE STOP ERASING THE INFORMATION ABOUT ARIANISM YOU STUPID IGNORAMUS. The roman empire is over. Get over it you idiot.
XXX
- hello? did you even read the article lead? it says right there what arianism is, and that it was condemned only in the 4th c. (Nicaea). are you objecting because the fact is not written in boldface capitals? "Arianism" could not have been more than 20 years old at Nicaea (look at Arius' birthdate). The issue was raised some 50 years before Nicaea. Before that, there was no "Arianism" vs. "Athanaisanism" in Christianity. As you say, "the roman empire is over" indeed. No reason to get agitated over it. dab (ᛏ) 17:30, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- The level of ignorance of christians about their own religion is astounding. History goes thusly; Early Christians followed a man named Jesus, whom they believed to be an important prophet, and the inheritor of the true Jewish belief( problems due to the destruction of the first temple, false Monarchy under Herod, etc. ). The christians were a MAJOR political problem for the romans. There were countless sabeans/sabemenoi, etc. who were Hebrew prosylites. The only way that Rome could deal with the problem was to essentially fool the Christians into thinking that Jesus had preached a religion remarkably similar to Babylonian cults( the trinity can be traced to babylon ), a religion that was essentially the means of Roman rule. What is today termed Christianity has little to do with Jesus( ever notice that most of the doctrines that are stressed are not even mentioned in the gospels ). He never demanded people worhsip him as a god, he was born from a regular woman, and died as a regular man. The fate of 'christianity' would be decided at Nicea, where the so called 'majority' of christian scholars pronounced the belief, termed 'Arianism' as heresy, and used Arius as a scapegoat for this belief, which he neither concieved of or particularily propagated( it had been with the community from day one, AMOF it was the defacto creed ). He was simply firm in his resolve not to turn the historical record of Jesus into something that it was not. He was in turn poisoned by Rome for his reticence. They later retermed his argument in terms of the trinity. That is like arguing that communism is not a very efficient form of capitalism.
The reason why I am agitated is that ignorance persists despite the information being freely available. No amount of evidence will change your conception that Jesus is 'consubstantial' with god. Such theology is so strictly against what this historical figure had taught, that these deceptions of history persist even in the age of the internet!
Oh BTW- I wish you americristmas- coincidentally, this is the same day that Chrishna and Osiris were supposedly born. How strange. Please enjoy your babylonian tree-idol asherah worship. Jesus does not love you, he hates you because you have adopted the religion of rome. sorry you are not going to heaven.
- I am not sure if you are talking to me, or to the world in general. If you are addressing me, rest assured, I know that trinity was invented around 300 AD, and that Christianity today has little to do with the historical Jesus, and that most Christians do not like to be educated about that. But it is part of the Christian faith today (of most variants, that is). Most Christians are not aware of what is in this article now, and are not going to read it anyway. Their choice. If they want to know the historical roots of the Trinity, it's here for them to read. Christans were not "fooled" into becoming a hellenistic religion. They became one because of cultural contact, i.e. the religion evolved by mutation and natural selection. Very well. I still don't see what is wrong with this article. dab (ᛏ) 07:57, 13 Dec 2004 2(UTC)
- I think that it is important to note certain things. Someone does continually make anonymous rewordings that assume the 'divinity of christ'. I think the article should be clear on several things;
- 1) That the Arian Creed has nothing to do with the trinity. It simply meant to follow Jesus as an important prophet.
- 2) Arius did not invent this idea. He was killed for his beliefs.
- 3) It is likely that most Christians agreed with this viewpoint prior to 300AD.
