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I've noticed that there has been discussion on this page before about the inclusion of Northern Ireland. I agree that there is some debate as to whether or not it has been (in recent times) Christian terrorism. Of course, as an aside, no Christians I have known would consider taking a life unless they had to defend themselves or someone they cared for, and had no other choice. Perhaps they are truly Christian, and the rest are charlatans.

Back on point though, the section on Northern Ireland gives three examples, for what they're worth, of Christian terrorism in the region. All of these are actions having been carried out by organisations which would be described, nominally, as Protestant. The Provisional IRA, nor any of the other (nominally) Roman Catholic terrorist groups in Northern Ireland have no examples, suggesting a bias by the article. There are some examples I can think of, whereby the Provisionals caused harm to, or murdered, Protestants.

I am not going to wade in and edit the article without hearing some response here first. Instead, I will flag the section with a POV notice. --24.88.64.22 (talk) 00:32, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

i think this is a completely valid point. working on it. thanks for pointing it out. Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Thanks for enhancing the balance. I left my computer after making the edit and pressing save, so I didn't see the 'captcha' and, when I came back, I just typed it in and pressed save. So the neutrality notice is now at the head of the section. Feel free to remove it if you think everyone is satisfied with the changes. --24.88.64.22 (talk) 03:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

are you? Jytdog (talk) 03:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have some questions about the edits that were made to that section. I'm not saying that I disagree, but I just really do have some things I do not fully understand. I'm talking about the passage about Clifford Peeples, John Somerville, and Ronnie Flanagan. Why was it deleted? One aspect that I think may be worth considering is the part about "finding biblical justifications", because that has historically been considered important at this page in differentiating Christian terrorism from other kinds of terrorism. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

hi - it was an effort to reduce the WP:WEIGHT given to protestant terrorism. a rough/brutal cut for sure and i would not object to it being restored. Jytdog (talk) 20:39, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This page improperly contains several examples of Christian sectarian violence, which is not at all the same thing as Christian religious terrorism. Terrorism is the use indescriminate killing methods designed to achieve political goals. Religious terrorism is terrorism intended to achieve radical religious goals. Sectarian violence is when two different groups engage in acts of war against eachother. Sectarian violence and religious terrorism is not the same thing.

In addition, regarding the troubles in Ireland, while the main motivation of the troubles was political and fought along social, ethnic and nationalistic lines, there is a well documented history of anti-Catholic discrimination and violence in the UK that dates back centuries and the political troubles in Northern Ireland were to great extent an extension of that same anti-Catholic history. It is important for anyone reading a historical text, cited as a scholarly source in one of these articles, to understand that even a historian's perspective can be biased by what they want to believe and how they want to understand an event (even if they teach at Oxford). It may be that the violent unionists did not care that the people they were shooting and arresting were Catholic, but it may have mattered to the Catholic being shot and arrested that the Prostestant dominated government of Great Britain was once again yanking the choke collar. To de-emphasize the role of religion in the Troubles is an act of revisionism. While religion was clearly not the whole story, it was a vital piece of it. Making broad, general, sweeping statemnts that the troubles were not a religious conflict is objectively incorrect, even if you back up that statement by citing a text written by an Oxford historian who shares the same biased and objectively incorrect view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.166.80.249 (talk) 14:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes

I just reverted some new edits to this section, and per WP:BRD, I'm opening a place for discussing it here. I invite the editor who made the edits to explain the reasons for them here, and we can discuss them. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This series of edits by Asarlaí removed well sourced content on catholic terrorism, and as trypto noted in his edit note when he reverted, made a strong claim that "these edits seem to push the POV that religion was a minor aspect, and that the Catholic side, in particular, were simply pursuing a political concern". I was about to revert when he did. The text below, removed by Asarlai, is well sourced and should not have been removed, especially since corresponding protestant content was left in place.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army and various dissident republican groups have carried out terrorist attacks on Protestants.^[1][2][3] Kenneth Bloomfield compared the IRA border campaign to ethnic cleansing.^[3]

Yep. Jytdog (talk) 20:03, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Although it's obvious that I do, I agree with Jytdog. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Troubles was not a conflict over religious beliefs. This is the mainstream, almost universally-accepted view of the conflict, and I re-wrote the section (with references) to reflect that.

Sectarian attacks, or inter-sectarian violence, is not the same as religious terrorism (terrorism motiviated by religious dogma).

Both Ulster loyalists and Irish republicans carried out sectarian attacks (loyalists moreso), but the vast majority were not religiously-motivated. I noted this fact in the article.

The recently-added content on the IRA says that the Brighton bombing, the Bishopsgate bombing, the Bloody Friday bombings and the assassination of Lord Mountbatten were "terrorist attacks on Protestants". Firstly, the sources do not call them that, nor hav I ever heard them called that. Secondly, as I pointed out, sectarian violence is not the same as "Christian terrorism".

As it is now, the section misrepresents sources, pushes a fringe view that the Troubles was about religion, and mistakes inter-sectarian violence for "Christian terrorism".

~Asarlaí 21:57, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Asarlaí, in your edits, you appeared to indicate that the Orange Volunteers, in contrast, were Christian terrorists. On what basis are you making the distinction between them, and the three events you refer to just above? And, when you say that the motivations were not based on religion, are you arguing that a correct understanding of Christianity does not lead to the actions that occurred, or are you arguing that identity as Protestants or Catholics was unrelated to those actions? (By the way, I'll note that the current content on the page gives due weight to arguments about the extent to which the violence was religious versus sectarian or political, and gives ample attention to the fact that it was not purely religious. There is a perennial argument on this page about whether it is possible for terrorism to be Christian and simultaneously also motivated by other, secular concerns, or whether it can only occur when the motivations are purely religious.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Orange Volunteers could very well be a Christian terrorist group since their motivation appears to be religious rather than unionist. Unlike other groups, they refuse to accept the Good Friday accord. But you need to show that sources for terrorist make the link, otherwise it is original research. Similarly, a discussion of the causes of the conflict has no place in the article unless it discusses its relation to Christian terrorism or other types of terrorism. The British government was the main force involved in the Troubles, but was not typically seen as a terrorist organization. TFD (talk) 03:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with TFD. Nothing should be in this article unless reliable sources describe it as "Christian terrorism" or as religiously-motivated.

Thus, the bit about the IRA attacks must be removed because—awful tho they were—none were religiously-motivated and sources do not describe them as such. Likewize, the line "Both Protestants and Catholics committed terrorist acts during the Troubles" must be removed because it wrongly implies that those attacks were religiously-motivated or linked to Christian terrorism.

The Orange Volunteers are mentioned because it's one of the very few instances of a group (in the Troubles) claiming to carry out violence based on their religious beliefs, or using religious beliefs to justify their violence.

Other groups may hav vowed to "defend Protestants" or "defend Catholics", and been involved in tit-for-tat sectarian attacks, but almost none of this was religiously-motivated. ~Asarlaí 14:30, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One writer, Mark Juergensmeyer says that religion is the driving force behind terrorism throughout the world, and I think the article should mention his views. I think though it would be better to explain his views in his own section, as well as their lack of support, rather than use it to coatrack in lists of atrocities that are normally seen as ethnic/nationalist violence. Bryon Morrigan and Tryptofish seem to support his analysis, which is fine, but we need to assign it the "weight" it has in reliable sources. And while we can argue about the motivation of different groups, what matters is what third party sources say. Unfortunately, while most books that classify terrorism mention Christian terrorism as a type of religious terrorism, they do not say much about it or even identify Christian terrorist groups, individuals or actions. TFD (talk) 15:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I actually like TFD's idea about having a section about differing views about definitions of Christian terrorism, especially since different authorities do indeed treat it differently. Of course, it wouldn't just be about Juergensmeyer. And I want to point out that the Ireland section of the page also cites Steve Bruce, and to a lesser extent John Hickey, as agreeing with Juergensmeyer's views, so this is not a case of a single outlier. I've been meaning for some time to add to this page the analyses of Jessica Stern, who is beyond question an authority on religious terrorism, and who regards group identity as a part of the definition of religious terrorism.

In that regard, I asked a question above about whether identity as Protestant or Catholic might play a role in this, and I haven't gotten an answer to my question.

Obviously, I'm not speaking for Bryon or anyone else, but this isn't about whether I "support" Juergensmeyer's analysis. You don't know what my personal beliefs are, and they don't matter. I am supporting reflecting the secondary sources that also include Bruce and Hickey. I don't accept that agreement to the Good Friday accord means that someone cannot be a Christian terrorist, or that opposition to the British government makes the terrorism non-religious (after all, Islamic terrorists also oppose quite a few governments), and this talk page has long gone round and round over whether or not it is SYNTH to call something religious terrorism if a source says in one place that it is religious and in another place that it is terrorism, or if something cannot be religious terrorism if the motives are not purely religious. It seems to me that Juergensmeyer, Bruce, and Hickey are not placing the religious motivations only at the feet of the Orange Volunteers and other Protestants. I made sure that the page also includes Richard Jenkins' position that there is no religious aspect, and it seems to me that due weight points towards presenting each of these third-party views. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Acceptance of the Good Friday Agreement is evidence that the parties were not motivated by religion because it was the settlement of an ethnic/national rather than religious dispute. And religious terrorists do not negotiate because in their world view they are in a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil. There can be no peace with the devil, the antichrist and the idolators until Jesus returns and defeats them at Armageddon. A martyr's death is preferable since they go directly to Heaven. That is the view of religious terrorists from the Crusades to the gunpowder plots to al Qaeda. (All recognized examples of religious terrorism.)

I do not think there is more than one definition of Christian terrorism. The only debate is whether some Christians, such as Klansmen and Northern Ireland terrorists were motivated by Christianity.

Incidentally, I did not say that the IRA attacking a government meant they were not religiously motivated. The British government is not religiously motivated. Ted Heath did not send troops to Northern Ireland because Jesus told him to.

TFD (talk) 03:13, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I must have misunderstood you about the British government, so thank you for clarifying that. We certainly agree that the British government was not religiously motivated. But we currently have four secondary sources, two of which say the Irish combatants were religiously motivated, one of which says there was sort of a religious motivation but not quite, and one of which says that there was no religious motivation. As for your deductions from the Good Friday agreement, that sounds like original research on your part. As for whether there is more than one definition of Christian terrorism, that comes down to sources basing the definition of "motivated by Christianity" on motivation by Christian beliefs and/or motivation by identity as Christians. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sure it is OR to say that religious terrorist do not sign treaties (which is in reliable soruces), therefore the nationalist and unionist terrorists who signed the treaty escape that definition. But that would only be a problem if I wanted to put it into the article. I was trying to explain why scholars place them under the category of ethnic/nationalist terrorism rather than religious terrorism.

Here is a link to a good article about the role of religion in the conflict which provides the same quote from Bruce used in the article. It points out that the conflict between England and Ireland preceded the Reformation by 500 years. I do not understand how you can say that the English had no religious motivation, yet cast the conflict as religious. How do you remove England from the conflict? They conquered Ireland, dispossessed the indigenous people in areas and replaced them with English and Scottish settlers. The article implies that Bruce claims the conflict is a religious dispute between Protestant England and their supporters and Catholic Ireland begun during the Reformation.

Even if the conflict were religious, you would still needs sources that link the terrorism to religion. You mentioned OR - it is OR to assume that the terrorists have the same motivation as the communities of mostly law-abiding people they belong to.

TFD (talk) 22:17, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that source. Well, I was referring to Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, not to English government officials. And I was most definitely referring to those Irish persons who were actually carrying out the acts of terrorism, and not to the much larger number of law-abiding Irish persons, and I'm surprised to think that anyone thought that I was equating them. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And just to be clear, although the website you linked may quote Bruce, the original quote comes from his Oxford University Press book, where he says: "The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality." --Tryptofish (talk) 22:35, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mean to imply that you claimed most Irish were terrorists, but most Irish were involved in the conflict, and lined up on either the unionist or republican side, if only by voting overwhelmingly for unionist or republican parties. But even if you can show that the reason why Irish want to be part of Ireland and Orangemen want to be part of the U.K. is based on their religious views, it does not mean that the minority of people who commit terrorist offenses do so out of religious motivation. You need a source that says that.

I still do you understand your point. Are you saying that England annexed Ireland and retains control of the north for political reasons, but the indigenous Irish opposed them for religious reasons? So had England re-established the Roman Catholic Church, that would have ended the conflict? That was true of Guy Fawkes and the other gunpowder plots which were examples of Christian terrorism in England.

TFD (talk) 00:46, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm drawing a distinction between motivation by Christian beliefs and motivation by identity as Christians – in this case identity as either Protestants or Catholics. Where the Bruce source says "The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict... it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality", he isn't saying that they are adhering to religious scriptures, but to religious traditions, in the sense of group identity. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

i am struggling with TFD's effort to draw bright lines. The statement "The only debate is whether some Christians...were motivated by Christianity" is problematic in that "Christianity" is not a well-defined thing. Every established religion permeates the culture in which it appears, and vice versa. This is well known by sociologists. The Breivik case is a great example where it is really the Christian-identified cultural aspects (as defined as not-Muslim-culture) was the primary driver of the terrorist act, not a belief in Jesus etc. A lot depends on what lens you to bring to the analysis and many groups can be classfied multiple ways. Most importantly, as Trypto points out, we have plenty of weight in the reliable sources that do classify groups in the Irish conflict as "religious terrorists" and that is all we need. Perhaps we can resolve this by being clear about the conflict in the sources and say something like "X group is classified as a Christian terrorist organization by some scholars b/c Y, while other scholars classify it as specifically non-religiously motivated b/c Z". Would that satisfy everybody? Jytdog (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not only would that satisfy me, but it strikes me as pretty much the only option that the available source material gives us. In pretty much every section of this page, we end up having differing views in secondary sources, because there just isn't as much established opinion about Christian terrorism as there is about Islamic terrorism, and our job is to present those sources in a balanced way, and not just to do what happens whenever a drama breaks out on this talk page: choose the sources that an editor agrees with, and demand either that we loudly condemn something, or that we delete it from the page. And I like the idea that TFD and I briefly discussed earlier, which is to have a new section of the page, in which we can discuss the ways that scholarly sources attempt to define the subject. (In fact, there is also the subject of people using the phrase "Christian terrorism" as a rhetorical device; see [1].) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:55, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

that kind of "framing" section would be very useful to have at the top of the article! Jytdog (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What we should be doing is representing, "fairly and proportionately", all the views on Christian terrorism in relation to the Troubles.

What we shouldn't be doing is implying that specific organizations and actions are Christian terrorism without attributing that to good sources and without giving an opposing view.

Thus, I've removed the first line and the bit about the IRA attacks, which I discussed in my last post. ~Asarlaí 00:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

and thus reverted. conversation is not done here. please be patient. Jytdog (talk) 00:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter whether the conversation is done or not, because—as it stands—the content clearly goes against one of Wikipedia's key policies (NPOV), and I've shown how it goes against that policy. Is anyone suggesting it be kept as it is? ~Asarlaí 01:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

of course it matters! please read WP:CONSENSUS and WP:NODEADLINE. we are working steadily toward reaching consensus. Jytdog (talk) 01:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In no way does NPOV call for editing contrary to the available secondary sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(See my reply below). ~Asarlaí 20:17, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NOTICE

It occurs to me that there has been some reverting of the material about Northern Ireland and, because the material being discussed relates to The Troubles, that section of this page (but not the page as a whole) really ought to be regarded as subject to the discretionary sanctions imposed by the Arbitration Committee. Therefore, I'm placing this notice here as an advisory to everyone involved, including myself, going forward from this time. Please especially see what it says about 1RR. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proof of nature

As has been discussed on this talkpage several times, is the terrorism christian in its goals? The PIRA's goal was a united Ireland, a socialist one at that. The fact that a majority of its members are catholic and the majority of its oppenents protestant is akin to the multiple reject US agruement on here before. Jytdog, this article is not about general terrorism and the religion of people who commit these acts,

"The Provisional Irish Republican Army and various dissident republican groups have also carried out terrorist attacks. These acts included the 1972 Bloody Friday bombings in Belfast, the 1979 assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing, the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, and multiple other bombings and mortar attacks. Kenneth Bloomfield compared the IRA border campaign to ethnic cleansing."

Lets look at these, which ones are christian terrorism, Mountbatten- no, Brighton- no, Bloody Friday- no, Bishopsgate- no, others- no proof. Kenneth Bloomfield, "I welcome recognition of the IRA’s campaign against border Protestants/unionists, which was ethnic cleansing", he directly relates unionism with protestantism, without further proof, as ethnicity is different from religion, this view on the situtation that is disputed. If its not sourced it shouldnt be in. Murry1975 (talk) 09:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not proof of anything! It is sourced, and it should not be deleted because some editors disagree with the sources. In the talk section above, there is discussion about motivation by identity as well as motivation by belief. There are four principal secondary sources about the section. There is the Oxford University Press book by Steven Bruce, where he says: "The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality." And he isn't saying that only about Protestants. There's the Mark Juergensmeyer source that says essentially the same thing. There's the John Hickey source, that says: "more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion". And the Richard Jenkins source that disagrees and says that it is not about religion. There is nothing "proof" about pretending that the Jenkins source is the only source. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The sources do not suggest that the attacks were Christian terrorism. The sources don't even mention Christian terrorism. Yet those attacks are listed here as if they are Christian terrorism. The article might not say it outright, but it's clearly implying that they're Christian terrorism by mentioning them. This goes against NPOV, as I explained in my last post. Not only does it go against Wikipedia guidelines, but 3 out of 5 editors here agree that it should be removed.

Surely we can all agree to not list specific organizations/attacks in this article unless reliable sources call them Christian terrorism? ~Asarlaí 20:17, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct that the Jenkins source says that it is not Christian terrorism. However, all three of the other secondary sources in the first paragraph of the section do explicitly call it Christian/religious. Is your concern that some sources calling it, for example, "ethnic cleansing" means that it is "Christian ethnic cleansing" as opposed to "Christian terrorism"? Not that WP:VOTEing has anything to do with WP:CONSENSUS, but I count you, TFD, and Murry1975 as opposing inclusion, and Jytdog, Bryon Morrigan, and myself as favoring it. You have to do better than just saying baldly that the sources classify it as not Christian, when multiple sources directly contradict what you say. Would you like to have an RfC? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand what we're talking about. Look at the last paragraph. None of the sources say that the IRA specifically were engaged in Christian terrorism. None of the sources say that those specific attacks (Brighton, Bishopsgate, Bloody Friday asf) were Christian terrorism. Yet the article implies that they are Christian terrorism, without giving any sources and without giving another view. That goes against NPOV.

