School talk:Theology

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documentary hypothesis

The wikisource file s:Bible, English, King James, According to the documentary hypothesis has been proposed to be moved here. Any comments?--Rayc 04:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this would be the best place to move it, maybe under a division of biblical/Christian studies (or something akin to it). It is not a source text (which is why WS won't accept it), and not exactly appropriate for WB. Instead, it's more of a set of teaching material which explains a particular theory of biblical studies that claims the Torah and deuteronomistical history is a collection of sources that had been compiled into one document. For any person who wants to study the Bible or the Old Testament, this set of pages provides a good germ for spurring such studies.—Zhaladshar> ^(Talk)> 16:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely it should be moved here; the Document Theory is an exegetical theory that would be home under Christianity's Biblical Studies, I believe (even though it's wrong! ;) I'm glad you mentioned this course; I just did a lesson concerning the Document Theory, and the course will provide a great supplemental resource to link to. Btw, I should mention that the wikisource page was deleted, it seems.

--Opensourcejunkie 00:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

By Opensourcejunkie's request, I've imported it with history to Bible, English, King James, According to the documentary hypothesis. —Pathoschild 23:46:40, 03 April 2008 (UTC)

Department of Christian Theology?

Would it be possible to have a department which focuses purely on Christian theology rather than the various denominational biases which are implied in other departments? AlistairReece 14:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

One would hope that this could be achieved. -- Dionysios ^(talk), Founder of the Wikiversity School of Theology, Department of Orthodox Christian Studies, Date: 2007-10-23 (October 23, 2007) Time: 1231 UTC

The changes I made yesterday should accommodate your desire, Alistair. -- Guðsþegn 00:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Organizational Changes

I've been in these nightmarish denominational nomenclature wars before, and I want to avoid that, but I also wanted to bring much needed organization to what was a chaotic mess. You (Dionysis) have already seen the major changes I have made so far. I am wanting to conform the department names to what I created on the school intro page.

Also, I am showing here some slight changes to what I have already put on the intro page that may be amenable to everyone.

• Department of Traditional Christian Theology — includes topics that are relevant primarily to particular traditions
  • Center for Orthodox Studies — includes topics like ...
  • Center for Catholic Studies — includes topics like ...
  • Center for Reformational Studies — includes topics like ...
  • Center for Restorational Studies — includes topics like ...

So, instead of "Department of Orthodox Christian Studies", it would be the "Center for Orthodox Studies" within the "Department of Traditional Christian Theology".

BTW, it is common for university departments to have "Centers for" such and such in them.

This scheme avoids some things: (1) in linking each tradition family to the Department of Traditional Christian Theology it doesn't make as overt a claim for each tradition family as being "Christian" as having the two words in the same phrase does (some in some traditions do not believe that others in other traditions are fully Christian -- again, avoiding conflict), but it does say they are nominally Christian (because they are in that department); (2) it avoids negative or unpalatable words as labels -- Orthodox is a wide enough term to cover that family of traditions (and it may not sound parochial as "Eastern ..." may sound to some); Catholic is here not called "Roman" which can also sound parochial; Reformational is used instead of "Protestant" because many of us "Protestants" hate that word (it sounds attached to something else, while in rebellion; it was used as a curse word by foes; and it doesn't cover reformational movements that existed prior to Martin Luther); and Restorational is used by adherents as an umbrella term. I would have used the term "Evangelical" instead of "Reformational" to cover Protestantism but some have a negative association with that term as well (not me, mind you - I love the term).

I'm going to change the intro page for now (because I hate having to wait to do something that in my mind seems to be a great solution), but I am holding off changing the existing department pages themselves until I get some feedback. -- Guðsþegn 00:08, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I really like this Department - Center metaphor; I think it could help clarify a lot. I wanted to suggest applying it to the Department of Biblical Studies as well.

--Opensourcejunkie 00:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Comparative Religion

Hello All, I would like to see the creation of a school of comparative religion that can unify most of these schools of thought into a single curriculum that is more well established and has a higher degree of community cooperation. It seems like something we could all work together on.