- It is perfectly fine if the majority of christians do not want to accept the truths about early christianity, but Wikipedia is not designed for them alone. This article should be designed to inform both dedicated "Christians" and non-Christians interested in historical fact. XXX
- I think that it is important to note certain things. Someone does continually make anonymous rewordings that assume the 'divinity of christ'. I think the article should be clear on several things;
It's interesting what people around here know and think they know. Well, he's entitled to his POV, even though it has next to nothing to do with actual facts of history. If early Christians didn't believe in the Virgin Birth (it's not the question whether you do), how come it is in the Gospels. Also, I'm amazed how Arianism gets misrepresented: Arius did not deny the Trinity (and it wasn't invented in 300 AD), he rather interpreted it in a different form. Arius did not think Jesus to be a mere "important prophet", but as the Word of God that existed before all other things were created. The difference is merely, that he considered Jesus to be created, while the orthodox creed says "begotten, not created" and considers Jesus to pre-exist before all things were created. Arius was not the first to issue such teachings, Origenes and Paulus of Samosata have similar things, but that doesn't make it true. Arius was not killed for his beliefs. He died, the sources say, anything else is unprovable conjecture. It is not likely that they agreed with it, since they also rejected Paulus of Samosata and others. This article should give facts and not wild fantasies about what some would like early Christianity to have been. And name calling doesn't help anyone, even if you were right, XXX. Str1977 22:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
The wonderful thing about the internet is all of the knowledge available . . . the sad thing is all of the positioning as "fact" and the "real truth" by people who get a small dose of knowledge that fits their prejudices, then expound it as some unknown revelation that is hidden from the masses. Anyway, this is my last visit to the "wikipedia", because there is no attempt to glean fact from fancy.
Perhaps the previous writer as well as others should recall that this is a discussion section, not the definition page. Those who feel their beliefs threatened may well wish to avoid exposure to challenging thoughts and info. My insert: It is interesting to note that the term "Arianism" was such a common word in late Classical and perhaps even early Frankish/Merovingian culture that the term became a successful suffix -arian, meaning "one who believes." This suffix eventually made it into the English language (after 1066) and is in common use today in English speaking countries. Perhaps this alone bears witness to the pre-Nicean condition of the majority of the population who held beliefs based on "Jesist" Judaism. It would also explain why Paul and the early "church fathers" of the second century railed against Judaism and why Paul fought with James and the Jesists in Jerusalem until the second Jewish rebellion saw the original Jerusalem movement wiped out almost without a trace? See - Josephus. (Note: Josephus and Philo were the only two historians in the middle east that existed during the 1st century. Except for one highly controversial paragraph in Josephus which has been recently pared down to perhaps only one original non-commital line, neither mention Jesus or Christianity), although they do make mention of numerous rebel leaders all religious of course, and one mention of one such leader claiming to be of the house of David. Second century Christian writers, simply added to the sketchy, late writings of some early Pauline Christians who claimed to have the story of Jesus from oral traditions and combined this with their enlarged and contentious, competitive insertions that were codified by Constantine who relied on the Counsel of Nicea to render service to Rome by settling the matter in favor of the State. Recall that Catholic means "Universal." It is well accepted by theologians and even many lay Catholics that much pagan matter was appropriated in contructing Catholicism out of expediency. And actually, Rome has never died, it lives on through the Pope and the Vatican and the Catholic Church as was intended.
I very much enjoyed this information!!!!
If only people would sign their posts. I fully agree with the first paragraph/post and can only gaze in amazement on the second paragraph/post. It's a nice story - you should publish it as a novel (oops, too late). As for the third, I can't tell whether it's irony or delusion. Str1977 22:58, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Constantine and Arianism
A recent edit, among many fine additions, introduced this sentence:
"Constantine is said to have renounced trinitarianism in favor of Arianism on his death bed, although this conflicts with the rumours that he converted to Christianity on his death bed (as he would have to have converted to trinitarianism then changed his mind within seconds) - Constantine was not a Christian for the majority (or possibly all) of his life."
In fact, Constantine saw himself as a Christian -- that is, as a believer in Jesus Christ as divine -- for most of his adult life after 312 AD. Since he knew very little about the religion at first, in the period just after 312 his beliefs are a bit eclectic. What happened on his deathbed was his baptism. At the time, since baptism was viewed as washing away all sins that the baptisee had committed, it was common to delay one's baptism until late in life -- especially for an emperor, for whom sin was part of the job. The "conversion" to Arianism was also not a deathbed experience -- after Nicea, Constantine began to associate himself with Eusebius of Caesaria and other Arian or non-Nicene bishops, and it was from one of these that he received baptism. I've moved the original sentence down to put it into historical context and edited heavily. --Jfruh 15:40, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In fact, Constantine never renounced trinitarianism in favor of Arianism. Yes, he was lenient on the three leading Arians and quite friendly with Eusebius of Caesarea and others, that had some Arian leanings, but still he stuck to the definitions of Nicea. He was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, the leading Arian, but officially he had made his peace with the council by signing some equivocal statement. After Constantine's death of course, Eusebius's Arianism appeared openly again. In later years, Constantine's baptism by a heretic was considered so astonishing, that the legend emerged Constantine had really been baptized by Pope Sylvester. But this only made matters worse, since the undeniable sources for baptism by Eusebius were now seen as a Arian re-baptism. Str1977 22:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Why erase the Aryan clarification?