The sources in the first paragraph talk about the conflict in general, backing a fringe view that it was religious. You can't then use those sources to claim anything you like as Christian terrorism.

All we're asking is that the first line and last paragraph be removed, and that the article represent—"fairly and proportionately"—all the views on Christian terrorism in relation to the Troubles. ~Asarlaí 22:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So if I understand you correctly (and I really am receptive to being corrected if I misunderstand), you are not objecting to the "terrorist" part of it, but rather to the Christian/religious part of it. The sources in the third paragraph are, indeed, more about sourcing of the events, and of characterizing the terrorist nature of those events, than about the motivations, Christian or otherwise. However, the sources in the first paragraph, in assessing the subject as a whole, do not make any distinctions disallowing the Catholic portions of the conflicts, do they? They seem to me to be talking about both sides, and characterizing both sides as religiously-motivated (at least in significant part, and more in terms of group identities as Protestants and Catholics than in terms of doing specific acts on the basis of passages in the Bible). We do include a source that disagrees with the assessment of religious motivation (and I was the editor who added it). I do not agree with your assessment that the three other sources are WP:FRINGE, but I am receptive to the possibility that they may represent minority views, and I would be happy to re-balance the first paragraph accordingly, including the addition of more sources that dispute the religious motivation and/or sources that might draw Catholic/Protestant distinctions. That would be a more nuanced approach that simply deleting all the material about terrorist actions by the Catholics while retaining all the material about terrorist actions by the Protestants. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, would you please explain why that seemingly random list of IRA attacks belongs in the article?

Bloody Friday, the Brighton bombing, the Bishopsgate bombing and the Louis Mountbatten assassination. Why do these four attacks need to be mentioned, in an article about Christian terrorism, when none of the sources call those specific attacks Christian terrorism?

The article notes that "the Provisional IRA also carried out terrorist attacks during the Troubles. Although its members were mostly Catholic, the IRA campaign is not widely seen as religious terrorism, although some sources disagree". Surely that's all we need to say?

There is no such list of Loyalist attacks, and nor should there be.

We don't need to mention the Martin O'Hagan assassination either. The source doesn't say it was religiously-motivated, it just discusses the 'Protestant fundamentalist' element among anti-ceasefire Loyalists. ~Asarlaí 01:01, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I can answer those questions. The list is emphatically not "random", but rather, summarized from this source: [2], that is cited at the end of the sentence, where there is a very similar list. That's where it came from. And it's not accurate to say that "none" of the sources call these attacks Christian terrorism, rather that a minority of the sources do.

This discussion about #Northern Ireland revisited was initiated by the IP editor who noted, quite reasonably in my opinion, that there were questions about due weight in that the page, at that time, listed only actions by Protestant/Loyalist groups, and had no mention of Catholics/Republicans at all, which on the face of it appears to put Wikipedia in the position of "taking sides" in what is very obviously a two-sided conflict. I think that there needs to be some approximate (no need for mathematical precision) parity between the lengths of the second (about Protestant/Loyalists) and third (Catholic/Republicans) paragraphs of the section. As written on the page, there seems to be some indication that the O'Hagan killing was by fundamentalists, but I'm receptive to a parallel shortening of both paragraphs. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:39, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion caused me to look closely at the source cited for the O'Hagan killing (someone else, not me, originally wrote that material), and I see now that the source is actually a lot more specific about the religious motivations of the killing, and I have revised that paragraph to include some direct quotations from the source. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:00, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So the list of attacks is only there to make both paragraphs the same length??

I don't think that's acceptable on Wikipedia. We don't add content just to fill space and make things look balanced, especially not when that content may mislead people. We add content that is relevant and based on what reliable sources say.

A small minority of sources call the conflict religious, an even smaller minority calls the IRA religiously-motivated, but no sources call those specific attacks religious terrorism. Yet by listing them here we're implying that they are religious terrorism.

The source doesn't call the O'Hagan killing religiously-motivated at all, it just discusses the 'Protestant fundamentalist' element among anti-ceasefire Loyalists. However, you added the following to support your argument that it was religiously-motivated:

She noted that the Red Hand Defenders claimed that they killed O'Hagan, and quoted their supporters as saying that it was "the ancient battle between the true church, Protestantism, and the Whore, the Beast and the Baal worshippers within Catholicism", and that "the Irish question is at bottom a war against Protestantism".

That's misrepresenting the source. Neither of those people are called supporters of the RHD and neither are talking about O'Hagan. The first quote was made by a pastor in 1997 and the second was made by a pastor in 1912. O'Hagan was killed in 2001.

You say you'd be "receptive to a parallel shortening of both paragraphs". Surely that should be done by removing the needless and potentially misleading list of attacks. ~Asarlaí 16:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you made an excellent point about the relative dates of the quotes that I added and the date of the O'Hagan killing, and that led me to partially change my mind. I've come to agree with you that it's pointless to try to make a case specifically about O'Hagan, and that it's also a good idea to put the Orange Volunteers first – but I also think that the quotes in the source about O'Hagan's killing are highly relevant in their own right. I think you will find that a fair reading of what I said above, just as fair as I am trying to be in listening to you, was not about making the two paragraphs the same length, but about presenting material according to WP:DUE, and there's a difference. I also can see that the list of IRA actions is going to be an impasse, so I decided, in the interests of what I hope will be more peace at this page, to delete them myself, and also to combine the two paragraphs such that there is less of an issue of "comparing" the coverage given to Protestants versus Catholics. I hope these edits help. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:55, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In my own opinion there is no need to include a Northern Ireland section on this page at all. The conflict in NI is not religious at its core. While religious labels are often used for both sides, these labels are stand-ins for National/Ethnic groupings. It was a Native/Planter or Irish/British conflict with political motives being far and away the most important rivers of the conflict. Religion, while a handy if somewhat simplistic divide used to represent the conflict in the media, was never a barrier to participation on either side, there were protestant IRA volunteers and Catholic UVF members - Cultural/Ethnic background was where the battle lines were drawn, not confessional practice. Gaelmise (talk) 18:44, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Am I correct that you came here from the posting at WikiProject Ireland (that was not noted here until I found it and linked to it)? In any case, your own opinion does not trump secondary scholarly sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Don't get carried away on the canvassing thing. There is no obligation on anybody to say what route they came here by, and we have already established below that the notice at WT:IE was a perfectly proper one, semantic games notwithstanding. Scolaire (talk) 22:30, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not carried away at all, and I'm quite experienced with these kinds of POV disputes. No, nobody has to begin their comments by saying how they got here, but it's generally a good idea to base arguments on source material, rather than upon personal opinions. I'm not exactly sure with whom you "established" that we don't have canvassing going on here, but to avoid canvassing, the editor who first posted the notice really ought to have said here that he was doing so, although it is now quite clear from my postings that the notice took place so that's no longer a problem, and there really ought not to have been a header on that posting that used scare quotes and the overly simplistic word "as" in order to bias the notice, but I fixed that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Balance of sources

Looking at the above discussion, I see the word "sources" used a lot. I see Richard Jenkins, Mark Juergensmeyer, Kenneth Bloomfield, Steve Bruce and John Hickey mentioned. There seems to be an idea that what is required is to balance these few authors in such a way as to achieve NPOV. Well, no. The Troubles article has one hundred and eighty sources. NPOV can only be achieved by giving due weight to all of the sources. How many of the 180 sources say that the Troubles constituted "primarily a religious conflict"? I'd be surprised if a single one did. How many of the 180 characterise terrorist acts as Christian terrorism, Catholic terrorism, Protestant terrorism or religious terrorism of any sort. I'd be amazed if a single one did. There is, in essence, one author cited in this article saying it was a religious conflict, and one author cited as saying it was "religious terrorism". That is undue weight on an unprecedented scale. The entire section needs to be removed, it is in violation of one of the five pillars. --Scolaire (talk) 16:56, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agree 100%. Republican != exclusively Roman Catholic, Loyalist != exclusively Protestant. While religion played a part in the Troubles, equating that to "religious terrorism" is an incredible stretch. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You may perhaps be interested in adding yourselves to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism. Let's be precise about this, and not engage in hyperbole. About the other page, there is always WP:CIRCULAR, but I'm not seeing zero out of 180 as accurately reflecting the source material as a whole. You would have a valid point if there were only fringe sources attributing anything to religion, or if the page presented the material as if there were no disagreements in the sources. But the page makes it very clear that there are sources that attribute the violence to non-religious factors, and sources (albeit in the minority, especially as regards the Republicans) that attribute it partly to religion or even largely to religion, and the page presents these sources according to due weight. On the other hand, a page that takes the available source material, and selectively presents the sources that disavow religion while selectively omitting the sources that cite religion, would have a serious due weight problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:11, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sources that attribute the violence partly to religion or even largely to religion, yes. Sources that depict it as "primarily a religious conflict", no. Yet it is on that basis (or on the basis that Bruce said it was) that the article section exists. And I'm not seeing any content in the Troubles article that remotely hints at "religious terrorism". Note that WP:SYNTH does not allow us simply to take "Catholic" or "Protestant" and "terrorism" from one or more sources and conclude that there was "Christian terrorism". So, no hyperbole, and my point stands. Scolaire (talk) 18:41, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not SYNTH when sources say it, and sources say it. If "largely" means more than 50%, then it's the same thing as "primarily", and the distinction between "primarily" and "entirely" is being discussed in this context at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism, where I expect that the consensus will be that it depends upon secondary sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not SYNTH to say there was "Christian terrorism" if multiple reliable sources say it was "Christian terrorism", but they most definitely do not say it. If one reliable source says A (a group described themselves as Protestant fundamentalists), and another reliable source says B (it was a terrorist group), do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C (They were "Christian terrorists") that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to imply a new conclusion, which is original research. That's what WP:SYNTH says. Also, "largely" is not the same thing as "more than 50%" and "more than 50%" is not the same thing as "primarily". Another example of synthesis. If multiple reliable sources can be produced to say unambiguously that it was "primarily" a religious conflict, then that can be given due weight, otherwise not. Scolaire (talk) 22:17, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Except that's not what is actually happening on the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not accusing anybody, but I'd have to be blind not to notice that this talk page goes through long quiet periods, and then, suddenly, we get multiple editors concerned about the Northern Ireland section showing up all at once. I hope that there hasn't been any WP:Canvassing, but if there has been, then please be aware of that policy. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:17, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• The editor who actually made the post should have noted it here, but I will note that this discussion has been linked to at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland#The Troubles at Christian terrorism. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:49, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're quite right, I should have noted it at the outset. I apologise for the omission. However, I wouldn't call it canvassing. Discussions regarding the Troubles are naturally of interest to members of WikiProject Ireland, and it was quite right to inform us of this one. I might add that the notification was scrupulously neutral. Scolaire (talk) 18:25, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, I was referring to the editor who made the post at the WikiProject talk page without noting the post here. Perhaps this discussion would also be of interest to the WikiProjects on Terrorism and on Atheism. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • PS: But I see now that you added to the original post at the WikiProject. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes. After I posted my apology above I went back and informed the project and informed members that I had started a new section. Is that a problem? Scolaire (talk) 22:37, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, not as such. The problems were that Asarlai did not indicate here that he had posted there, and that he used a biased section header for his post there; both of those problems have since been corrected for, by me. The reason that I said that to you was that I had previously said that I was referring to Asarlai, and not to you, because I did not know at that moment that you had also contributed to that posting, and I was clarifying that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • I should've told you earlier that I'd asked for outside opinions. I forgot to mention it while writing my last post, and am only realizing the mistake now. My apologies. ~Asarlaí 01:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • Canvassing in this case was conducted properly as it was done to draw a wider group of editors with an interest in the subject but no specific position on the dispute in this article. TFD (talk) 06:56, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • @Asarlaí: thank you, and I think that things are settling down now, so I have no remaining problem with any of this. What is more important than any remaining discussion about canvassing is that I hope that you will see my comments above, made before other editors showed up from the WikiProject, in which I had altered my opinion and, I hope, made some edits to the page that may help address your concerns. As for the WikiProject, it was very strange, from my perspective and in real time, to suddenly have multiple editors show up together, all with the same concerns, and without any apparent reason for that happening. That's where the canvassing policy comes into play. All you had to do was to note, here, that you had posted at the WikiProject, for transparency. Also, I very much stand by my concern that the header you used there, which was The Troubles as "Christian terrorism", used those quote marks in such a way as to indicate that, in your view, it was wrong to classify the The Troubles as Christian terrorism, so in a subtle way, that was not a neutral posting. I fully understand why TFD and Scolaire see the notice as neutral: because they agree with you that the classification is questionable. But that's still one of two sides to this discussion. There are plenty of ways to seek fresh eyes, including WP:RFC, WP:3O, or WT:WikiProject Terrorism or the other WikiProjects at the top of this talk page, which do not include the Ireland project. I asked at the Ireland project page whether anyone would have objected if, instead, I had posted a notice at WT:WikiProject Atheism (which I actually have no intention of doing). Had I done so, however, I could reasonably have expected that editors who are quick to see problems with religion would have come to this discussion and been eager to see The Troubles painted as a religious conflict. Even though, officially, the Ireland project is about improving content about Ireland in a neutral fashion, it's no coincidence that every editor who responded to your post makes a big deal on their user pages about their pride in their Irish identities, and so your post was a subtle way to reach out preferentially to editors who would be predisposed to object to characterizations of Irish conflicts that might seem negative to them. And the irony is that these editors showed up after I had already partly changed my mind and made edits agreeing with you. Síochána. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:51, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I acknowledge that I made a couple of mistakes when I asked for opinions – I forgot to tell you right away, and put quote marks where they weren't needed – but neither was deliberate or in bad faith, and the post itself was neutrally-worded. Nevertheless, I do apologize.

I still think WikiProject Ireland was the best place to seek editors with an interest and knowledge of the Troubles.

Your last edit dealt with one of the main issues, and I thank you for it. I hope we can now draw a line under this and continue discussing the other issues that have been raised about the Northern Ireland section. ~Asarlaí 15:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! What you just said here seems to me to be exactly the right thing, and I could not ask for more. I do hope that other editors will take notice. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:59, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've only just now looked at the Juergensmeyer citation, and discovered to my horror that it is a throwaway remark by somebody with no obvious familiarity with the Northern Ireland situation, in reference to some action in the United States! This cannot possibly be given any weight at all against the multiplicity of sources on the NI conflict. Undue weight has gone from unprecedented to ludicrous. Scolaire (talk) 19:08, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So much for my request to avoid hyperbole. This talk page has a long history of editors complaining about Juergensmeyer, but he is an academic with an expertise in religious terrorism, and he is a reliable source on this subject. We do not restrict the sourcing of this page only to sources written by authors from Ireland, and I would hope that that would also be true at The Troubles. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The question is not whether the author is from Ireland – that would indeed be a meaningless criterion – but what his level of expertise is as regards Northern Ireland. He might be the most reliable source ever on terrorism in general, but the quote that is cited in the Northern Ireland section of this article suggests that he has no more expertise on the Northern Ireland conflict than the average American reading an American daily paper. He is not a reliable source on anything in connection with that conflict unless he can be shown to have done significant research into that conflict. So far, that hasn't been shown, and I suspect it will never be shown. A throwaway remark such as is quoted here has zero weight against all that has been written about the conflict out of actual knowledge. Scolaire (talk) 22:02, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For one thing, there are multiple sources, so he isn't the only one, and for another, he is a reliable source about religious terrorism, whether or not he is a reliable source about Irish history. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

His view on Northern Ireland is fairly marginal among terrorism scholars who generally put the conflict in terms of ethnic/nationalist division. 07:18, 29 November 2014 (UTC)TFD (talk)

My point is that he has not been shown to have a view, in the academic sense, at all. The quote is: "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism..." I don't know what the context was, but it was clearly an American context, and shows no evidence of his ever having formulated a view on Northern Ireland. He may as well have said, "Like Fox News says of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism". Incidentally, London is not in Northern Ireland. Should we also have a section on "Christian terrorism" in England, and try to second-guess what Juergensmeyer was referring to there? Attacks on Muslims by Christian neo-Nazis, perhaps? In terms of WP:V, it is an equally valid exercise. Scolaire (talk) 11:46, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I do not know why you were not invited to the mediation, but I suggest you look in there for the discussion as to the proper ambit of this article. Clearly you are one of the editors who is interested in such a discussion, and would likely bring in some other insights. Collect (talk) 13:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I was invited to the mediation. I just haven't decided whether I want to participate. I don't do things by halves, and involving myself in a mediation process would entail devoting a lot of time that I can't afford to something that is likely to bring me a lot of frustration and very little satisfaction. I don't think I have anything to add to what I have said in this section. If others want to use my arguments in the mediation, then I hereby make them free, without even the requirement of attribution. Scolaire (talk) 18:37, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Scolaire, it is clearly an opinion. Facts in reliable sources are reliable, but they are distinguished from the opinions expressed. TFD (talk) 19:38, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[Note: Tryptofish has opened a new discussion on synthesis in general. I have moved it to a new section below: WP:SYNTH. --Scolaire (talk) 10:05, 1 December 2014 (UTC)][reply]

