Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:41, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This article is pretty much a WP:SYNTH essay. Bringing together totally unrelated ideas from at least three different religions, this article is a textbook case of synthetic original research. Note that no source for this article connects the three separate religious claims or speaks at all to the generalized subject of the article. Rather this is just a novel compendium of ideas that the Wikipedia editors seem to think are related.

It is perfectly reasonable for Wikipedia to include an accounting and higher criticism of the fantastical claims that get made by some believers in various religions about their religious beliefs having been inspired by a supernatural understanding of scientific reality. However, such discussions are best left on the articles that can be written about subject where the sources directly comment on these ideas. Examples include Islam and science, Biblical inspiration, and Hindu cosmology, for starters (but these are by no means the only articles where such information can be merged). As it is, this article is just serving as a catch-all net for vaguely related ideas and until serious scholarship develops which actually does the legwork of making comparisons between these beliefs, Wikipedia should not be on the vanguard. jps (talk) 12:33, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 13:05, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 13:05, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I was surprised to see it nominated since I have the impression that the article could be improved scholarly, although it would mostly a rewrite, so it may well be justified. This reminds me of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fulfilled prophecies which I nominated (with delete result). I'll still think more about it before !voting. —Paleo Neonate – 13:16, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - there are no reliable sources discussing the fringe notion that religious texts "foretell" scientific discoveries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.220.13.71 (talk) 17:09, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I have been looking for sources just now but failed to find anything worthy. I know of primary sources of various Christian denominations with such claims (i.e. "the circle of the earth" interpreted as being a sphere by the JWs) and of some Muslim primary sources with other similar claims. They're however primary and I can't find a good nonpartisan scholarly work discussing this revisionism postdiction phenomenon, at least not using these keywords. Maybe of relevance could be Vaticinium ex eventu, hindsight bias and somewhat related Bible code and Symmetry in the Quran... There is more information about protestant and new religions movement millenarist revisionist interpretations of visions from Daniel and Revelation, which tend to focus on politics rather than science. —Paleo Neonate – 23:12, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Adding: interestingly, such claims about Nostradamus are more popular in culture, but we have relevant articles about it already. —Paleo Neonate – 23:19, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. – Uanfala (talk) 00:19, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - synthesis and original research about a bunch of unrelated assertions. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral, possibly leaning towards "Merge". There is something to be said in this area. Arguments of this kind are made in the hope of proving the divine authorship of holy books. The game is to show that they imply scientific facts which no humans knew at the time of writing and hence that it could not be the sole work of humans. People do this. They are not going to stop doing this just because it is silly. The same game can be played in reverse to tease out assertions that are scientifically incorrect. For example it has been argued (seriously) that the Bible asserts a claim equivalent to π=3 and (humorously) that it describes a heaven that must be hotter than hell. This is also silly and makes a great topic for silly YouTube videos in which each side tries to outdebunk the other side's debunkings of their claims. However, it is certainly not the silliest topic to have an article and I'm sure that some instances of this are considerably more notable than the YouTube videos I mentioned. I think it is reasonable to have an article (or articles) about those. The question is whether this is, or could be improved to become, that article. It's certainly not great. Covering multiple religions in one article might be a synthesis unless we can show a scholarly reference linking the phenomena across the different religions. Also the article is too much a list of specific examples and not enough about the shape of the overall phenomenon. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:43, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There was apparently a deletion discussion about a previous version of this article that happened in 2005. I apologize that this was not automatically transcluded in my listing because of how long ago the discussion happened and the changed name. In any case: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biblical scientific foreknowledge. jps (talk) 01:27, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And was redirected from this state. —Paleo Neonate – 02:20, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Correction, the above was a WP:POVFORK created over the move-redirect (copied from Conservapedia). —Paleo Neonate – 02:26, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. We could redirect this to Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Guy (Help!) 07:03, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, not just because of WP:SYNTH, but because the article totally fails WP:DUE. Besides relegating "criticisms" to a pitiful section at the end, this article doesn't even begin to cover the topic. Where's Dianetics? Buddhist āgamas? Shinto texts? Taoist, Wicca? I suppose the article was better when it just covered the Bible as it did during the 2005 AfD (and this isn't as bad as the PoV fork), and should each religious text be split out, that may satisfy some of the core content policies. Seeing as articles covering the topic already exist though... — Alpha3031 (t • c) 08:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete POV fork.Slatersteven (talk) 11:27, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Not an encyclopedia article, and no way to edit it into one. XOR'easter (talk) 21:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - piling on. way too many OR/POV issues. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:31, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I agree with XOR'easter; this isn't an encyclopedia article and there is no way to edit it into one. Perhaps a small amount of material from this artilce could be used to improve Apologetics, but nowhere near enough for a merge. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:13, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Adding another snowflake to the pile; a mass of original research, POV-pushing, and synthesis that is beyond salvaging. PohranicniStraze (talk) 06:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Novel fringe concept, not covered in RS, so not viable. Alexbrn (talk) 04:58, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.