Was the clarification at the beginning of this article emphasizing that Arians and Aryans are different really so out of place that it needed to be eliminated? You might be surprised how many people with little grasp of history confuse the two terms, especially if they've only heard them spoken. One need only look at some of the uninformed discussion on this Talk page to see that this clarification would be helpful. --Jfruh 21:19, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
- I agree - the clarification did no harm and could only help people who don't nkow how to spell. ;) User:Trödel/sig 22:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
- As far as I'm concerned, remove it. We don't do disambiguation for misspellings, let them use a dictionary. I'm not going to fight over it though. But maybe "for 'Arian' as a misspelling of...' sounds a bit clumsy. Try laconic "see Aryan for the ethnic concept". dab (ᛏ) 16:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- I don't see why we'd want to have this. What is it clarifying, exactly? Having a note in an article to disambiguate something completely unrelated which is spelled differently is stupid. john k 19:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- One of the reasons we discourage throwing around terms like "silly" (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arianism&diff=13159439&oldid=13141907) and (just above) "stupid" is that it takes some effort to be sure how many of your colleagues you are insulting in doing so.
- In this case, i have not made that full effort (nor would i want to apply that language if i had). I have, however, sampled an evenly spaced 20 of the 165 edits that are shown in the portion of the page history (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arianism&action=history) preceding the first (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arianism&diff=13135539&oldid=13100761) of this colleague's two removals. That sample shows
- 6 by IPs, no two with the same first byte in their IP#s,
- 12 by different registered users (one of them with no user-page, but a hundred and some edits since late December, and talk-page signs of collaborating constructively),
- 2 by the same registered user (who has in fact made 11 edits total).
- Without going into statistical reasoning (of which i am not a master) this suggests that no one has seriously been "hogging" the article, and that the content is a reasonable reflection of a consensus of a broad group of many dozens of editors.
- The history also shows that the first revision for which the history is retained contains a closing 'graph reading
- This, of course, is not to be confused with the Aryans who invaded India long ago.
- and while i have found several specific edits that changed the wording (and one each that added a dab at the top, and that removed the bottom dab as redundant in light of the tob dab), i found no evidence that anyone else, from 2001 Dec 4 thru 10:32, 2005 May 1, has questioned the acceptability of there being some form of language indicating explicitly that "Aryanism" is not the subject of the Arianism article.
- None of this proves that there must be a dab (or what i think of as a pseudo-dab, since it is true that this is about, rather than two correct meanings of one word, a relatively obscure word that matches a very sensible (though wrong) spelling of a word with a very odd spelling. (How sensible and how odd? The word for "pertaining to either Mary Tudor or the virgin Mary" is not "Maryan", but "Marian"; and "Marianist" is also a collegiate-dictionary word.) But i digress.). However, i suggest that the aggressive reassertion of this complaint by editing, and its extension by the same editor (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aryan&diff=prev&oldid=13149031) to another article, amounts for the time being to vandalism in defiance of the well established opinion of the community. The complaining editor can get it changed, but that should involve the emergence of others sharing his so far surprising opinion. Until then, there should be an Aryanism msg on this talk page's article, and an Arianism msg (which i, for one, consider far less needed, tho acceptable) at Aryan.
- I would rather my colleague who (perhaps correctly) found my version "clumsy" had been willing to speak up more forcefully for the consensus that something is need, by putting their "laconic" version in place until pending further ideas (or a consensus for no such msg) emerge, but i don't mind advocating for something better than no msg, by my asserting the laconic version as the interim version in place of no msg.