It appears we have one editor who is insistent that the Troubles was a conflict involving Christian terrorism, many editors who understand it to be an ethnic/nationalist conflict (with religion sometimes used as a handy label by some), and the vast majority of sources also describing it in similar terms - ethnic/nationalist rather than religious. It would appear that the consensus would be for this section's removal. Note, Tryptofish, that an editor's userpage, nationality, or religious beliefs are irrelevant, and shouldn't be raised. But for the record, I'm an Irish nationalist with a small 'n' (as opposed to Republican with a capital 'R') and an atheist. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:12, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I ask that we hold off on the hyperbole, and look at what the sources say. The reason we have the number of editors here that we have is because of the notice at the WikiProject, and I raised it because of that posting and the policies that apply to that posting; I've also said that it is time to move on from that. As for what this "one editor" personally thinks, I rather suspect it was a conflict involving liquor more than religion, so there. But I am not a reliable source, and neither are you. The section on Northern Ireland is currently sourced to references 45–62. Instead of talking in general terms about what some editors think that they "understand", let's take a look at those sources. The section already makes clear where there are sources that attribute the conflict to non-religious motivations, and in the case of the IRA even indicates that such sources significantly outnumber the sources who say that the IRA were motivated by religion. What, for example, is your opinion of Ayla Hammond Schbley as a reliable source on religious terrorism? Do you think that what the page says about the Orange Volunteers is not reliably sourced? Do you think that WP:DUE should be interpreted as deleting material entirely because some sources say one thing and other sources say another? --Tryptofish (talk) 15:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And I also never said anything about your or any other editor's religious beliefs. Never. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Schbley tried to develop a "common profile of religious terrorism".[3] To do that he researched terrorists where religion was a factor. In the case of Christianity, he concluded that only one group - the Maronite Monks with 200 members - met the criteria. He does not mention the Orange Volunteers. While I agree that they fit the description, as do several other organizations discussed on this talk page, you need a source that makes the connection. Again, there is nothing improper with inviting editors familiar with terrorism in Northern Ireland to comment on this article. There is no reason to assume that those editors have a bias against considering the source of the conflict to be non-religious. TFD (talk) 17:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I never said or even implied that Schbley said anything about the Orange Volunteers; there are other sources cited for the Orange Volunteers. We can discuss at the mediation the fact that you are misreading Schbley when you conclude that he said that the Maronite Monks were the only group he would classify as Christian terrorists, amongst those he discussed. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mean that he said only the Maronite Monks met the criteria, but that they were the only group he studied that did. He did however exclude the bulk of terrorism by Christians in Northern Ireland and Lebanon from religious terrorism. Can you please re-read his article, because you do not appear to be reading it properly. TFD (talk) 17:48, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've re-read it several times, and will undoubtedly re-read it again during the mediation. I am absolutely convinced that you are misreading it, and it appears that you are equally convinced that I am misreading it, so there we are. I doubt that the two of us continuing to argue back-and-forth with one another will achieve any progress, which is why I have been so interested in a structured discussion led by the mediator. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Following on from what Bastun said: the fact that there is a current mediation case on the overall scope of the article should not prevent the removal of a specific "example" section, which is not fundamental to the scope of the article, if there is a consensus to do so. I agree with Bastun that at this stage there is a clear consensus to remove the Northern Ireland section. The fact that a number of editors (i.e. two or three) were alerted to the discussion by a notice on a WikiProject talk page does not alter that fact. An equal number of editors in favour of the section might easily have been drawn to the discussion by the same notice – the project is by no means limited to people of one nationality or one point of view, and many a heated argument has gone on there around nationalism, religion and the Troubles – but apparently they were not. Scolaire (talk) 18:11, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't accept your definition of a "clear consensus", particularly because you are looking at a narrow time window (over what has been a holiday weekend in the US), and if you go to the top of this talk page and follow the thread down, you will find that I am not the only editor expressing this opinion, merely the only one over the past few days. Indeed, Asarlai seems to agree with me that there is appropriate sourcing for the Loyalist groups that were influenced by fundamentalist Protestantism, so we hardly have a true consensus for a sweeping deletion of the whole thing. And very importantly, this is not a numerical vote, but a matter of sources. As I've pointed out, we are dealing with sources 45–62. Can you refute all of them, or explain why a significant number of them should be disregarded? Given that the ArbCom discretionary sanctions limit us all to 1RR on that section, calls for a complete deletion of the section (as opposed to calls for improvements within it) are a serious matter. And given what you have just said about it, I'm now comfortable with saying: @Jytdog: @Bryonmorrigan: do you each agree with what Scolaire has proposed? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the ping, trypo! sorry, i have been paying attention to other things of late. Yes I agree that to delete the whole section, all the refs need to be knocked down. Scolaire please feel free to show each of them fail. 21:26, 1 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jytdog (talk • contribs) 21:26, December 1, 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That being the case, I want to note that we do not actually have consensus to delete the entire Northern Ireland section. In the other branch of this talk thread, at #WP:SYNTH, I've pointed Scolaire to the source by Prof. Bruce, for starters. And also down there, TFD and I have started to find what I consider to be a very promising approach to, as the thread title here indicates, balance the sources, rather than just delete the whole thing. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, as I've stated before, I really have no clue about the Northern Ireland situation (apart from what I've seen in movies), so I can't in good conscience cast any kind of "vote" in favor of one thing or another. I don't believe in editing on WP topics where one is not sufficiently educated. Sorry. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 02:16, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So... I think what we're being asked to do is prove a negative? A handful of sources attribute "Christian terrorism" as a motivating factor to a handful of very minor players (I'm familiar with the Troubles, but I don't recall hearing of the actions of the 'Orange Volunteers' all that much, outside of Wikipedia). Many sources explicitly say "This was an ethnic/nationalist conflict" while very few explicitly say "This wasn't religious terrorism" - so we have to conclude that it was a religious conflict and report it as such?! Surely WP:VALID applies? There aren't many sources saying "The earth isn't flat", but there are many saying "The earth is round." We don't give equal weight to those saying "The earth is flat" because of the relative lack of numbers of the former. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:45, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, this isn't about proving a negative. It's about basing content on sources. As noted below, the first source in the section is by a university professor named Dr. Bruce, and published by Oxford University Press. I keep hearing about those 180 sources at The Troubles. How many of those were published by Oxford University Press? Flat earth proponents are obviously WP:FRINGE. Academic experts are not. We have reliable sources about the Orange Volunteers, and reliable sources trump what an editor recalls hearing. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:19, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, he's an academic, with an opinion. There are many more academics who do not share his - yes, fringe - opinion. Likewise, there are academics and scientists who do not believe climate change is caused by man - they are in a small minority, and that is properly reported as a dissenting view in our articles on that topic. See, for example, Scientific opinion on climate change, Global warming controversy, and Global_warming#Discourse_about_global_warming. In this article's section on Northern Ireland, however, Bruce's fringe view is presented first and more prominently than the majority views. If the section remains, that needs to change. Regarding the Orange Volunteers, they're so minor a player they don't merit even a single mention in the main article on The Troubles (which also states that it wasn't a religious conflict...) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:18, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Bastun. If there's a consensus to keep this section, then we shouldn't be giving undue weight to a fringe view; that the Troubles was a religious conflict.

The first paragraph could and should be summarized in a couple of sentences. The first sentence should say how the Troubles is widely seen a political-ethnic conflict. Scolaire pointed out that plenty of sources could be found for this at the main article and I believe he would agree with myself and Bastun. The second sentence could then say how some see it as partly religious.

Thoughts? ~Asarlaí 18:19, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm receptive to some reordering of how the section is written, along the lines Asarlaí is talking about. Partly, I'm in favor of what TFD and I have been discussing at the section below, about "SYNTH", where we would recast the material as more about the academic debate and less about characterizing the events in black-and-white terms. It also seems increasingly to me that it is a mistake to emphasize The Troubles, per se, as opposed to some smaller groups that were minor players in the overall conflict.

However, we have a problem here if editors are going to insist on blurring the lines between what may (perhaps, because I'm still not really convinced of it – and the two of you may want to consider joining the mediation that is going on, in that regard) be minority scholarly views, and views that are subject to WP:FRINGE. Those are two very different things. To call Prof. Bruce, in a book published by Oxford University Press, a "fringe" source, is completely false, and I would be happy to raise that issue at WP:RSN if either of you continue to push it. Some scholars "see it as partly religious" and some see it as primarily religious. Ayla Hammond Schbley, undeniably an academic authority on Christian terrorism, even refers (albeit only in passing), to the IRA as Christian terrorists. (Oh, and the "academics and scientists" who are climate change deniers – they don't get published by university presses or hold mainstream academic appointments.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I know I already said goodbye, but since I've been pinged by Asarlaí above, I feel I should respond. I don't see Bruce as "fringe" in the flat-earth sense, but neither do I see him as "minority" in the sense of a substantial minority. In terms of scholars of the Troubles, he would be an insignificant minority – nobody has ever thought to cite him in the Troubles article. Besides which, he is quoted in the article only as saying the conflict was "primarily a religious conflict". He did not say that acts of violence were "Christian terrorism". I said in the WP:SYNTH section below, and you agreed, that the Troubles are not clear-cut in the way that climate change is, so we can not simply use "common sense" to conclude that the one implies the other. As for Schbley, the same applies as for Juergensmeyer: that a "passing reference" is not enough to satisfy WP:DUE. I venture to suggest that you recast the entire article in terms of the academic debate, concentrating on the core arguments of the participants in that debate, and remove all sections that are only loosely tied to that debate, especially where synthesis is used to tie them in. Scolaire (talk) 23:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for coming back, and I appreciate what you said here. I'm cautiously optimistic that, following the mediation, the page will indeed undergo a significant revision in the direction of academic debate. Per WP:CIRCULAR, I'm not really convinced that the decisions of editors at The Troubles got this issue right. You've slightly misstated what I said to you about climate change etc., and you've oversimplified what Bruce said (see also the full quote in the footnote), and I'm confident that a consensus will emerge at the mediation that both Schbley and Juergensmeyer are experts whose opinions, even brief opinions, are noteworthy. It really is common sense to understand that there is abundant sourcing to indicate that The Troubles included "terrorism", and that it is not SYNTH to understand in context that one mention of "conflict" as referring to that same terrorism, and that "religious" here refers to Christianity. I expect that the mediation will examine whether the sources say that terrorism that is "primarily" Christian cannot be "Christian terrorism" unless it is "exclusively" instead of "primarily". I'm glad that you note that we are not talking about WP:FRINGE here; and "minority" includes a wide range that is less than 49% but greater than single digits. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:51, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, you've changed the opening of the Northern Ireland section to read "Much of the conflict was over matters unrelated to religion, and Bruce Hoffman and Richard Jenkins have argued that the conflict was not at all religious in nature." I appreciate you moving the "wasn't religious" arguments to the top of the section, but I'm sorry, there are still problems with that wording. "Much of the conflict was over matters unrelated to religion" implies that at least "some" of it was religious in nature. If it was, then it was a tiny amount, and that needs to be reflected in the wording. Hoffman and Jenkins "arguing" that the conflict wasn't religious - there's something odd about that wording to me... it's like there's a case to be argued, and they're only two voices out of four total on the one (non-relifious) side, against two voices on the other (religious) side - when really the "religious" side is a much smaller minority than this 2:1 ratio implies. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would go further than that. I welcome the re-arrangement of the paragraph, and I think it goes a long way towards balancing the quoted sources (though still not addressing the problem of the selectivity of the quoted sources). However, by properly playing down the argument that it was primarily religious, it makes the pointlessness of the section all the more apparent. Essentially, what is now being said is "here is an example of something that probably wasn't Christian terrorism, although a few prominent academics say it was." I don't mind what Juergensmeyer or Schbley said about NI being quoted in a section or sections on their works, but hanging a whole section on passing references, cobbled together with some other stuff, does not make for an encyclopaedic article.

As regards Bruce, at your request I have (re-)read the entire citation, and I don't believe I am misrepresenting his position. What did strike me, though, was the continued use of the word "conflict". There was more to the conflict than just shooting and bombing. There was an ongoing political conflict throughout the period, and of course it arose originally from political protest. It should be remarked that the clergy of all the main churches were united in condemning terrorism, and that there were some well-publicised joint efforts by Catholic and Protestant clergy to bring an end to the violence. It is also worth noting that much of the most extreme Protestant fundamentalist anti-Catholic utterances came from members of the Free Presbyterian Church and of the Democratic Unionist Party, and specifically Ian Paisley, who were also among the most vocal in condemning terrorism. Bruce's take on the subject is simply not enough – even if he were not in a small minority – to build a section on "Christian terrorism" around. Scolaire (talk) 12:49, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I had not seen Bastun's edit when I wrote the above (his edit overlapped with my post), but I do think it is a reasonable edit, and further highlights the question of "why is this section even here?" Scolaire (talk) 18:22, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Scolaire, thanks for returning. The problem with this article is that there are extremely few sources on Christian terrorism. Sources on terrorism have sections on religious terrorism and mention that there are cases of Christian terrorism, but do not identify any. Then there are a few scholars on religious religious terrorism, such as Juergensmeyer, who see many political conflicts as essentially motivated by religion. A couple of long-term contributors happen to agree with him. I think the correct place to explore that view is in religious terrorism and this article should merely say that some political terrorism is seen by some writers as actually religious terrorism.

While there are a few extremely minor groups involved in terrorism, such as the Orange Volunteers and the Maronite Monks, that possibly meet the criteria for religious terrorism, we do not have reliable sources that include many of them. Therefore I see no reason to mention them, as it requires original research, even if they are actual examples.

The way the article is constucted implies to the reader that NI etc. are all examples of Christian terrorism. That violates neutrality, My view is that I believed NI terrorists were motivated by religion would be to have the article explain why some writers make that claim, rather than listing atrocities. Essentially the article is saying Christians killed 3 thousand people in terrorist attacks in NI - isn't Christianity horrible?

TFD (talk) 03:09, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So, TFD, do I understand you to mean that all of the Christian terrorism#Contemporary sub-sections should be removed as failing WP:V, WP:NPOV and/or WP:NOR? If so, why do you not say that at mediation, instead of just arguing endlessly about definitions? There is a section at the top for additional issues. Just say that the article should concentrate on the debate between the few people involved in the debate, and not have makey-uppy sections where editors say why they think this or that situation is an example of "Christian terrorism". Specific examples can be given in the general text, where they are attributable to the people being cited, rather than each under a separate heading. There is no point in me joining the mediation. I am only concerned with getting this one bit taken out. I have not read the other sub-sections and I don't want to; I don't have time to do the necessary research. Scolaire (talk) 11:48, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

TFD, when you say that the section implies that all the deaths in Northern Ireland were committed due to Christian motivations, I think that you might not be giving sufficient attention to the way that I rewrote it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome the fact that the NI section has been rewritten to reflect the mainstream view. However, in the process, it's become far too long. We now hav an article on Christian terrorism in which the longest section is about a conflict where Christian terrorism barely existed (the Orange Volunteers being the only real example). That needs to be dealt with if this section is to stay.
As I said in my last post, the first paragraph could and should be summarized in a couple of sentences: one sentence noting the mainstream view, and one sentence noting the minority view. ~Asarlaí 20:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Asarlaí, thank you for saying that you welcome that aspect of it. I appreciate your willingness to discuss things thoughtfully. I strongly expect that the mediation will lead to big changes in the relative lengths of sections, so what you see now may be very temporary. As I see it, the page ought to move in the direction of the scholarly debate, and if that's what happens, then a discussion of what various sources have said, as is in the first paragraph now, seems appropriate to me (and I would expect even longer such sections on, for example, Lebanon). A problem with eliminating the existing sentences about the sources that claim some religious aspect is that they say quite a variety of things, including a lot of nuanced middle ground. If we lump them together, that would actually create the illusion that there are more arguments for it being flat-out Christian terrorism than there actually are, which I think would take things in the opposite direction of what you have been recommending. On the other hand, it bothered me that I was not in a position to provide more quotes from the numerous sources that were just added, because I do not have access to most of them and at least one has a broken link (I've tagged those). I wish someone would look carefully at filling out those sources, and I'd be happy to give them greater relative weight. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PS: The section about India is actually much longer than the Ireland section, but it is subdivided into regional sections. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a bit of trimming and re-writing to make things more concise, but it needs to be shortened further. Such a lengthy discussion about whether a conflict was even religious doesn't belong on an article about Christian Terrorism. It belongs on an article about religious conflict or sectarian conflict. By making it so long we're giving it undue weight. We don't need to quote every scholar and note every little nuance or slight difference in their arguments. We can accurately summarize the arguments with only a sentence each. I suggest the following:

Terrorist acts, with various motives, were committed by Loyalists and Republicans during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Although most Loyalists were Protestant and most Republicans Catholic, it is widely seen as an ethno-nationalist conflict that was not religious in nature. However, some scholars—such as sociology professor Steve Bruce—argue that it was a "religious conflict" in some sense, while Professor Mark Juergensmeyer argued that some terrorist acts were "religious terrorism" or justified by religion. [end para.]

What does everyone think? ~Asarlaí 16:05, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that your trimming was very helpful, and I thank you for that. (I have one quibble: the McVeigh source specifically uses the designation "racism" instead of political, and I'm going to correct that. It's a distinction that is significant in the typologies of motivations of terrorism, so we should get that right.) I'm not ready to agree to your ultra-short draft until we have a resolution of the mediation and have determined the scope of this page, and, for that matter, until we really have a resolution of what I have raised under #Checking sources – if it turns out that we really do not have reliable sourcing to say that the not-religious view is "widely seen", as opposed to being just one end of a spectrum of roughly equal opinions, then the arguments here quickly collapse. I think that you did a very fine job of adding the sources that say that the IRA were not religious terrorists (with very clearly indicated quotations and attributions), and it quickly convinced me when I saw those sources, so let me make a suggestion. If you or any other editors could do likewise for the sources that I asked about below, then it will be a lot easier to move us to consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree wholeheartedly with your proposed edit, Asarlaí. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:31, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is good. Racism btw is considered political, although I do not think it is seen as the primary motivation, particularly on the republican side. We could follow that paragraph with an explanation of why some writers consider it religious along with why others do not. I wonder though if we should not combine NI, Lebanon and NE India, because their relationship to the topic is the same - ethnic/nationalist conflict where at least one of the parties has a Christian religion as part of ethnic identity. TFD (talk) 23:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About the word "racism", please see #The Robbie McVeigh source, below. About page reorganization, I'm very receptive to doing that in some sort of fashion. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While looking for something else, I just came upon another source in this regard. Symbolism in Terrorism: Motivation, Communication, and Behavior by Jonathan Matusitz is a book entirely about terrorism. The author is a tenured university professor.[4] On page 157 of the book, he has an entire section titled "Christian terrorism of the IRA".[5] And that's the IRA, a group for which there are a lot of good sources saying that they are not religiously motivated. But he explicitly calls it "Christian terrorism", in those exact words, and devotes more than a passing discussion to it. As we weigh the "balance of sources", this is another source to weigh on the scale. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And here's another one: Terrorism and Homeland Security: An Introduction with Applications, by Philip Purpura. The author appears to be recognized as an expert on terrorism and security, although he does not appear to hold an academic appointment.[6] On page 17 of the book, he delineates a typology of different kinds of terrorism, and he says that, while he considers the violence in Northern Ireland to be, first of all, national or ethnic terrorism, "this conflict overlaps religious terrorism".[7] So here's a concrete example of how religious terrorism and other forms of terrorism in Northern Ireland are not mutually exclusive. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Protestant fundamentalist quotes

Regarding this bit of the article:

Susan McKay discussed Protestant religious fundamentalism in connection with Loyalist killings, and quoted Loyalists as saying at various times that the conflicts were "the ancient battle between the true church, Protestantism, and the Whore, the Beast and the Baal worshippers within Catholicism", and that "the Irish question is at bottom a war against Protestantism".