I think this would be a great idea. We should start by creating the division of Comparative Religion and have certain subdivisions: (a) Mythology/metaphysics (b) Ethics (c) Practice ... These three areas could yield many interesting and profound comparisons. IAO131 19:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a general feeling that the school/department metaphor may not be working well in Wikiversity. An alternative suggestion has been to create projects in the Topic namespace, ie, Topic:Comparative Religion. See: Wikiversity_learning_model/Discussion_group#A_4-pronged_approach. Countrymike 20:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This seems perfectly reasonable if it is a more effective route of organizing all of this information IAO131 20:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I added a department of comparative religion, it is very basic, so people can help by expanding it. Thank you all in advance. Magosgruss 21:36, 02.28.2008 (UTC)

Faculties

The faculties use too many odd naming conventions. Why separate it into 'dominant' & 'old,' 'historic' & 'tribal?' The 'dominant' ones are about as old as Zoroastrianism, but the latter is a just as significant monotheism, and so are some new ones such as Ayyavazhi and Baha'i. The 'historic' ones are not just historic, but still practiced, and similar to the 'tribal' ones, though focusing on tribes is not the main idea. Instead of 'dominant' & 'old' we should have 'the great religions' (i.e. monotheisms or henotheisms,) and instead of 'historic' & 'tribal' we should have the pagan, ethnic, or cultural religions. These two and perhaps 'new religions' are the only categories needed.--Dchmelik 03:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Just so everyone is aware, the Sikh religion is, alas, less than a thousand years old (though I agree that it ought to be grouped with the "majors"). Meanwhile Zoroastrianism is God knows how many thousands of years old, and the major influence on pre-Islamic Iranian culture. The Druze religion just barely qualifies in terms of time, and hardly at all in terms of influence, and outside of Israel is often viewed as a sectarian form of Islam. In other words, borderline in every possible way.

I would suggest a cateogy of "major religions" defined as follows: more than 1 million followers, and/or more than 1000 years of history as a literate culture; and which has continued to exist up to the present day. (Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze, Baha'i, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religion, Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Caodaism, Yiguandao, Brazilian Spiritism.)

With the numerical bar raised to 10 million (but retaining the 1000-year loophole) we lose only the Baha'is, Caodaists, and Yiguandao followers. --Dawud — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.60.55.9 (talk • contribs) 11:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Meher Baba Dept.

Meher Baba is a person, not religion. Also, do we need to make an entire department for every Spiritual Master that did not found one of the 'great' or pagan religions? If so, there would be thousands of Departments. IIRC Meher Baba taught Vedanta and Sufism, so he should be a topic in the Sikh or Sant Mat depts. (Sant Mat could also be a Sikh topic.)--Dchmelik 03:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

God and donating body parts

this comment was moved from here I dont know if I am at the right place to ask . what God says about donating our body parts???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.165.57.243 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The answer depends on your religion, among other things. The Jade Knight 16:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Wicca a new religion?

Is Wicca strictly speaking a new religion? I was under the impression that Wiccan trace their beliefs back to the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic world of the early centuries of the Common Era. AlistairReece 09:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be a new religion, though many Wiccans say it is old; some of its ideas can be traced back far, but it also seems there are new ones, or at least ones that cannot be verified as old. The word 'Wicca' is actually based on the Anglo-Saxon words 'Wicche' and 'Wiccha,' but those meant types of priests or witches, and not a religion itself: classical words for religion were different than the root words of 'Wicca.'--Dchmelik 07:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Wicca is indeed a new religion, founded about 60 years ago, though it makes claims to antiquity (its founder, Gardner, claimed to have gotten the original Wiccan teachings from a coven of witches which traced its religious heritage back thousands of years). Frequently Wicca is claimed to be ancient Celtic religion in a modern form, but (as some people have pointed out in no uncertain terms) Wicca is not a Celtic religion. The Jade Knight 16:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Time Cube Studies

How does one go about establishing a department of Time Cube Studies? http://www.timecube.com