- --Jerzy (t) 04:13, 2005 May 3 (UTC)
- I don't see why we'd want to have this. What is it clarifying, exactly? Having a note in an article to disambiguate something completely unrelated which is spelled differently is stupid. john k 19:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- Vandalism? That's completely uncalled for. At any rate, Aryans don't have anything to do with people called Ary, so I'm not sure what your point is. At any rate, can you point to other examples of false disambiguation like this? The affirmative case ought to be made as to why such a strange procedure is necessary, not simply saying that it's consensus because nobody bothered to do anything about it before. john k 05:43, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
- To your many seemingly simple points, there are mostly no adequate simple responses. Instead:
- Granted, the intent had not been shown to be vandalistic. And your changed approach convinces me it was not your intent. Thanks.
- The point about "Marian" is not that Aryan comes analogously from Ary, but that any spelling in the same style as "Aryan", for something pronounced the same as "Arian", is so unnatural in English that being derived from "Mary" is not enough to make the spelling "Maryan" acceptable. If (in some sense) "Maryan" would have been a bad spelling, then "Aryan" for something that rhymes with "Marian" is an unexpected spelling, that is unusually likely to produce the misspelling "Arian" when "Aryan" has been heard and is the intended meaning.
- (Another way of making the same point is Google searching. "baryan", "caryan", "daryan", "faryan", "garyan", and "haryan" each produced on the first page only foreign words or names, an (unfamiliar and probably freshly coined) English name or two, and the misspelling "baryan" for the unusual word "baryon".)
- I see i did say "pseudo-dab", where i'd rather have said "quasi-dab" if someone was going to translate my words (even as accurately and fairly as you have), but now we're both playing with the terminology. The function of dabs is to help users to get to the right article. Certainly usual use for the classic dab-at-the-top format is for "eu-dabs" (if you will), about, as i said before, "[multiple] correct meanings of one word", and if i've seen other cases of misspelling-based quasi-dab hdgs, i'd be a little surprised when i saw one of them again, as the ones re Arian.../Aryan... feel unique to me. On the other hand, i'm pretty sure i have seen and ignored dab-only pages that included misspellings in addition to eu-dab entries, and i'm not sure there have been any of them that didn't lead me to make a face and doubt i would have included them if i had written the pages in question. Nevertheless, i agree with the spirit of the precedent i cite below (in a bullet point beginning "Actually, there's a...") which IMO is that most of us are unimaginative enough to fail to grasp the reason for some appropriate redirs or dabs; therefore i also doubt i would remove one unless i thot the whole page needed overhauling. And if in even that case someone put back entries i'd removed, i think i'd have deferred to them.
- You dismiss the significance of the existing consensus, and ask for the making of "an affirmatative case".
- My actual purpose in referring to that consensus was procedural: not to assert the consensus closes the case, but to assert the consensus imposes a rebuttable presumption, and that that presumption means
- while your bold edit was admirable,
- it's at least premature to use reversion to insist on keeping it: let something consistent with the consensus stand while we work out the disagreement.
- Actually, there's a relevant precedent against needing an affirmative case, on WP:RfD: it says that (rough) consensus is necessary but not sufficient for removal of a redirect: if anyone thinks the redirect is useful, they are probably right even if you can't see what makes them think that. While cases like this one don't arise often enough for that advice to explicitly extend to them, analogy suggests it implicitly does.
- I'm sorry i wasn't clear enough in what i offered as an affirmative case, and i hope i have clarified sufficiently. (I know my verbose precision is annoying, but those to whom the precision is surplus will, i think, find they can distill off the details that are for them in excess, producing their own rough and ready versions, unburdened by precision. If you're left still unclear, please ask another question.)
- My actual purpose in referring to that consensus was procedural: not to assert the consensus closes the case, but to assert the consensus imposes a rebuttable presumption, and that that presumption means
- --Jerzy (t) 17:42, 2005 May 3 (UTC)
- It is asserted (way above) that
- We don't do disambiguation for misspellings
- but to the extent we don't, it's because of the rarity of situations like this one. We clearly provide aids to access:
- We do redirects for alternate names, and for misspelled names.