By including these quotes, I think we're giving undue weight to those views. Both were made by pastors, not Loyalist militants. Nevertheless, we can make note of those views without including the quotes themselvs. I attempted to do this, but was reverted by Tryptofish, so I've raised it here. I suggest it be re-written as follows:

Susan McKay explored the Protestant fundamentalist element within militant Loyalism, noting that some Loyalists saw the conflict as a battle between Protestantism and Catholicism.

Thoughts? ~Asarlaí 18:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for starting the discussion about this, and I'm actually more open to finding some mutually agreeable middle ground than my revert might lead one to think. I just didn't want to see the material deleted outright. Let me begin by explaining why I think the quotes add to the reader's understanding of the material. We are dealing, in this instance, with something that unambiguously falls under the topic of this page: direct statements that place the reasons for the violence within a purely religious framework (in the views of the persons being quoted, not necessarily in the views of other parties to the disputes). Given, in part, WP:NOTCENSORED, I don't see any valid editorial reason to make it seem "nicer" than it really was.

That said, I hear you about the fact that the comments were by pastors, rather by the militants themselves, and I'm quite receptive to rewriting the material to reflect that. But first I'd like to clarify the extent to which the pastors and the militants were or were not related. McKay seems to me to portray the pastors as directly influencing and motivating the militants. Do you read her as treating it differently than that? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:00, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the quote implies that the protestant terrorism in NI is motivated by their literal interpretation of the Bible that they are involved in the war against the anti-Christ. What you need is source that makes the connection. It's really easy to find an unnamed person in any conflict who holds views that do not necessarily reflect those of a significant amount of people. TFD (talk) 03:10, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of the pastors are giving religious justifications for terrorism (tho I don't defend them). It's possible that they influenced some people, but the sources don't suggest that the pastors had links with, or were directing, paramilitaries.

The first quote was made by a Pastor Alan Campbell. He's referring to a dispute over a march. Catholics were attempting to ban Protestant Orangemen from marching thru their (mainly-Catholic) village. The Orangemen and supporters were protesting against this. He's likening this dispute—not the Troubles itself—to a religious 'battle'.

The second quote was made by a Pastor William McKean. It's from 1912, so it doesn't quite belong in a section about the Troubles (1960s–1990s). McKean said: "The Irish question is at bottom a war against Protestantism; it is an attempt to establish a Roman Catholic ascendency in Ireland, to begin the disintegration of the Empire". He's referring to attempts by Irish nationalists to gain self-rule for Ireland.

It's true that a small minority of religious Loyalists saw the conflict partly in a religious light. But we shouldn't giv that view undue weight by including these quotes. If we are to make note of it, it should be done with no more than a sentence. ~Asarlaí 16:16, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I asked a specific question above, which was what Susan McKay says about the connections between what the pastors said and what the militants did, and I don't really think that I got an answer. It seems to me that she was saying that those quotations led directly to terrorist violence, and that, over time, that violence even included the murder of a journalist that her piece is about. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alas - that seems a bit of a bungee-cord stretch from what she says to what you think she must have meant. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:05, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Then I'll explain. Here's the source: [8]. (It's probably a clue that the title is "Faith, hate and murder", indicating that her editor saw some line, more direct than a bungee cord, between faith and the murder, but anyway... ) The first couple of paragraphs of the article are about the murder of Martin O'Hagan on the evening of Friday, September 28, 2001. McKay describes how O'Hagan and his wife were going home that evening, and then she describes, the same evening, "The Grand Protestant Rally in Ballymena". She quotes a speaker at that rally (in a quote that, in retrospect, seems more applicable than the quotes I selected from this source earlier) as starting the rally with a prayer: "'Our forefathers who gave their lives for Ulster' were invoked, and then the preacher turned to what he called history. 'God never makes any mistakes. I am a loyalist and a Protestant. I have a Bible,' he said. 'We have to look at the persecution of those that would not bow the knee. Northern Ireland is the last bastion of Protestantism. I don't care what anyone says. The papacy is up to its neck in this.' The most evil men in history were Roman Catholics, he went on."

In the next paragraph, McKay writes: "While Martin and Marie O'Hagan were enjoying what were to be their last few drinks together, 500 or so loyalists, including a sizeable contingent from Lurgan, were assembled at the rally. Ballymena, County Antrim, is the main town in the heartland of Reverend Ian Paisley's constituency, Northern Ireland's Bible Belt." She then describes an earlier rally in that place, and then goes on to describe the rally that night. In that later rally, she quotes Jim Dixon, who had been disfigured by an IRA bombing, as telling the crowd: "What sort of government tells us that sodomy is good? That abortion should be allowed?" Then she describes Mark Harbinson, "an Orangeman" who organized this rally, who gives "the main speech of the evening", in which he says: ""The Orange Order is the last bastion of our defence. The order was not set up as a Christian organisation but as a defender for the Protestant faith." I realize that there's some doublespeak in that last line, but it's still an explicit statement that this was about defending "the Protestant faith" against Catholics. And McKay makes it very clear that people went out from that rally and, that same evening, murdered O'Hagan, a journalist who had angered them.

I get it that editors here disagree with the premise that the murderers were influenced by defending the Protestant faith, but I'd like an explanation of why editors think that the source disagrees with that premise. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Problem 1: McKay does not prove (unless I missed it) that O'Hagan's killers came from that meeting. Problem 2: a single murder is not an ongoing terrorist campaign, so a religiously-motivated murder, even if it were proved, can be merely a murder, not "Christian terrorism". Using quotes from half a century before was dodgy enough, but at least it looked good; using the above argument just screams "original research". Scolaire (talk) 23:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but saying that my argument screams anything is not really engaging with what I said. There's no original research in what I said. It's a plain reading of the source. Arguing that you, as an editor, are not convinced that the source has proved where the murderers had been, and arguing that it was just one murder, sounds like what a defense attorney would say, and substituting your own opinions of proof for what the source says is OR. What I said still stands: whatever editors here would like to believe about that evening in Ballymena, the author of the source is attributing acts of violence to religion. Prove to me that the source does not claim that. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry. I know you don't like hyperbole but unfortunately I love engaging in it :-) Perhaps OR is too strong a term, but at the same time it's not totally accurate to say that the paragraph is "a plain reading of the source." The source article is about a murder, and deliberately connects it with a meeting of a loyalist group that was held the same night, at which the rhetoric of war was used. The Wikipedia article simply says, "Journalist Susan McKay explored the Protestant fundamentalist element within militant Loyalism, and noted that some Loyalists described the conflict as a battle of Protestantism against Catholicism." That is not what she was doing, or what she was trying to do. The source article was not an academic study by an expert in conflict studies – the kind of thing which you argue the whole article is based on – but sensational journalism. You may not call it OR, but I do not call it a fair reflection of the source. Scolaire (talk) 10:13, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem is that the first paragraph in the NI section is about the Troubles, but the actions described occurred in 2001, after the end of the Troubles. The murder has never been solved, and the organization that claimed responsibility is not normally described as Christian terrorist. TFD (talk) 03:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've carefully read all of the most recent comments in this talk section and in the one above. An objection that I have to the edit Bastun made was the use of the word "mainstream", because it directly implied that dissenting views were WP:FRINGE, as opposed to minority; there are also a few small issues with some of the citations, that I have tagged for correction. But more importantly, I've revised the section extensively, taking all of your comments into account. Unless I've missed something, I've addressed everything that was said, except for the calls to delete the section entirely, which I think are POV pushing. I hope that editors can see that I'm listening to what they say and trying to find consensus, instead of digging in my feet and refusing to budge; I recommend that approach to everyone else here as well. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You seem very anxious for other users to accept your bona fides, but you continue to operate, not by making proposals here on the talk page, but by making edits that you say will address our concerns, and then asking us to accept them as the definitive version. You have not answered a single one of my arguments in this or the preceding section. You say that calls to delete the section are POV-pushing – I repudiate that entirely! I have given policy-based reasons why the section is unencyclopaedic and ought not be there. It is you who are failing to engage with us, preferring to make cosmetic changes so as to preserve the appearance of open-mindedness. Scolaire (talk) 23:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reason to consider editing of the section over, so it's not like my edit is the final edit to the page. I completely reject everything you said there, and I stand by everything I said. If you feel that my editing is disruptive, I trust that you know how to pursue dispute resolution. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"I stand by everything I said." In other words, you're not going to respond to any of my objections. And then you say, "Unless I've missed something, I've addressed everything that was said"! I regret returning to the discussion now; I am not discussing with a reasonable person. Scolaire (talk) 09:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And I smell bad, too. A reasonable person would not misquote what I actually said in order to make a point. To say that I haven't taken adequate part in these discussions, or to imply that I need your permission to make edits to the page (your previous comment), is laughable. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about your smell, but at least you've shown your true colours. Goodbye. Scolaire (talk) 22:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"An objection that I have to the edit Bastun made was the use of the word "mainstream", because it directly implied that dissenting views were WP:FRINGE, as opposed to minority;"' It does? Would the average reader (as opposed to editor) think that the opposite of 'mainstream' is 'a fringe view' rather than 'minority'? Once again - the view that the Troubles were religious terrorism is a view held by a tiny minority. Your edits continue to give the impression that this is not the case, that there is a significant body of opinion that supports the idea that the conflict was religious in nature. Even then, it's an incredible stretch to jump from a conflict with religion at its roots to "Christian terrorism". Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:37, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bastun, I think that the edit you made most recently, indicating that the groups were not monolithically Protestant or Catholic, was a good idea. Thank you. I think that I rewrote the material to make it very clear what the predominant and the minority views are, but if you can suggest a more precise way to say it, I'm receptive. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Checking sources

I've started looking online to see more specifics about the sources cited at the beginning of the section: references 45–53, the ones cited as the mainstream views. I noticed that number 47, the source by Richard Jenkins, cited at The Troubles as indicating that religion was not an aspect of the dispute, and which I copied from that page to here as a source for that view, actually says on page 157, "Cultural and political differences between the Irish and the descendants of the settlers found, and still find, powerful expression in religion. As I suggested in Chapter 8, although essentially political, the Northern Irish conflict is symbolized and reinforced by an important religious dimension."[9] Please don't get me wrong: I see where he says "although essentially political", and I am not suggesting that he actually characterizes the Troubles as a religious conflict, but I am saying that he clearly sees the situation in a more nuanced way than something where religion played no role or played only a minor role.

So I would like to invoke WP:BURDEN, and ask the editors who have added the content that says that the not-religion view is so widely accepted to provide a bit more verification of the sources that they added to the page. I'm asking about:

• Ref 48, Gaffikin, Planning in Divided Cities.
• Ref 49, Roshwald, The Endurance of Nationalism: Ancient Roots and Modern Dilemmas.
• Ref 50, Kennedy-Pipe, The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland.
• Ref 51, McGarry, Explaining Northern Ireland.
• Ref 52, Keogh, Northern Ireland and the Politics of Reconciliation.
• Ref 53, Weitzer, Policing Under Fire: Ethnic Conflict and Nypd Relations in Northern Ireland.

Can you please provide some quotes and page numbers where the sources say what the page attributes to them? Thank you. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively - how about you find sources that state that the conflict involved "Christian terrorism", as opposed to merely being a conflict with a religious dimension as one aspect. Because you're the one making the extraordinary claims, I believe the WP:BURDEN falls on your shoulders to find WS:RS supporting your contention that the Troubles involved "Christian terrorism." When my Muslim colleague and I argue over where to go for lunch, it's a conflict with a religious dimension... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:39, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you are deflecting the question. The sources that are cited for the specific instances that are characterized on the page as Christian terrorism actually do say what the page ascribes to each of them (citations 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, and 70). If you want to list anything particular and ask me for a page number or a quotation, I'll be happy to do it, and I won't feign a deflection to avoid doing so. Now if it turns out that the loudly touted 180 references actually do not support the claim that there is an established consensus in the source material that the Northern Ireland conflicts were unrelated to religion, then your claim that the sources citing religion are "extraordinary" collapses like a house of cards. WP:BURDEN and WP:CIRCULAR are parts of a core Wikipedia policy. You added a long list of sources that you say are sources that indicate that the conflicts were not about religion, but they lack page numbers and have a dead link, and when I read one of the sources cited, it actually says something different than what has been claimed about it. I'm offering you an opportunity to make sure the sourcing is alright. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, feel free to show sources that claim the Troubles was Christian terrorism, rather than merely a conflict with religion as a contributing, ancillary factor. At the moment, there are none. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I said that I am happy to reply, and I am. You are incorrect about "none", because references 57 and 70 use that characterization directly. And more or less at the same time as your question to me here, I noted in another talk section that there is this source: [10], that explicitly presents the IRA as Christian terrorists. So we do have sourcing that some sources characterize the Troubles as Christian terrorism. And I'm not claiming that they all do, just that some do, and they need to be given proper weight.

Now as for that weight, the question then becomes how many sources we really have for the opposing viewpoint. I fully agree that we have some. But I've asked you very clearly and explicitly about the others, listed above, and you still haven't answered me. I want to make sure that you understand that this is a serious question. Please make note of a past decision by the Arbitration Committee that declared two principles, about "Accuracy of sourcing" and "Errors in editing". I really want you, perhaps with help from other editors, to fix the sourcing issues, and I want to give you every opportunity to do so, before I am forced to conclude that you do not intend to try. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, I've found some better sources than the ones you listed above. The ones you listed were taken from The Troubles article and only backed the statement that "the Troubles was an ethno-nationalist conflict".

These new sources help back the statement: "the Troubles is widely seen as an ethno-nationalist conflict that was not religious". I've added them to the article, along with quotes, and removed some of the old ones. ~Asarlaí 01:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Asarlaí. The problem, ultimately, is that Tryptofish is clearly demonstrating ownership issues on this article. An American professor, when writing an article about an entirely different conflict, can include a line about the Troubles, and that then apparently becomes a valid source for saying that the Troubles was a conflict exhibiting "Christian terrorism". Another American can write about the IRA, an organisation with Catholic, Protestant, atheist and agnostic members, and somehow declare them to be Christian terrorists, and that makes it true and a reliable source? In the next section (Norway), we've the actions of one man, a self-confessed "non-religious" person that many would consider insane, used to justify the inclusion of a 'Norway' section. There are still serious WP:WEIGHT issues in this article. This policy states, in part: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article." Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:12, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Asarlaí, thank you! That was exactly what the section needed. I may have a few minor questions after I have a chance to review the sources carefully, but I doubt that there will be any significant problems, if any at all. Bastun, you do not seem to understand ownership any better than you understand sourcing, but if you would like to pursue dispute resolution, I am very comfortable with what I have done. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:40, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm quite familiar with WP policies, thanks. You, however, may want to review the policy on 'no personal attacks'. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Robbie McVeigh source

Asarlaí, I want to explain a couple of things about this source.[11] First, in the quote that you placed in the footnote, you presented it this way:

Quote: "But this analysis only covers part of the story; there is a plethora of other evidence illustrating the more ethnic dimension to conflict in Ireland. [...] Moreover other labels—like ‘Unionist’ and ‘Loyalist’ or ‘Nationalist’ and ‘Republican’—signify the political and ethnic elements [...] This already suggests that we are dealing with ethnicity—which recognises just such an amalgam of different elements—rather than faith. [...] The ethnicity paradigm offers a holistic reading of inequality and discrimination in Northern Ireland that the ‘religious conflict’ approach cannot."

You introduced bold font formatting for words that are not in bold font in the original source, so that's a problem.

But also, you have summarized the source in a manner that does not represent the source accurately. As the author's title (Sectarianism in Northern Ireland: Towards a definition in law) indicates, his intention is to define what happened in Northern Ireland in legal terms.

• In his paragraph [6] he quotes the Bruce source, and in paragraphs [7] and [8] he responds to it. He says: "But this analysis only covers part of the story; there is a plethora of other evidence illustrating the more ethnic dimension to conflict in Ireland. The English/Irish and Settler/Native dynamic predates the Reformation and ipso facto looks more like ‘race’ than ‘religion’... This already suggests that we are dealing with ethnicity [italics in source] – which recognises just such an amalgam of different elements – rather than faith. Tellingly in the jurisprudence of ‘fair employment’, ‘perceived religious identity’ came to be more important than ‘religious identity’. The ethnicity paradigm offers a holistic reading of inequality and discrimination in Northern Ireland that the ‘religious conflict’ approach cannot." He's saying, indeed, that it's not primarily religious, but he's focusing in a legal sense on the way religion can be confused with ethnicity.
• Paragraph [11]: "It has also sometimes been argued that sectarianism should not be recognised as a form of racism in Northern Ireland for tactical reasons... This strategic argument is weak, however, in terms of human rights discourse." He is starting to make the case that the legal term of racism applies. He goes on to discuss the history of discrimination in Ireland in terms of legislation and community relations.
• Paragraph [25]: "This approach leads to three [italics in source] separate categories of hate crime – ‘racist’, ‘sectarian’ and ‘religious’." He goes on to analyze this trio extensively, and defines "racism" for his purposes (citing Macpherson) in paragraph [34].
• In paragraph [45], he starts to draw his conclusions: "In other words in terms of human rights and equality discourse, there is no ambiguity – for the purposes of human rights law sectarian identity is to be regarded as an ethnicity and sectarianism as a form of racism. [italics in source] This emerges from general trends on race and ethnicity as well as specific discussion of racism in Northern Ireland."
• In paragraph [48], he quotes the Committee conclusion that: "Sectarian discrimination in Northern Ireland and physical attacks against religious minorities and their places of worship attract the provisions of ICERD in the context of “intersectionality” between religion and racial discrimination."
• Paragraph [51]: "The core definition is that ‘sectarianism is a form of racism’."
• Paragraph [55]: "In this context the defining work falls on the word racism rather than the word sectarianism." [italics in source]
• Paragraph [58]: "By implication there is something about group identities in Northern Ireland that qualifies them for protection from racism – in other words, the ‘perceived religions’ ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’ are ethnicities in the context of Northern Ireland."
• Paragraph [60]: "This does not mean of course that sectarianism should not be regarded as a specific form of racism. In other words there is every reason to continue to use the term ‘sectarianism’ as a discrete subset of all racisms in Northern Ireland. This approach helps name the specificity of the dynamic between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland whilst acknowledging that this belongs within the wider paradigm of ethnicity and racism." [italics in source]
• Paragraph [62]: "It is also the case the BME communities will want to maintain recognition of the specificity of their experience of racism in Northern Ireland and the continued use of the term sectarianism in the sense above allows this to happen."
• Paragraphs [70]–[72]: He discusses the relationship to "political" motivations, and concludes: "My own opinion, however, is that this should be removed from race and equality precisely because it does not sit easily with international practice." (I don't think he is discounting politics as a motivation for the Troubles, but he is downplaying it from a legislative perspective.)
• Paragraph [78], his "Conclusions": "In this context, racism is a clearer and better descriptive for sectarianism in Northern Ireland than ‘institutional religious intolerance’. ‘Perceived religious identity’ or ‘community background’ as it is understood in Northern Ireland reflects ethnicity rather than ‘faith’."

