User talk:Godsy/Archive/2014

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Christian Mythology

Okay, a couple of things. Before we talk about the article, let me just give you a few pointers as you said you are new here:

  1. This discussion should be occurring on the article's talk page. Anytime we discuss changes to an article, it should be done there. I'm not going to make a big deal out of that, as I think we're fine here. We've both given edit summaries which sum up the discussion so far. If necessary, I can transcribe this discussion there.
  2. I would recommend reading the Talk Page Guidelines. That page contains pretty much all you need to know regarding talk page discussions, such as good practices and editing format.
  3. You should really get into the habit of signing all your comments to talk pages with four tildes ~~~~. There are a number of bots that will take care of signing after you if you forget, but it's generally considered rude not to sign them yourself.
  4. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I may not known the answer, but I usually have a good idea of how to find it.

Okay, with that out of the way, let me talk about the sentence in the lead. Right now, I'm fine with the way you handled it. Excising it from the lead and giving better info at the beginning of the 'Christian attitudes' section is pretty much an ideal solution from where I sit.

My issue with the sentence as it was (lacking the last two words, 'among Christians.') was that it suggested that there was serious disagreement among scholars and academics, as well as among the population as a whole. The truth is that there's no real controversy except among lay Christians. Atheists, pretty much by definition, believe the stories are false and thus have no problem with the term, while academics and scholars and even amateur experts would almost entirely agree that they are myths, because the word 'myth' does not imply falsehood. In the end, there's really no controversy at all. It's only those few lay Christians who don't know what the word means in a scholarly sense and also take notice of the fact that their mythology is considered mythology by scholars, object to the term.

On Wikipedia, we don't give undue weight to fringe views, and views which only exist due to a lack of understanding of jargon are pretty much by definition fringe views. So what Wikipedia should portray is that there is no controversy over whether or not the word 'mythology' is appropriate, but that there is a vocal minority who object to the use of the word. In the section 'Christian attitudes', this is fairly and neutrally portrayed in that each objection is mentioned, sourced and explained.

So right now, we have no disagreement, and I believe we understand each others' position. So let me wish you happy editing. :) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 06:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]