- We do Dab pages and Dab headings for multiple meanings.
- Pay attention to the asymmetry involved here: a redirect (an almost completely inflexible minor function built into the server) by its nature is suitable for bringing users via multiple names to the same place, and most misspellings amount to multiple names for the same thing. On the other hand, Dab-style pages are suitable for bringing users via a single name to multiple places, and typical dabs amount to single names for multiple things. The kicker is that this situation is neither one into many nor many into one, but many (well, two) into many (two again). It is a very atypical situation. The reason for using a quasi-dab is that a redirect would preclude the answering of the "which did you want?" question that a dab-style page or heading is designed to ask. If you type "Godel", we know you mean Gödel and redirect you there, no questions asked. If you type "Arianism", only you know what you mean, and we have to give you a choice, dab style. A quasi-dab like this is a special situation. The good news is that we don't have to do it very often. The bad news is that we have to do it so seldom that it's tempting to treat the rule of thumb "redirect for misspelling, and dab-style for ambiguity of a term" as a policy. (If it is a policy, it is a bad one that should instead say "If you are handling misspellings with dab-style headings or pages, you're usually making a mistake; think hard about whether this is really one of the rare cases where it's truly needed." In that case, this discussion is the first step toward theWP:VP policy page, and the second is when someone can cite such a policy.)
- Frankly, i hesitate to mention an alternative, which could not reduce but could only mostly hide the ugliness of this scaffolding, that i think primarily motivates the opposition to the quasi-dab. IMO the alternative is even uglier, but with diligent maintenance (to keep the dabs bypassed) the ugliness could stay out of sight:
- Arianism moves to Arianism (religion)
- the redir at Arianism is overwritten as a dab page, with
- some version of the now familiar unsatisfying lks to Aryan and
- a lk to Arianism (religion),
- The dab page is never seen by anyone following a Arianism (religion) lk from an article: only those who type "Arianism" (or i suppose "Arian") (or follow an lk from outside) get to see the ugliness.
- BTW, the same point way above favors the "laconic", and i support that; in fact, my restoration was not a rv, but a rewording that replaced this (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arianism&diff=13135539&oldid=13100761):
- This article is about the theological doctrine of Arius. The Arianism discussed here is a religious movement, and is not related to the terms Aryan or Aryan race, which denote linguistic and ethnic concepts.
- --Jerzy (t) 17:42, 2005 May 3 (UTC)
- I have rushed this into print without trying to adjust any of what i say (within this same editing session) to reflect it. I'm sorry to bring this into the discussion so late, but that's a left-handed apology: apparently everyone else is even more inclined than i to assume they know what's going on without research. I used the dictionaries i have immediately at hand: a Collegiate, the 1981 Amer Her, and the 1958 Second International.
- "Aryan", usually pronounced with 3 syllables, also has a 2-syllable pronunciation recognized by all three, with the Y in its consonantal (or semi-vowel) role, not its true-vowel EE-like sound.
- Nevertheless, the Am Her recognizes "Arian" as an alternative spelling for "Aryan" -- IMO we cannot treat it as simply a misspelling!
- Contrary to what some of our versions seem to invite concluding, Am Her says
- Usage: Aryan is not a technical linguistic or anthropological term, in any of its senses.
- --Jerzy (t) 17:42, 2005 May 3 (UTC)
More urgent, in any case, will be the dab notice Arius is unrelated to Arius, the genus of the Catfish [1] (http://www.scotcat.com/factsheets/arius_graeffei.htm) . dab (ᛏ) 08:05, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
Personality of the Holy Spirit
A recent edit changed "which" to "who" with the edit note:
"which to who, following the appropriate subjective voice of the sentence (the Holy Spirit is considered human by Arians and Christians alike"
The reason is certainly wrong - no one that I know of considers the Holy Spirit to be human - not even the LDS. But, the eit may be correct. I don't know. Most modern non-trinitarians do not believe that the Holy Spirit is an entity with its own personality, but rather the personal influence of God. While I had supposed that the modern view could not be ascribed to Arians, I don't actually know. Does anyone else know? Mkmcconn (Talk) 15:38, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)