So there it is. If we are going to cite McVeigh as a rebuttal to Bruce, then we have to take his rebuttal as it appears in the source, and there is no getting around the fact that, in rejecting "religion" as a defining motivation for the hatred between Loyalists and Republicans, he is replacing it with "racism". I can well understand how that word sounds harsh, but he is saying that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

McVeigh does not say that the Troubles was a "racist conflict", nor does he say that there was "racist terrorism". He doesn't even mention terrorism once. You've quoted more than a dozen paragrafs of his article to support your proposed wording – but his article isn't about the Troubles, it's about defining sectarianism and racism in Northern Ireland generally. It was written 16 years after the Troubles ended. His response to Bruce is on page 3, and page 3 only. Nowhere in that response does he say that "the terrorism" was "racism". ~Asarlaí 00:05, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that we should not describe McVeigh as using the word "terrorism", and I have come to agree with that part of your edit (there are other sources that do use the word). There's a problem if we decide that the McVeigh source is not about what the Northern Ireland section is about, because we cite him as a rebuttal to the Bruce source that says that it was about religion. If you'd like to delete McVeigh entirely, I'll go along with that, but then we present Bruce as unrefuted. But if we keep him, the fact remains unrefuted by you that McVeigh thinks that the hatred between Loyalists and Republicans was racism much more than it was political. Actually, I tried to make it clear that the section is about more than just the Troubles per se, but your shortening of the section tended to put the emphasis back on the Troubles. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:08, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is misleading to say McVeigh concludes it was was a sectarian conflict. He says it is called sectarian, but it does not meet the usual definition of conflict within a religious or political group. And he does not even mention terrorism. It is important to remember that terrorism is classified by the motivation of terrorist acts. For example, why did the IRA bomb Canary Wharf? Was it to strike a blow against the Church of England, to instigate a socialist revolution or get the British out of Northern Ireland? The fact that some IRA were Catholics and others socialists is independent of why they carried out attacks. And importantly they ceased carrying out attacks once they negotiated a settlement, but remain political actors with a range of political objectives. TFD (talk) 23:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given #Steve Bruce essay, below, I've deleted the McVeigh stuff too, because the only real reason to cite McVeigh was as a rebuttal to Bruce. I do think that McVeigh says it was sectarian, and racist, but it sounds like editors are unlikely to agree about it, and I think that the page ends up being better off if we just leave it out. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shortening of section

Here are the things I see as issues with respect to the shortening of the section that was made over the last several hours:

1. What Richard Jenkins really says is oversimplified to the point that it doesn't really reflect the source (as is also the case in the lead at The Troubles). He spends an entire chapter talking about how he sees religion as important, not just incidental, in the Troubles, even though he primarily classifies them as not religious. He does more than just point out the other scholars who have argued for a religious basis (now relegated to a footnote), in that he actually discusses at length the way he sees it as being possible that the Troubles can be principally about politics and nationalism, and still be secondarily about religion. It misleads our readers to present the source material as taking the position that if something is not purely Christian terrorism, then it cannot be Christian terrorism at all, because that is not what the sources say, even though some editors have tried to push the POV that this is the case.
2. The same problem is even more acute for Philip Purpura. The page now attributes to him the opinion that it was religious terrorism, when he actually classifies it explicitly as national or ethnic terrorism. At the same time, he says that the classifications "overlap" in this case. Again, the important concept is being obscured.
3. The quotation marks around "religious conflict" and "religious terrorism" (notably, when there are none around ethno-nationalist conflict) are not really serving to indicate direct quotes, but to imply doubt about the terms, in Wikipedia's voice. The guideline at WP:SCAREQUOTES states that this is to be avoided.
4. There is no justification for, essentially, hiding the Matusitz source. You may not like it, but it is an academic book that devotes an entire section explicitly to Christian terrorism, in those exact words, in regard to this conflict. I'm fine with presenting it as a minority opinion, but I see no reason to leave it only to an inline citation without any main text.
5. "The Provisional IRA's campaign is not widely seen as religious terrorism, although some sources disagree." Saying in Wikipedia's voice that it firmly is "not" seen that way, and then saying that some sources disagree, is not only illogical (obviously, those source do see it that way), but it is editorializing that those sources are considered wrong by Wikipedia.
6. About Steve Bruce, I've commented specifically about it #Steve Bruce essay below. It matters, because it's an academic source that specifically places the small splinter groups as Christian terrorists, and it should not be completely omitted. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re #5: Stating that the PIRA's campaign "is not widely seen as religious terrorism" implies that it is seen as religious terrorism by an imprecise rump, possibly a significant number - when in reality it's a tiny minority. Would be reluctantly open to changing that sentence to read "Mainstream commentators do not regard the Provisional IRA's campaign as religious terrorism, although a small minority of sources disagree", but really the sentence should be removed entirely. A largely Marxist and Republican organisation, that had Catholic, Protestant, atheist and agnostic members, that came to prominence largely in response to an attack by government forces on an unarmed civil rights march, and who would bomb and shoot people of all religions and none if it would advance the PIRA's Republican cause of "Brits Out!", were not "Christian terrorists". Their inclusion in this section is laughable and weakens the rest of article as a result.

Changing the section headings was a good move, though. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:04, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for what you said about the section headings. I appreciate that. I would be fine with language that makes it very clear what is majority and what is small minority, just so long as we acknowledge that the small minority exists. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• As noted below, this section was moved here from the Northern Ireland section, and I want to say that I fully agree with that move. Thank you. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:17, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An RfC was just closed at Talk:Climate change denial#RfC: Must the word 'denial; occur in every citation for climate change denial?, and it is interesting to read the closing statement there, in that it reflects community consensus about some aspects of when to use or not use sources about a topic without violating WP:SYNTH. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:35, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The concluding statement says the term "climate change denial" may be used if the source "implicitly states they fall into the general group." It has no relevance to anything discussed here. It certainly is not a loophole for "synthesis". TFD (talk) 16:08, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is looking for "loopholes". I'm not arguing for any kind of slavish devotion to that discussion here, just for editors to take a look, and to think about it with an open mind. I think that the closing statement makes some good points about common sense. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing "slavish" about the devotion. If most sources say the motivation of the terrorism is secular, then we cannot say it is religious and call it Christian terrorism. TFD (talk) 17:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I was saying that we don't have to follow that other page slavishly. And that other page isn't talking about situations where most sources say something is unrelated. If you are interested in what it does say, then you can read it. If you don't want to read it, then don't. Everything here does not have to be a WP:Battleground. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:53, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I have noted before, unless reliable sources attribute some religious motivation or aim, I would not say Wikipedia should attribute such a motivation or aim. If the sources ascribe motivation to irredentism, economic or other attribute and do not ascribe a religious aim, then it does not belong here. Note the discussion just closed at Climate*.* where the result was basically "no consensus at all". Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean, but I linked to a discussion where the closer said there was a consensus. I'm not going beyond what the closing statement said there. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:56, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The issue has come up in articles about terrorism and about ideology. Different writers may use different terms to mean the same thing or the same terms to mean different things. Generally, in peer-reviewed literature, the terms used are defined and we can say that one author who defines "Christian terrorism" as terrorism motivated by Christian belief and another who uses the term "Christian religious terrorism" with the same definition are referring to the same thing. However, another author who uses the expression "Christian terrorism" and defines it as ethnic terrorism where religion is part of ethnic identity means the same thing as authors writing about "religious communal terrorism" carried out by Christians, or "nationalist terrorism" between different religious groups.

Can you provide a single source that should be included based on the opinion expresses in the climate change denial RfC?

TFD (talk) 20:07, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm so tempted to just reply "yes". And I really would rather not get into a wall-of-text over things that we will soon be discussing at the mediation. But let me try to clarify why I linked to that discussion. This isn't about definitions of "Christian terrorism" in my view. It's about what the closing statement there said, that just because a particular word is not used explicitly in a source, does not mean that the source does not apply to a page – editors can use common sense to examine the context within the source. Thinking back to the discussions about the Lebanon section (now made somewhat moot by the Schbley source, that examines in detail the Maronite Monks), there was discussion of whether it was SYNTH to consider a United Nations source, because it used the word "genocide" instead of the word "terrorism". I'm pointing out that there is now some precedent for using common sense in evaluating the language of such sources, in context. If you or another editor sees common sense in that instance as indicating that genocide is not terrorism, that's still a discussion we can have. So that's why I provided that link. I'm not about to rewrite the Lebanon section on that basis, so we don't need to argue about the UN report. I'm just explaining why I drew attention to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:15, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lebanon provides a good example. This article portrays the massacres as "Christian terrorism", yet the source you provided shows that only one of the participating groups, the Maronite Monks, were Christian terrorists, while the motivation of the main perpetrators was secular. In fact the article about the Lebanese Front which carried out some of the attacks does not even mention the Monks, it merely mentions "minor Christian groups" that were part of the multitude of organizations belonging to it.

Has it ever occurred to you that if one group of people displace another group and conflict results, not every source will conclude that the cause of the conflict is religious. It may well be that the displaced group is annoyed at being displaced, not that they have been displaced by people who differ on whether Jesus was the son of God or merely his prophet, or whether communion wine turns literally or only figuratively into Christ's blood.

TFD (talk) 22:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, there is no need to make this a WP:Battleground, so please dispense with this "has it ever occurred to you". It appears that this discussion about Northern Ireland has now moved to Beirut, so I guess Thomas Friedman was correct about the world being flat. It would doubtless be a good idea to revise the Lebanon section per Schbley, so that the focus would be, instead, on those groups where we have good sourcing as to Christian terrorism, although I'm not looking to do that sort of thing until after the mediation process. We were discussing Northern Ireland because some editors wanted to discuss it. I linked to another discussion that had just happened, because I think it was interesting. That's it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion moved to Lebanon because you chose to bring up Lebanon. Ironically, you brought up an example where you synthesized the fact the Maronites are Christians with a UN accusation of genocide to conclude they were Christian terrorists. Then you present Schbley, who concluded that only a small group, the "Maronite Monks", were actually Christian terrorists.

I had asked you to "a single source that should be included based on the opinion expresses in the climate change denial RfC." Obviously you cannot.

TFD (talk) 23:32, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You asked for a single source, and I gave you the UN source as an example, so your contention that I "obviously" cannot is unhelpful in reaching consensus. What I brought up was the discussion at the other page. It was you who asked me a question that led me to bring up Lebanon, and I answered your question. I didn't say what you attribute to me. I said that it might not be SYNTH to conclude that the UN source's discussion of genocide might also apply to terrorism, based on that other page's closing statement. Where I brought up the Monks was in saying that, since that time, new sourcing should probably make us reevaluate the whole Lebanon section, and change the emphasis from the Militias to the Monks. I never said that the Monks material applies to the UN material. I never said that. But, now that you mention it, I think that Schbley does talk about how the Monks and the Militias interacted with one another, so I should probably go back and look at that. In any case, there are bigger issues to settle about this page, first. See for example, #drafting overview section, above. I think that we should, first, have a structured discussion at the mediation, and then look overall at the page, and only after that revise the individual sections. This is part of a process, and I am in no hurry to get bogged down in the specific example of Lebanon. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:31, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: I have moved this discussion to the bottom of the page because it quickly went off the topic of Northern Ireland in general, and the balance of the sources on Northern Ireland in particular. I think it is a useful discussion to have, and the best place to have it is at the bottom of the bottom of the page, where it will be most clearly visible and most easily accessible. Scolaire (talk) 10:17, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I will quote the closing statement at Talk:Climate change denial: "If the citation deals with the subject, and implicitly states they fall into the general group, there is no point of not mentioning them just because the word "denial" is missing. With a bit of common sense, it should be easy to work out what to and to not include." The "common sense" interpretation in that case is, that if people talk about climate change in such a way as to imply that there is no such thing, then it is reasonable to conclude that there is denial going on. What is the equivalent interpretation in this case? I can't see any. Possibly, that if a source says that terrorist acts are carried out in what is perceived as a "Christian manner", then it is reasonable to conclude that they are acts of "Christian terrorism"? Otherwise, no. It is in no way equivalent. The climate change denial RfC did not touch on the question of WP:SYNTH. The policy was not even mentioned in the discussion (although it was invoked in unrelated discussions both above and below the RfC, so participants are aware of it); it was purely about the interpretation of a single cite from a single source. The climate change denial question was clear-cut. This question, as shown by the length of the talk page and the attempt at mediation, is not. Scolaire (talk) 10:43, December 1, 2014‎ (UTC)

The phrase "Christian terrorism" obviously consists of two words: Christian and terrorism. I guess I should have realized that editors who saw my initial post would seize on the religious side of it, and it's my fault for not anticipating that. But at the time, I was actually thinking more about the terrorism side of it. That's why I remembered the talk about genocide supposedly not being terrorism (there are other sources that actually do call those massacres terrorism). (At the time, editors said it was SYNTH to compare genocide to terrorism, and because you had also referred to SYNTH, I initially commented on it in that discussion thread.) It seems to me that, when there is a consensus that editors can use common sense to look at a source that appears to deny climate change and conclude that there is denial even if the word "denial" is not used, then when there is one source that uses the word "genocide" for a particular event and other sources call the same event "terrorism", then we can use common sense to understand that the "genocide" source was talking about the same event. If other editors are worried that, for example, I want to argue that common sense equates "political" with "Christian", then rest assured that I'm not saying that! I'm under the impression that editorial discussions about climate change are just as heated as editorial discussions about terrorism or about religion. But I agree with you entirely when you say that this discussion, here, is not a clear-cut one, and I appreciate your acknowledging that. I take from that fact that we are dealing with a subject matter where the source materials reflect differing opinions, and that Wikipedia needs to reflect those differing sources according to WP:DUE, but not simply delete all material because some sources say one thing about it. And that's what the mediation is largely about. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not simply delete all material because some sources say one thing about it, but delete it because the paucity of sources for one point of view, compared with the huge number of sources overall (5–7 in this article v 180 in the Troubles article, which is only a sample of the total amount written over 45 years) makes it UNDUE. As far as I am concerned, there is no debate in the real world on whether the Northern Ireland conflict involved "Christian terrorism", and a debate that has not taken place should not be reflected in this article. As regards WP:SYNTH, the difference between climate change denial and this is that, when somebody says they don't think climate change is a thing, it is safe to say they are denying it: no synthesis is required. Whereas when somebody says that there is a religious element in a terrorist act, that has to be synthesised with somebody's definition of "religious terrorism" for it to be called "religious terrorism". The mediation case seems to be about whose definition you choose. My case is that it doesn't matter whose definition you choose, putting it together with a fact to produce a conclusion is still synthesis. Scolaire (talk) 17:53, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason why we cannot say that some writers view the Northern Ireland conflict as motivated by religion. What I object to is presenting it as a fact that it is a religious conflict, then describing the terrorism, rather than explaining why some writers view the motivation as religious. TFD (talk) 18:43, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To "say that some writers view the Northern Ireland conflict as motivated by religion" does not justify it being included in an article on "Christian terrorism". To justify its conclusion we need (a) a proper academic study that concludes it falls under that heading, or (b) a synthesis of those writers' views with some other writer's definition of "Christian terrorism". Since (b) fails policy, it should be removed unless and until (a) is sourced and cited. Scolaire (talk) 19:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Replying, first, to Scolaire, we have: Some scholars, such as Steve Bruce, a sociology professor at the University of Aberdeen, argue that the conflict in Northern Ireland is primarily a religious conflict, its economic and social considerations notwithstanding.^[1] I think that meets your definition of "a proper academic study that concludes it falls under that heading", written by a university professor and published by Oxford University Press, and there are other sources beyond just that one.

Replying next to TFD, what you said there is definitely something I can work with. Thank you. I would be receptive to rewriting the section according to that ordering, as opposed to simply deleting it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:11, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is a group of scholars including Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God (3rd edition, 2003, pp. 36-44) who use the standard defintion for Christian terrorism (terrorism motivated by religion) and include Northern Ireland. See also Jessica Stern's book of the same name.[12] You can read Juergensmeyer's book, Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to Al Qaeda, here (2008, a revision of his 1993 book).

Tryptofish, in order for this article to be neutral we cannot define the topic then describe the NI conflict. If we do, we are implying that it is an example of Christian terrorism, when in fact that is merely an opinion, and probably a minority one. We need to explain why some writers view if as religious terrorism. Also, in presenting opinions, it is best to use third-party sources.

TFD (talk) 21:04, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, what you are saying now is definitely an approach that I can happily work with. (Note: Stern's book is actually called "Terror in the Name of God", rather than "mind".) I think the mediation discussion will prove to be a good way to go about sorting this out, but I am definitely friendly to that approach. Indeed, I think that the effort to rewrite the opening material, begun before the mediation was requested, was motivated by a desire to reframe the page, away from being a litany of examples, and towards a discussion of how scholars conceive of the concept. You'll find me very receptive to this approach. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was involved in long discussions in the article United States and state terrorism. Most writers do not accept the concept, because by definition terrorism is carried out by non-state actors. There was a lot of conflict between editors who wanted the article to indict the U.S. and others who thought the great republic was beyond reproach and the article should be deleted. But in the end the lead and the first section were re-written in what approaches neutral terms. Notice that most of the text is sourced to writers writing about writers on state terrorism, rather than the original writers. Works by Chomsky and Herman, for example, who are the foremost writers on the subject, are not used at all. TFD (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to quit now. People are not even registering what I'm saying. Good luck with your mediation, and happy editing. Scolaire (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Our problem here, is not that most terrorism is secular. It is, but WP:RS and human's need to classify everything, forces sources into naming some terrorism as religious. All these organizations (take the Klu Klux Klan, for example) mainly want to think they are better than the people they are persecuting. They need some intellectual support for this, which may be primarily based on general surliness or jealousy. The KKK has trappings of a fraternity, but "fraternal terrorism" sounds more like an oxymoron. It almost literally wraps itself in the American flag, but again, "patriotic terrorism" sounds stupid; "nationalistic terrorism" would be an alternative. So they pick on "Christian", since they burn crosses, a vivid symbol of their presence (besides the hoods).

Almost none of today's religious terrorism have any great foundation in their religion. There are Buddhist groups that are terrorists, for example. My point is, that we have to accept common WP:RS on naming. Objectivity is admirable in an encyclopedia, but sometimes can't be achieved because there is just too much out there using opposite terminology. The Northern Irish situation was born out of an era when the kings all thought that their subjects had to have the same religion as themselves and, in England, particularly, they were trying to avoid any outsider interference from Rome. So we kind of got stuck with "Christian terrorism" or even "Protestant or Catholic terrorism" where neither group could point to credible support for their activities in a church.

Catholics can feel fortunate that the Mafia isn't described as a Catholic Mob! Fortunately, there were some Jews involved early on! So not taking the naming personally is important IMO. It often has no meaning. Though followers of Islam are concerned about Western perceptions of them. Student7 (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting essay, thanks. Would you care to state your views on any of the questions under discussion here, or make any proposals for bringing the discussion forward? Scolaire (talk) 19:30, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Student7, it completely slipped my memory to invite you to the mediation discussion, and I apologize for that. You would be most welcome, if you would like to join. I won't surprise anyone by saying that the principal solution that I see to the issues you raise is to rely on scholarly secondary sources. Even if such sources make their classifications on the basis of that human need to classify, we should go by what they say, rather by what editors believe personally. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I concede that I probably could not do the process justice since I lag my watchlist by many days deliberately to avoid problems/discussions/vandalism. I guess it hasn't started yet, so there is no announcement on this page? Since I would presume that "secondary source reliance" will prevail, my comments won't be necessary! Student7 (talk) 18:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. It's actually underway at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism. I can't predict the outcome, but personally, I'm also advocating for secondary sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Where are quotations from christian texts with directives for religious aggression and violence similar with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism#Interpretations_of_the_Qur.27an_and_Hadith ? GeMiJa (talk) 13:27, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You can suggest some of them here, along with reliable citations. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:16, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It could be because Christian terrorism is relatively rare and has attracted little attention. You would need a source that made a connection between Christian texts and terrorism, whether it promoted or prohibited it. TFD (talk) 00:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed the lead on this point. The source does not mention the New Testament or "end times", and they are not mentioned in this article, hence there was OR in the lead. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:36, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I happened across this 2003 essay by Steve Bruce for the Irish Association. In it he argues that Protestant fundamentalism is not a motivating factor in Northern Ireland violence. What struck me most was this paragraph, which might have been a direct response to the characterisation of him in the NI section of this article:

Sadly often, I have been caricatured as arguing that the Northern Ireland conflict is 'about' religion (McGarry and O'Leary 1995). My argument is importantly different. What I have said, and it seems so obvious it barely merits repetition, is that evangelicalism is important as: (a) a marker of social divisions; (b) a source of social identity; (c) a source of claims to social virtue; (d) legitimation for political attitudes and actions; and (e) a source of motives in political action.

Note: political attitudes and actions, not paramilitary. Scolaire (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you, now that I have become aware of this. If nothing else, WP:BLP means that we should not quote living persons as saying things that they actually did not intend that way. I have just deleted everything about him. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:54, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've now read Bruce's piece, and I thank you for providing the link. It's very clear to me that, here, he repudiates the views that we had been attributing to him, so it's right to delete that material. At the same time, I think that he does clearly talk about the roles of preachers in inciting violence by loyalist splinter groups, and he says that, even while NI is very different than Hezbollah, "despite denouncing individual acts of violence, Paisley has twice given public support to the main loyalist terror organizations." --Tryptofish (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Twice in a career of sixty years, spanning the whole of the Troubles and long periods either side. And both times, as far as I can make out, it involved nothing more than sitting down with people he knew to be paramilitaries in joint committees for political action. A more complete quote would be, "He and other evangelicals have been very clear in repeatedly denouncing sectarian murder. However, despite denouncing individual acts of violence, Paisley has twice given public support to the main loyalist terror organizations", which gives the second sentence considerably less force than just quoting it out of context. To emphasise that one sentence in what is a painstaking analysis of Paisley and Paisleyism would be to grossly misrepresent what Bruce said, and to imply a stance that is the opposite of the conclusion he did come to, which is that (a) for Paisley, religion and politics are separate spheres, although the one informs the other, and (b) that "he does not share Hezbollah's conviction that his cause is so divinely-blessed as to justify any act committed in its name." The same is true of the statement that "the use of Christian imagery has been used by Ulster preachers to incite violence by the Orange Volunteers and other small Loyalist splinter groups", and its slimmed-down version: they selectively extract arguments in favour of "Christian terrorism" from a well-written and admirably-balanced article which concludes that loyalist violence in the Troubles was no such thing. Scolaire (talk) 11:00, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you make very good points about "He and other evangelicals have been very clear in repeatedly denouncing sectarian murder", and about expanding on the difference with Hezbollah. I'd also be receptive to leaving the part about Paisley out, and instead just covering what Bruce says about the splinter groups. I'm very friendly to rewriting the material to fix that sort of thing, and I think the sequence of edits indicates some willingness to do so by at least one other editor. The fact remains that Bruce very clearly writes that the splinter groups did engage in terrorism, and that they were motivated by what he called "Christian imagery" used by preachers. What I don't see is why it had to be completely deleted, instead of revising it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I oppose the selective use of any content from the essay that gives an impression the opposite of which he meant to convey. The whole thrust of the essay is that the conflict was not "about" religion and that loyalist violence was not "Christian terrorism", while at the same time showing a couple of cases, over the course of a thirty-year conflict, that could be said to fit the mold. If the essay is to be cited, there must be a clear and fair reflection of what was written, giving due weight to all arguments. That means putting him firmly on the "anti-Christian terrorism" side. If an editor wishes to do that, I would have no problem with it, but I am not offering to do it, and I will continue to say that any reference to it that misrepresents it must be removed. Scolaire (talk) 10:55, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think our approach is wrong. We should start with texts on terrorism then drill down into books about religious terrorism. Instead we are starting with a biography of Ian Paisley, who btw was not a terrorist as far as we know then looking for stuff we can add, by drilling up to the conflict, then Christian terrorism. That leads to all kinds of problems with original research and undue weight.

The editors who have come over from the NI pages have been helpful in pointing out the conflict was not based on religion, but we should not have strayed so far from directly relevant sources. And btw, most writers on religious terrorism do not challenge mainstream historical views on it, in fact they rely on those views, since they are writing about a narrow field.

TFD (talk) 04:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. And simply changing section headings does not go any way towards that. What is needed is to get rid of the current sections, having first distilled from them what the actual writers on terrorism actually say, and reassemble that into a world view. Scolaire (talk) 10:55, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My principal concern has been that we present what the new source from Bruce says, rather than to leave it out entirely. My reading of the source, and I have read it carefully, is that he says that the three small Loyalist splinter groups, the Orange Volunteers and two others, that split off from the principal Loyalist groups, differ from the principal groups in that the splinter groups are, in Bruce's opinion, terrorists, and are, in Bruce's opinion, driven by what he calls "Christian imagery" promulgated by evangelical pastors. I'm fine with leaving Paisley out of it entirely, and I'm fine with making it very clear that Bruce is saying that only and specifically about the three splinter groups, and that he draws a clear line between even them, and the Islamic groups such as Hezbollah.

As for the overall approach of the page, I actually think that pretty much everyone, including me, wants to see the page move towards that new kind of organization. I never intended the renaming of the sections to accomplish that in its entirety. It was just an obvious first step and I figured it would be helpful to go ahead and do it now. I see the better approach to the page (overall) much as TFD does, and I believe that the mediation is the best process to work out exactly how it should ultimately be implemented. As such, it has been awkward to have the sudden interest in edits about Ireland going on at the same time, but separately from, the mediation. (And it becomes more awkward when some editors insist that others make the edits to the page, except for completely reverting what they object to instead of fixing it, and then complain when I try to fix it.) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If that last is referring to me, it misses the mark. I do not insist that anybody make any edits to the page. Other than deletion of some, or preferably all, of that section, I do not see that any edit would improve it. What I said was that I would not have a problem with somebody editing it to say what Bruce said, not just the bit that suits the editor's purpose. If bits of that article were taken out of context then I would wish to see that reverted. If the section was expanded to give the whole gist of the article, to my mind it would make an unnecessary section unnecessarily longer, but at least it would not be misrepresentation, and I would not say that it should be removed. Scolaire (talk) 22:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can agree with that. Thank you. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have a question about the year of the source. The page now calls it "a 2003 essay", but I can find nothing in the source to indicate that the year was 2003. It looks like it was either 2013 or 2014. Should that be changed on the page? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it just occurred to me to simplify the sentence in question, making that question moot. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The archive page on the site gives the date of the essay as 11 October 2003. Also, the url of the essay itself is "www.irish-association.org/papers/stevebruce11_oct03". At any rate, I don't have a problem with the date being taken out. Scolaire (talk) 23:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to repeat here something that I said earlier, because I think the point was lost in a minor bit of handbagging that followed ;-)
The Susan McKay article cited in the Northern Ireland section is about a murder. It deliberately makes a connection – a connection that has never been proved – between that murder and a meeting of a loyalist group that was held the same night, at which the rhetoric of religion and the rhetoric of war was used. This is rendered in the article as, "Journalist Susan McKay explored the Protestant fundamentalist element within militant Loyalism, and noted that some Loyalists described the conflict as a battle of Protestantism against Catholicism." That is not what she was doing, or what she was trying to do. The source article was not an academic study by an expert in conflict studies but sensational journalism (and the mere fact that it appeared in the Guardian, not a tabloid, is not a defence against the charge of sensationalism). As it stands that sentence is a misrepresentation of the source, and should be removed.
To quote TFD on that earlier occasion, "Another problem is that the first paragraph in the NI section is about the Troubles, but the actions described occurred in 2001, after the end of the Troubles. The murder has never been solved, and the organization that claimed responsibility is not normally described as Christian terrorist."
It seems to me that there is an ever-increasing focus on academic studies by experts in this article, so, unlike the Steve Bruce source, there is nothing to be gained by re-wording and expanding it. Even if it were an accurate reflection of the article, it would be out of place. Scolaire (talk) 13:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First, the most recent edits by you and by Bastun make perfectly good sense to me. (Just as information, and not as a matter of dispute, "different to" must be a case of WP:ENGVAR, because to US ears, it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. Handbagging? This was no help, so I Googled it and saw a lot of stuff about Mrs. Thatcher. I'll infer you meant talk page discussion that you found to be unproductive.) Now, about this source, although I realize that you are advocating for removing it, I made an edit shortening it to say, only, that: "Journalist Susan McKay also noted that some Loyalists have described the conflict as a battle of Protestantism against Catholicism." That, she does, and it's entirely consistent with the source. Whether or not the murder of a journalist perceived as reporting things they didn't like is, or is not, terrorism, the page says nothing about the murder, how it should be categorized, or any possible causes of it. And, although the headline news in the piece was about the murder, McKay actually spends more of her text going into the background of things that were said, over a long period of time spanning pretty much the entire time period of the Troubles, by Loyalist speakers. So it is accurate to represent the source as having noted these things that were said; it's not like it was a minor footnote. The long list of "mainstream" sources near the top of the section (the ones saying that the Troubles were not about religion) is appropriately heavy on academics, but it also includes a few journalists and news pieces. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for changing "different to" to "different from". The colonists on this side of the Atlantic appreciate it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) If you want to cite "a journalist", NPOV and UNDUE would require that you note the number of journalists that also reported on loyalists and murder, but without linking them to expressions of Protestant fundamentalism, such as this Guardian report of the O'Hagan murder, as well as this, this, this, this, this, this and this – all from a quick search of the Guardian alone. It is wrong to select out a single piece that depicts loyalist violence in a certain way, unless you can show that it is representative of journalistic opinion generally. In other words, it fails NPOV and UNDUE. I have made an edit to the sentence but that doesn't mean I am content to see it stay. It should be removed.

I replaced "different to" with "different from". Is that any better?. I'm glad that is acceptable. I thought that "to" was a universal rule but apparently I was wrong. For "handbag", see Wikt:handbag#verb. --Scolaire (talk) 23:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for discussing these issues instead of just deleting the sentence. I've read every one of those other reports to which you linked. If this page, in its current form, were making any kind of comment about the murder of the journalist, then I would agree with you that the McKay piece would be atypical in terms of the motivations for that particular murder. But (regardless of what Ms. McKay might believe about why that particular murder took place), the page, in its current form, says nothing about the murder or the reasons for the murder. The other sources you listed do support characterization of the groups that may (or may not) have done the murder as being terrorists, and as being the same as the three groups named as terrorists by Steve Bruce in his piece. Steve Bruce talks about the language that he thinks motivated the terrorist acts. The quotes from McKay are further examples of that kind of language, specific examples that conform to what Bruce said, but are not available from Bruce's essay because he does not quote them. All the page says is that, according to McKay (just as according to Bruce), there has been a history of some Loyalists themselves saying that they have Christian motivations. There is nothing in any of the sources you linked here to call into question that those things were, indeed, said publicly. I don't see how saying that these statements have been made fails either NPOV or UNDUE. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just got an alternative idea. There are other sources for most of these quotes, so I'll substitute them. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Saying a statement has been made violates NPOV unless sources on the subject ("Christian terrorism") say they are relevant. Otherwise we are using primary sources ("statements made", the fact someone was murdered) in order to represent it as an example of Christian terrorism, which is "original research" TFD (talk) 03:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, McKay said (whether one agrees with her or not) that the quotes were relevant, which is why she quoted them. It sounds like we have to cite McKay to satisfy you, and we have to not cite McKay to satisfy Scolaire. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to see the McKay cite gone. It means we can look at those quotes and judge them on their own merits. You have to remember that in 1912 Ireland, though governed from Westminster, was effectively ruled by the Protestant Ascendancy, through its armed paramilitary police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary. In 1997, though again there was direct rule in Northern Ireland, it was principally the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Ulster Defence Regiment (both overwhelmingly Protestant forces), and the British Army that fought the IRA. Thus, neither of the first two quotes can or should be seen as condoning or encouraging terrorism: it was state forces that had the job of battling "the Whore, the Beast etc." The third quote says, "The Orange Order is the last bastion of our defence." Now, since the Orange Order is not a paramilitary force, it cannot be saying that terrorism is the means of defending Protestantism. The sentence that replaced the McKay sentence therefore does the same thing as that sentence: it creates the impression of extravagant Protestant orators encouraging terrorism without actually showing that they did. It's not news that some Protestants see the world in terms of a battle against Catholics, and it's not relevant to "Christian terrorism" unless a reliable source (not a Guardian journalist) making a direct connection can be cited. Scolaire (talk) 11:01, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Bruce uses the word paramilitary to describe the Orange Volunteers; is the Orange Order a different, independent group? (If so, I didn't realize it.) It also seems to me that Steve Bruce is just such a reliable source, that makes a direct connection between the "Christian imagery" and what the Orange Volunteers and the other two splinter groups did. I understand the point that you and other editors have made, that these kinds of quotes both predate and postdate the Troubles, but I think that Bruce (and for whatever it's worth, so did McKay) seems to see the long and ongoing history of some Protestants seeing the world that way, as a battle against Catholics, as being what gave rise to the actions of the three splinter groups during the time period that they were active (which, if I understand correctly, was actually after the main of the Troubles was over). --Tryptofish (talk) 18:16, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Orange Order a different group from the Orange Volunteers? I am staggered by how profound your ignorance of the Northern Ireland situation is. I have been discussing this with you on the basis that you knew what you were talking about, but now it looks as though all you are doing is trawling through Google books and newspaper archives looking for keywords so as to bolster your case, without making any attempt to actually learn or understand the history. Yes, it is. I feel strongly that it is because you do not have a proper understanding of what the Troubles were about that I have difficulty getting points across to you. Your knowledge comes from books and articles on terrorism rather than from books and articles on the individuals and groups concerned and what they actually thought and did. No, Steve Bruce definitely did not say that what Protestant demagogues have said throughout the ages was the motivating factor for those three tiny splinter groups. To cite the Bruce essay, then give three random quotes and say that Bruce was saying they were behind terrorist acts is synthesis, and of a most egregious kind. Scolaire (talk) 22:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking a bit more about it, and particularly about what TFD said, a broader issue occurs to me. The now-revised section cites a large number of sources that express the "not religious" interpretation, and presents them as the consensus amongst reliable analysts. And I've supported that, once the source were really provided. But what all of those sources actually say is that they, each source, considers the motivations to be other than religious. They don't actually say that there is a consensus amongst academics on this point, nor do they really say that the sources that do attribute the terrorism to religion have been widely discredited. But we still describe it as a consensus, based upon editors here counting up the number of sources on one side, versus the number of sources on the other. Isn't that original research, if we really get strict about it? On that basis, are we wrong to just cite a long string of sources and draw our own conclusions about it? And if we are not wrong, then what is different about citing sources for the Protestant quotes, given that Steve Bruce explicitly says what he does about "Christian imagery"? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trypotfish, the Orange Order is a a fraternal organization with wide membership, although it has gone into decline in recent decades. TFD (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

TFD, thank you for explaining that to me politely. I appreciate the fact that, even when you and I disagree about content, you are consistently polite during discussions. I looked at the page on them, and the lead says: "It has also been criticised for associating with loyalist paramilitary groups." That sounds to me like the relationship of the Orange Order to the paramilitary groups might be roughly similar to that between Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, I apologise unreservedly for the language in my previous post. It was late at night, and I should have slept on it before responding in a knee-jerk fashion. I have struck it now. Scolaire (talk) 10:24, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, Scolaire! It happens to all of us, and I'm very happy to be able to get back to the issues that concern us both. I assure you that I'm trying my best to learn from the source material what information is relevant to the page, and trying my best to represent the sources accurately, and not merely selectively. I can also assure you that I have misunderstood sources in the past, and will continue to do so in the future, despite my best efforts not to. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that one of the ways that the section about Ireland contributes to Wikipedia's mission is that, for most people who live in the US as I do, there is an assumption that, just because the Troubles are mostly Protestant versus Catholic, that it's about religion. By reading what the section now says, following the discussions here recently, US readers can get a more nuanced and knowledgeable understanding of what the facts really are. Perhaps some editors from Ireland will see that the section serves an informative purpose in that regard, but I wouldn't know. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think the relationship is similar. The Order is probably more similar to the Catholic Church, because it provided unity and support to Prostestants.[13] Politically though the Order supported the moderate UUP in opposition to Paisley's DUP, and opposed his church as well. I do not think there was the same cooperation as between Sein Fein and the Provo IRA, although terrorists paid lip service respectively to the Orange Order and the Catholic Church. TFD (talk) 00:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That being the case, I have removed the footnote that referred to the Orange Order. Thanks again. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I still think that the sentence, "Similar statements from loyalists over time have also portrayed the conflict as a battle of Protestantism against Catholicism", should go. On its own it says nothing about terrorism. The "conflict" referred to, as I have shown, goes back much further than any terrorist campaign: at least as far back as the Glorious Revolution. In the context of the paragraph, it gives the impression that these are the statements referred to by Steve Bruce in his article, which they are not. Therefore the sentence is either irrelevant or misleading, depending on which way you read it. In either case, it should be deleted. Scolaire (talk) 10:20, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I feel very strongly that your analysis is incorrect, for the reasons that I have already stated. However, it's more important to me to have editorial peace, and I can see that this issue could just become an endless impasse. Therefore, I have deleted the sentence as you recommended: [14]. At the same time, I also changed the word "consensus" to "view" in an earlier sentence: [15]. My reasoning is that, if we are going to say, in part, that citing those loyalist quotes is original research that goes beyond the sources (and, for that matter, that Susan McKay did not prove the connections that her piece claims), then it is original research to say that the majority sources represent a consensus, because most of them do not even mention the sources that are cited for the opposing view, and because the fact that editors have counted the numbers of sources that we, ourselves, have cited, does not mean that there is a source for that numerical difference. So please look upon this as a sort of package deal. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:08, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that gesture to resolve this particular "conflict". I agree that "view" is the more appropriate word in that other sentence. Scolaire (talk) 23:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good! I'm glad. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Council on American–Islamic Relations, Jonathan Mutusitz is an officer of the "Islamophobic" group, ACT! for America.[16] True or not, his comments put him on the fringe in terms of his views of religion and terrorism, even though his book meets rs. It could explain too why he chooses to mention Catholics but not Protestants. That is why it is always best to use secondary sources to report opinions - so that we know what weight they have in reliable sources. Has anyone other than us taken any notice of what he says about Christian terrorism in Northern Ireland? TFD (talk) 20:54, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Saying that Schbley has "written about the Provisional IRA as being Christian terrorists" is misleading. He tried to develop a "common profile of religious terrorism".[17] To do that he researched terrorists where religion was a factor. In the case of Christianity, he concluded that only one group - the Maronite Monks with 200 members - met the criteria. While that does not mean there were other Christian Terrorist groups that did not meet his criteria, just that he did not identify any. TFD (talk) 21:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, dear, I thought that the most recent edits would have settled the issues about this section, but I guess it just keeps on sprouting new issues. About Schbley, you and I have discussed this extensively before, and as you will well remember, I think that your reading and characterization of his writing is just plain wrong, and that was about the point in time when I figured that we would need to address it via mediation. My reading of him is that, to say that the Maronite Monks are the only group he describes that way, is totally wrong, and you obviously are equally convinced that I'm totally wrong. This exact issue is about to come up in the next step of the mediation, so I'm going to request that we resolve it there, and that we not discuss it in parallel in two different places.

Now about Matusitz, I don't think that the group he might or might not have joined has any relevance here, and I think that discussing him that way, just as discussing Jessica Stern in terms of what you previously said about her supposedly having given some bad advice once about the Middle East, comes off as casting aspersions on the source. You acknowledge that it might not even be true about him, and even if it were, it would only speak to his views about Islam, and Islam is one thing that has not yet come up in our discussions of the groups in Ireland and Northern Ireland. (Obviously, there's no Islamic paramilitary in Ulster. At least I hope not.) You asked about taking notice of his book. I'm under the impression that it has just been published, and so it may be too soon for that to happen. But I can equally point out that there are no sources that I know of that repudiate his claims about the IRA, referring specifically to him and what he said. I don't think you can refute that he is a tenured faculty member at a university. And I won't disagree at all that his opinion, in this case, appears to be a minority one. But not a WP:FRINGE one. And that's how the page presents it. So here we are, back in WP:DUE, which requires us to present the majority and minority views with due weight, and not to present the majority view while completely omitting the minority (but not fringe) one.

And, should we now go one-by-one through all of the "majority" sources, and eliminate all the ones where I can come up with some concern about the personal views of the authors? Do I get to challenge every one written by someone who can be identified as Christian? Or as Irish? Or that haven't been subsequently mentioned by name in a secondary source?

If it helps any with these issues, as I've said before, I would like the mediation to lead to a reorganization of the page. In that case, I think it might be a very good improvement to treat these two views about the IRA in a section about various academic views, instead of in a section about Ireland. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:35, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I iinvite other editors to read Schbley's comments by following the link. Whether or not Matusitz is an officer of Act! America, his comments provided in the video on the CAIR website reflect a fringe view of the subject Islam and terrorism. He says for example that Islam commands Muslims to take over the world and establish a caliphate with sharia law, which he says means the introduction of polygamy.

The relevance to the current issue is that if his ideas on the relationship between Islam and terrorism appears to closer to bigotry than the mainstream, it is possible his views on the relationship between the Catholic Church and terrorism is the same. Anyway he isn't even an expert on terrorism, he has degrees in communications and decided to write a book about how terrorists communicate through videos, murals, names, etc. Schbley otoh had a PhD in criminal justice and was invited to edit the book used as a source.

Anyway, the personal views of writers do not matter when it comes to whether their works are factually correct. But they are important to assign weight.

TFD (talk) 23:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I invite other editors to read Schbley too, but to discuss it at the mediation page, and not to have parallel discussions in two different places. I take exception to calling an author a bigot, or close to it, without as much sourcing to back it up as would be required by WP:BLP if we were dealing with a page about the person. If it "is possible" that Matusitz's views are that way, then it is possible that they are not that way, and it would be original research to decide that we know what he thinks about Christianity, outside of what he actually says in the source. As a tenured academic who published a book about terrorism, it is mis-framing the situation to say that he is a non-expert who simply "decided to write a book about" it. And as for weight, the page already makes it very clear that Matusitz's views are minority views, and so the only way to give that less weight would be to leave him out entirely. Again, do I get to remove any "majority" source if I think the author is Christian and thus predisposed to disagree with the Christian terrorism designation? Do I get to remove any "majority" source if the author is Irish and I think the author may not want to see Irish persons described as terrorists? I'd be "happy" to do that if it were within policy, and the result would be that the "majority" sources would disappear. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"My colleagues say Islam is a religion of peace. I say it's a religion of pieces -- piece of body here, piece of body there." They "procreate like mushrooms after the rain.” Do you think those are reasoned comments? By all means remove any opinions where we have not established weight, but remove all of them. I would never add opinions without determining weight, and always do that by using secondary sources. TFD (talk) 00:29, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if those are representative comments, and I see no evidence that any such comments prevented him from getting tenure. It does not matter whether you or I think that the comments are reasoned, because we are not reliable sources. But tell me this: what exactly do you propose as an edit to the page? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:34, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are they representative? Click on the link I provided and listen to his speech at a meeting on "Radical Islam and U.S. National Security." The other speakers were Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney and William J. Murray. That's the Pamela Geller who is banned from the UK. You can watch the entire meeting here.

My proposed edit is to remove the reference to this writer's opinions because we have not established any weight it has in studies of terrorism in Northern Ireland. What would a rs say? Maybe something like "a Protestant scholar blames IRA terrorism on the Catholic religion and says Catholics are peasants, but excludes Protestant terrorists. He also includes Islam as another religion that promotes terrorism."

TFD (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for specifying your proposed edit. (Do you have any sourcing for saying that he is a Protestant?) I disagree with your proposal and will oppose it actively, for the following reason. You argue that this material should be regarded as so minor within the source material that it should be omitted entirely, partly because you regard the author's views as offensive and partly because the author's views have not (yet) been taken up by other sources. (In case there is any suspicion, let me say that I, personally, would not say the kinds of things he says (but of course I'm not a reliable source), so I'm defending the content as a WP:RS in the face of WP:POV objections, as opposed to defending it because I agree with it.) However, I just made an edit, making Matusitz's point of view explicit. I think that addresses any concerns about WP:BIASED (a section of WP:RS) better than complete removal would. As for any issue of offensiveness, WP:NOTCENSORED applies. As for how minor it is, you have argued that he is WP:FRINGE, so that WP:DUE requires us to deal with it as we would deal with flat earth arguments (the example used at DUE). I would argue that a book by a tenured university professor and published by a reputable publishing house specializing in the academic and scholarly markets, Rowman & Littlefield, may certainly present a view that is opinionated, contrarian, and unpopular, but it is not flat earth. Ultimately, I see this as governed by WP:NPOV#Bias in sources: "The bias in sources argument is one way to present a POV as neutral by excluding sources that dispute the POV as biased. Biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the writer's point of view." We can, and already do, indicate that the author's view is "at odds with" that of many other analysts, but we do not get to exclude him from the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trypofish, you are confusing two separate poilicies: reliable sources and weight. The first determines whether we can rely on the facts presented in Matusitz' book, the second determines whether we should report the opinions expressed in his book. From the evidence presented, the book is reliable for facts but the opinions lack significance for inclusion. And if someone holds fringe views about the connection between Islam and terrorism (it's causal), its likely that their view of the connection between Catholicism and terrorism is also questionable. TFD (talk) 03:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean to imply that I was confusing them, so please chalk that up to poor wording on my part. Yes, I take your point that your primary concern here is about due weight. I am taking a neutral position on this talk page about whether or not those views about Islam are fringe, because this page isn't about Islam. The specific question here is whether Matusitz's writings about Christian terrorism and Northern Ireland – the content that we are actually discussing – are actually fringe, or are perhaps a minority view. If they are a minority view, but within the range of academic scholarship, then WP:NPOV#Bias in sources should govern what we do here, as I said before – and that points us towards presenting his views as we do, as worth a brief mention, but identified as a minority view, and with identification of the author as a critic of religion. For you to establish that the views should be entirely excluded as being WP:FRINGE, you have to do more than express your opinion that his views about a different religion are fringe. I've said that he is a tenured university professor, and that his book was published by a legitimate publisher who specializes in academic and scholarly works. It's not enough for you to show that he is a contrarian. You have to show that the publisher accepted a book that is as far outside academic discourse as a flat earth thesis would be. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that these sources are two of those added to the page as representing the not-religious perspective: [18] and [19]. I'm not challenging them, because I don't want this discussion to be WP:BATTLEGROUND. But if I were to challenge them in the manner that other editors have been challenging sources, I don't think that they would hold up particularly well. And that's not even getting into challenging everything written by Christians or by Irish people! I have repeatedly been making good faith efforts to see both sides of this discussion – as, for example, when I self-reverted the sentence at the end of the section about the quotes from loyalists, even though I personally disagreed with deleting it. What I keep seeing from other editors is much more one-sided than that. I make an edit like that one, and then a new discussion, looking for even more shifting of the POV, pops up. I'm beginning to think that I ought to put the sentence about the loyalist quotes back in. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Tryptofish you added the 1rr to the article? Check out your edits in the article bud, you are in breach. Murry1975 (talk) 18:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So much for my wish for this not to be WP:BATTLEGROUND. Your edit summary called me "Jeff", which I can assure you is nothing like my name, nor is it "bud". In no way am I in violation of the 1RR restriction. But it appears that my comments must have struck a nerve. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:54, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(Responding to your comment of 18:40) Maybe it's because you seem to be the only one ardently striving to include Northern Ireland/Irish/Northern Irish paramilitaries in a "Christian terrorism" article? Fringe views aside (and yes, they are fringe!), nobody takes the proposition seriously. The amount of time being wasted on this is ridiculous. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bastun, I do appreciate that you are talking to me in a polite fashion, even though we happen to disagree about content. As often happens in disagreements about POV, you may see me as the only editor currently making the arguments that I'm making, but I see what I'm doing as taking a stand against a small number of other editors who are letting their personal opinions get in the way of Wikipedia policies. After all, what I said was that I had hoped that things were settled, but other editors raised new issues, so it's not really fair to say that I am unilaterally extending the amount of time spent discussing this section of the page. And no, those views are not WP:FRINGE, no matter how many times some editors keep saying so. And it does not escape my notice that, when I made the edit I describe just below, about the Daniel Price source, it was reverted within minutes – but my very reasonable explanation in talk has gone unanswered for about a day. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

TFD, you asked me some things that I'm inferring are about Matusitz, in the section below, which is about Price, so I'm going to comment further about Matusitz here. There are some things that I've previously said in our discussions about Matusitz, that you have not really responded to, so I am going to re-ask them here, and I would very much appreciate direct answers.

1. What evidence do you have that Matusitz is Protestant?
2. What reason do you have to think that Rowman & Littlefield publishes WP:FRINGE material, in the sense of flat-earth, as opposed to merely unpopular and challenging academic opinions?
3. Is there any evidence that anything Matusitz has said has led to him being brought under sanctions at the university where he is tenured? If not, do you think that his tenure has no weight in assessing him as a scholarly source?
4. You have repeatedly noted that Matusitz appeared, once, on the same stage as a woman who was barred from the UK because of things that she has said. Has Matusitz ever been barred from anywhere?
5. One more question, but in this one I'm raising something partly new. Please look at these comments by Andrew Sullivan: [20]. (I'm not claiming that Sullivan is an academic scholar.) Do you think what Matusitz says is (other than, perhaps, tone) really that much farther outside the mainstream than what Sullivan says? Or do you consider Sullivan to be WP:FRINGE?

Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel E. Price

About this revert: [21], my edit that was reverted simply added Daniel E. Price's name to the sentence "Experts who subscribe to this view, including Philip Purpura, Richard Jenkins, John Hickey, and Daniel E. Price, note the importance of religious motivations in what Purpura calls an "overlap" between religious terrorism and national or ethnic terrorism." I was not adding him as a source opposing "this view". I could understand an objection if I had presented him as supporting calling it Christian terrorism, but as can be seen from the sentence that I edited, I was not doing that, not at all. The edit summary of the revert said: "source ascribes minimal importance to the "Christian terrorism" aspect". Here is the quote from the source:

"The violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1998 exemplifies the multidimensional nature of religion-based violence and terrorism. Although religion played an important role in solidifying and sharpening the divisions between Catholics who wanted Northern Ireland to unify with Ireland and Protestants who wanted it to be annexed by Great Britain, several of the causes of religion-based terrorism outlined earlier including colonialism, occupation, ethnic division, discrimination, and inequality are of equal or greater importance." [22]

"Equal or greater" is not the same thing as "greater" – and "an important role" is categorically not "minimal importance". Even the non-religious causes are called "causes of religion-based terrorism", as though those things result in it. That's the same kind of placing importance on religion in non-religious categories of terrorism that Purpura, Jenkins, and Hickey wrote about. The author is a well-qualified academic.[23] Is it possible that the revert of my edit was a misunderstanding? I cannot see how grouping this source with Purpura, Jenkins, and Hickey would go against the source or not belong in that particular sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, are you saying that although his views on Islamic religious terrorism are well outside the mainstream, that maybe his views on Christian religious terrorism are moderate? He chooses to share the stage with someone who is barred from the UK for expressing views similar to his,[24] and makes inflammatory remarks. Do you have any sources that have commented on his moderate views on Christian terrorism" TFD (talk) 02:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

TFD, I wonder if you posted this comment in the wrong place. I'm guessing that you are asking about Matusitz, rather than about Price. Is that correct? If so, my comments about Price remain unanswered, which is unfortunate. And if you mean Matusitz, I'll comment further on it in other sections, but I'll repeat something I already told you earlier, which is that the short answer is no, because his book has just been published. I already told you that, so how many times are you going to keep asking me about it again and again? But if you are going to set a requirement that every source we cite has to have also been commented upon in a subsequent source, then I'm going to ask you to provide such secondary comments for each of the not-religious sources that are currently cited on the page, not just other sources that agree with the position, but other sources that actually refer to each of the now-cited sources by name. I also did not say what you just framed my previous answer to you as being. I did not say that Matusitz's views about Christian terrorism are moderate. I said that they are minority and contrarian, but not WP:FRINGE. I already said that, so are you going to keep framing what I am saying as something else? Is it your position that only "moderate" sources can be given weight? How far outside of "moderate" puts a source into a place where it must be excluded from the page?

Anyway, is anyone able to respond to what I wrote about Price? Or should I conclude that what I said is correct, and that there is no dispute about it? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another source

God and the Gun: The Church and Irish Terrorism, by Martin Dillon, appears to discuss the role of religion in the acts of terrorism. [25] --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Taken note of by Irish journalist T.P. O'Mahony [26] in a Sept. 2014 piece [27] where he writes: "Leaders of the mainstream Christian Church in the North have always been uneasy with any depiction of the Troubles as a religious war, or even as a war with a religious dimension. Yet the subject-matter of Martin Dillon’s book — God and the Gun: The Church and Irish Terrorism — is sufficient to remove any doubt that extremist political religion was (and remains) an Irish phenomenon every bit as destructive as the perverted Islam of al-Qaeda or Boko Haram or Isis." --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is cherry-picking. It is best to use sources about terrorism, see what they say about religious terrorism and its subtypes (e.g., Christian, Islamic, etc.), including the main authors, and then report the main literature in accordance with its general acceptance. Instead you appear to have determined to find sources that say terrorism in NI had a religious motivation and are trying to find sources that support that view and balancing them with opposing views. There are countless arguments throughout the project stemming from that approach - in global warming, creationism, 9/11 truth. But neutrality requires us to assess the weight of various opinions which can only be done using books that provide an overview of the subject. TFD (talk) 04:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The 180 citations on the Troubles article were more or less dismissed because they were not specifically works on terrorism. Dillon's book isn't even on that list. Why should he be singled out? Scolaire (talk) 09:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did I say that Dillon should be "singled out"? No, I presented him as one more source, to be considered. Am I cherry-picking? WP:Cherrypicking defines it primarily as selecting unrepresentative parts of a single source in a way that does not reflect what the source in its entirety actually says. I'm not doing that at all. Cherrypicking can also refer to only wanting to cite sources that present one view when there is also another. It's true that I'm pointing out sources here in talk that question the apparent majority view on the page, but I've also supported the emphasis on the majority views, once legitimate sources were provided by Asarlaí. What I'm pushing for is NPOV. And, as I've already said, I was ready to move on after Scolaire and I had agreed at the end of #Susan McKay again, after I made good faith efforts to accommodate views of other editors with which I disagree, but then TFD opened this new complaint, and other editors started calling me "Jeff" and "bud" as well as reverting an edit of mine but failing (so far) to respond to me in talk. So, I'm seeing evidence of what I think is POV pushing, and I'm pushing back. As for books that summarize the field overall, just look at how TFD and I cannot agree on the most basic aspects of Schbley's summary, something that I hope will be worked out in mediation.

Oh, those 180 sources at The Troubles! At the moment, there are 188 sources cited there, but most of them are about other things besides the motivations for those incidents of violence that were terrorism, so it's incorrect to say that there are 180 sources that all say that the terrorism was non-religious terrorism. And when the first set of sources were copy-pasted from there to here, it turned out that those sources didn't even say what was attributed to them, so that Asarlaí had to come in and provide the correct sources (and I gladly accepted them!). So we are talking about a lot fewer sources than 180. At the moment, we have 14 sources at the end of the second sentence of the section, references 47–60. "It is best to use sources about terrorism"? Well, of those 14, how many of them mention "terrorism" in the citation quote? Want to guess? The answer is: 1. Reference 48, the one by Bruce Hoffman is the only one. If the political disputes, as opposed to the killings and such, were not about religion, well that's not too surprising.

And let's look at The Troubles. The lead there says: "although it was not a religious conflict." That's a pretty black-and-white statement. And it's sourced to Richard Jenkins. That's a book in which he devotes an entire chapter to what he calls "the cultural stuff", by which he means the role of religion in the Troubles. He concludes that the Troubles were basically about things other than religion, but that religion also played an important albeit secondary role. That's not the same thing as "not a religious conflict". But it is cherrypicking, by focusing on where the source says something and leaving out where the source says something else. So I'm not the one here who is cherrypicking. But why is that? Why isn't Martin Dillon ever cited at that page? He certainly seems to be a significant writer on the subject. And T.P. O'Mahony says that some mainstream Irish people "have always been uneasy with any depiction of the Troubles as a religious war, or even as a war with a religious dimension." And then he goes on to agree with Dillon's view that religion played a role. Could it be that some Wikipedia editors are likewise "uneasy with any depiction of the Troubles as a religious war, or even as a war with a religious dimension"? I'm not seeing any objective evidence that the sources I am drawing attention to are not reliable sources, and in fact, I haven't even gotten an answer yet about why my edit about Daniel Price was reverted. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. It was dumb to start on the 180 again, and I ignored the fact that the most relevant of those are now cited in this article. What I should have said is that Martin Dillon would not by any means be among the top twenty writers on the Northern conflict. Probably not even among the top fifty. His article (thanks for the link) is still a stub ten years after it was created. Nevertheless, it is, I admit, a published source, and it does draw a link between terrorism and religion. In the end, it comes down to what we consider to be due weight, and it is apparent that we are not going to get agreement on that in this page. Hopefully there will be some resolution of that at mediation, although it bothers me that the question has not been added as a specific issue on the mediation page, despite the number of times it has been raised here. Anyway, I am about to make a proposal that has been on my mind for a few days now, and I hope you will accept that it is in no way intended to prevent your adding this source. Scolaire (talk) 09:21, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thank you for that very gracious statement, and I find it very helpful. I'm in no hurry to add Dillon or anything else to the page, so what you are saying is something that I can happily work with. As for the mediation, there is a third broad area that is on the agenda, about reviewing specific sections of the page, and I was going to seek discussion of the NI section during that part of the mediation anyway, and so now I will make an even greater point of doing so, in accordance with what you are saying here. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to hear that. But really, I meant that in the mediation process the question of due weight ought to be discussed in the abstract. NI has taken up a disproportionate amount of space here on the talk page because there is a relatively large number of Irish editors with an interest in, and knowledge of, the subject. It is quite likely, even probable, that the same issues exist for Norway, Lebanon, Africa and India, but there are fewer editors from those places on en.wiki and so parallel discussions have not taken place. I'm still determined to stay out of mediation, so I can't dictate what you do there, but I do think that addressing the question of due weight and finding a consensus on how to determine it would help enormously. Scolaire (talk) 20:22, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That works for me, too. I think that due weight is necessarily a part of any such discussion, and I think that the mediation is set up so that all those page sections can be discussed. For whatever it is worth, I'll tell you here and now something that I am planning to propose at the mediation (no predictions about what other editors will think). Given all the spilled pixels over various countries, I'd like to do away with country-by-country sections entirely. It's just too much of a hornet's nest to imply that this event in this country was Christian terrorism, full stop. Instead, I'd like the entire page to be organized in terms of scholarly thought, instead of by country. Thus, there might be a section about how experts delineate the boundary between Christian terrorism and other kinds of terrorism. Something like the first paragraph of the NI section could go there, but with a revised emphasis on how some authors see the Troubles one way whereas other authors see it another way. There could be another page section about how Christian terrorism is seen in relation to Islamic terrorism. The second paragraph of the NI section, with Steve Bruce's compare-and-contrast relative to Hezbollah, belongs there, and there could be merely a brief mention that Bruce also says what he says about three splinter groups. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:33, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That would certainly be my ideal. Good luck with it. Scolaire (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I always find it especially gratifying when I have a discussion with other editors that starts out with strong differences of opinion, but that comes over time to find ways to work together productively. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Moratorium?

I suggest a moratorium on further edits to the Northern Ireland section (or "Northern Irish and Irish paramilitary groups" as it's now called) pending the outcome of mediation. The section has changed out of all recognition in the last couple of months — from this to this – due in large measure to Tryptofish's commitment to reflecting the point of view of all editors fairly, and his willingness to go the extra mile. Anything still under discussion is just tweaking. There is still at least one bit that The Four Deuces would like to see removed, and two sources that Tryptofish would like to see added, but the changes would not profoundly affect the section, and as long as little things continue to be changed people will continue to come up with little things to be changed. There will be reverts, and endless discussion, to very little benefit to the article, especially if the whole article is going to be revamped completely when the mediation is concluded, and the section as it exists may cease to be. We currently have a version which all parties are more or less willing to live with. Why don't we quit while we're ahead? Scolaire (talk) 09:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree enthusiastically, and I also thank you for the kind words. If other editors agree, I will be happy to hold off on further edits to that section until after the mediation is over (outside of vandalism reverting, of course). I was never in any hurry to add further sources, at least not unilaterally, so much as to seek discussion of them in talk, and I do think they merit discussion. I would also suggest, however, that during this moratorium, there should be no impediment to discussion here on this talk page. For one thing, if other editors who are not parties to the mediation have points that they would like raised at the mediation, please feel free to state them here, and I will try to bring those points up there. For another thing, I've recently posed some questions to other editors here, that are unanswered at the time that I make this post, and I would urge anyone who has a reply to make a reply, rather than to leave the appearance that you are deliberately not replying. Thanks again. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Many articles ,books have been written about the Gunpowder Plot but none of the state it is terrorism.Further describing events before second World war or more centuries ago the term Terrorist is not used.

• Further in Central African Republic the conflict is local and Christian and animist militias are against Muslims and Antibalaka is not even a purely Christian group.
• In Odisha Naxalite–Maoist insurgency is not a Christian one it is across various states in India is not even a religious one they basically a leftist or communist movement.
• In Nagaland ,Manipur the conflict is tribal and is not religious which is a secondary factor. The entire Insurgency in Northeast India is more tribal or ethnic not religious and one issue is the issue of migrants from Bangladesh.There are Hindu groups like ULFA but the conflicts is not religious and is tribal.
• Anders Behring Breivik is a Lone wolf (terrorism) and highly disputable if has anything to do with religion.

Hence put the NPOV tag and article takes local conflicts where religion is at best secondary factor not even the main factor for the conflict to call it Christian terrorism is POV .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 04:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd largely agree. But in the meantime it's providing a small group of editors with a worthy/wordy (if lengthy and unproductive) hobby. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pharoah: There is no question that the issues you raise are contentious. Actually, however, where you say there are no sources that say certain things, that is simply not factually true. Sources do exist, although there are questions about how to resolve conflicting sources. As Bastun correctly pointed out to you, there is a formal mediation discussion in progress about these issues and more; I might suggest to you that you could have seen that by looking at this talk page before you placed the tag – but I have no problem with leaving the tag, since there certainly is an ongoing discussion among editors about POV. Now as for that being what Bastun called a "hobby", I could think of more graphic words for it. But I do intend that any consensus that comes out of it will have to be respected by editors who did not participate in the mediation discussion, unless they can provide a similarly dedicated discussion to generate a revised consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thankfully, there are processes and remedies other than mandatory three-month "mediations" that have generated more than 70,000 words. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:55, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Re: India. Your personal opinion is irrelevant, and there is a lot of RS to the contrary, cited in the article. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 12:39, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And you will gain precisely what on this talk page by making personal attacks, perchance? Collect (talk) 12:53, 30 January 2015 (UTC) (note: The personal attack was deled and not simply stricken out above) Collect (talk) 14:32, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have to "gain" anything. I'm sick and tired of people offering up their personal opinions by "challenging" things on this page that are supported by RS that has been thoroughly vetted by years of back-and-forth arguments. It's one of the more "basic" of WP etiquette that you (plural) at the very least look at the talk page to see if the issue has been discussed, before making big claims of "POV" and what not. The RS is there. It's no longer up for "debate", unless you have some RS to contribute. If you have RS that is contradictory to the RS that is on the page, you can add it as an "opposing view". THAT is how WP works. The editor who started this thread seems to have been on WP for a while, and really OUGHT to know how this works, rather than making vague "POV" claims. It's rude, and usually rudeness deserves in kind responses, but since I'm personally trying to work on my...'attitude'...I'll take away the cognitive dissonance part. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 14:25, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I fear you do not understand how WP:CONSENSUS works. And again thinking a comment was "rude" does not excuse personal attacks on others - truly. Collect (talk) 14:32, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I fear you do not understand how WP:RS works. None has been presented in favor of the OP's opinion. Also, for the record, I just came across a PDF where I saved a copy of Adam, de Cordier, Titeca, and Vlassenroot (2007). "In the Name of the Father? Christian Militantism in Tripura, Northern Uganda, and Ambon". Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30 (11): 963. So If anyone needs to see it, and doesn't want to spend the $156 that the website is extorting* charging for the privilege, send me a message. (*Note: That's me learning how to use the strikethrough tag. It wasn't deliberate earlier.) --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 16:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I fully understand the policies involved, and I have a couple more edits than some here under my belt. The salient point here is that you will get a lot more done by speaking to content of positions than in attacking other editors. Really. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Let's say, hypothetically, that the mediation fails to achieve a fruitful consensus. Or that, after a consensus is reached there, editors here decide to subvert that consensus in favor of their own personal opinions. If, hypothetically, either of those things happens, it will be just a matter of time until the dispute becomes an Arbitration case. And if that happens, the conduct of all involved editors will come under very close scrutiny. So I'm saying this to everyone, and to no one in particular: it might not be a bad idea to conduct discussions here and edits to the page on the assumption that everything you do will be held up to close scrutiny. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pharaoh of the Wizards, I generally agree with you except terrorism scholars see the gunpowder plot as an early example of religious terrorism and some terrorism experts classify the other examples as Christian terrorism, although most experts disagree. TFD (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bryonmorrigan, having looked at some of the other sections in this article, such as the one on India, the sources claiming Christian terrorism seem to be very much in the minority and as verging on WP:FRINGE as the ones on Northern Ireland. Odd, for example, that a so-called "Christian terrorist" organisation such as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland doesn't merit one appearance of the word "Christian" in its own article. The Odisha section - "Somebody accused someone of plotting to kill him." Yes, there's a reference. Is this in any way encyclopedic, though? The person in question later gets killed, Maoists (notorious Christians, them) admit to it - and it's still labelled as Christian terrorism? This article is, quite frankly, a joke - anything with the vaguest hint of a relationship to Christianity is tacked on. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but your ignorance of Indian politics is showing. Yes, in India, there is a major correlation between Christianity and Far-Left groups like Maoists or "Naxalites". The BBC is not a "fringe" source, nor are the Indian ones presented. The section has been so heavily litigated in the past few years that anything left in there has passed through the fire and flame of more debate than 99% of WP articles would normally require. The issues with Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati was big news in India, and a group of Christian Terrorists were convicted of his murder. The fact that the current page reads a little "oddly" is due to constant attacks by vandals and Christian POV-artists. The reason the page for the NSCN makes no mention of Christianity is for the same reason. I just checked, and the references to Christianity were removed some time ago. Jeez, I wonder what kinds of editors would do that, right? I mean, their slogan is "Nagaland for Christ", for Pete's sake! Personally, I stay out of the Northern Ireland section, because I have no real knowledge or understanding of that conflict. If you have no idea what you are talking about, and it's clear that you don't...you might want to consider doing the same. I'm sorry that the existence of Christian Terrorism conflicts with your world-view, but that does not mean that you get to remove all traces of it from WP. Your opinion is irrelevant. My opinion is irrelevant. Only the facts and RS are relevant. The. End. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 18:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Several here appear to demur on your inclusion of what appears to be terrorism not done to advance Christianity per Maoists etc. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The personal opinions of Christian editors who are not even remotely educated about Indian politics is as irrelevant of my personal layman's opinion of the Northern Ireland conflict would be. If you have RS, add it to the article. If not, don't waste your time arguing over the same points we've argued over a thousand times. And your recent revert of my addition of the convictions was just spiteful, considering how deliberately neutral in tone I made that sentence, and the fact that it was simply a reputable newspaper reporting on the convictions. You certainly get very "huffy" when I get "personal-attack-y" (* And as noted recently, I am trying to be less combative...), and your consistent attacks on everything I type or edit (even when I'm agreeing with you on a point, I might add) is hardly constructive. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 19:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

TFD: Did you even pay attention to the substance of the edit you just reverted? It was simply an article about the conviction of the murderers of the Swami who was mentioned in the preceding paragraph. As it became painfully obvious from Bastun's comment above, the article did not finish telling the story of what happened, and without the "coda", makes it appear that nobody knows who committed the murder, why, or anything other than the accusations. I can't even. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 19:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(You can't even what?) Please do not make assumptions about other editors' religious beliefs. Ironically, on another series of articles, I've been accused of driving an anti-Christian agenda... I wasn't, there, and I'm certainly not driving a pro-Christian one here. NPOV and RS. As you've acknowledged yourself, my intervention on the talk page has already caused that section of the article to be improved. Regards, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"I can't even" is a common Internet slang term. [28] Also, while I decided that maybe you were right about the article needing clarification, Collect and Bastun reverted every single one of my edits, without giving any coherent explanation. The section is back to pretty much the same text that has been there since 2011 now, thanks to their POV reversions. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 14:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is there just a blanket policy now by Collect and TFD to just go ahead and Undo anything that I edit to this page now? Someone came to the talk page, complaining about the Odisha section, so I added more RS news articles explaining the issue, including the connections between the Maoists and Christian groups (which is common knowledge among anyone even remotely knowledgable about Indian politics), and they're all getting reverted, obviously without any consideration of the facts within. This is blatantly POV, particularly Collect's last revert, since his summary shows he didn't even READ the text before reverting it. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 21:02, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If a group is not made up specifically of Christians, there is darn little reason to label it "Christian terrorism." Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you missed all those statements from police officials about "Christian militants", "Christian militias", and how the Maoists were HELPING them. But hey, you don't give a damn about there actually being any accurate information on this page. I got it. No further discussion is necessary. You're not even PRETENDING to be NPOV any more, are you? And just watch: The NEXT thing that will happen...is an editor will say, "I don't understand why there isn't more information explaining why the stuff in the Odisha section is here?", and then you guys will completely delete it, because you refuse to allow the inclusion of the RS that explains the situation. It all makes sense now. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 21:29, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We should not label them as Christian terrorists then add anything about them that is reported in the news. We should say that most sources classify the violence as ethnic/nationalist, while some sources see it as religious-motivated and explain why they think that. TFD (talk) 21:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Everything that I added was connected to the attack on Swami Laxshmananda, and explained the connections between the Christians who were convicted of the murders, and the Maoists that were involved in assisting them in that attack. But hey, I'm sure it will be much easier for you to make a "case" to delete the entire section later by ensuring that there is no evidence explaining why the people involved actually deserve to be on this page. You've created a "Catch 22", where nothing can be added to this page without an explanation as to why it is "Christian Terrorism", but when that information is added, you delete it. Nice job, guys! --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 21:46, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If most sources considered this to be Christian terrorism, then there would not be a problem. But the challenged edits are POV because it assumes they are. TFD (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No. The section on Odisha has been there for YEARS. [29] I have added nothing except to "flesh out" the section with more RS, from Indian newspapers, since everybody keeps being confused about the connections between the Maoists and the Christian groups. I predict that either you or Collect will just go ahead and delete the entire India section before long, because neither of you actually give a damn about RS that doesn't fit your "narrative". You're not even trying to look impartial any more, are you guys? --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 22:04, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would like the section to explain why some writers see the terrorism as motivated by religion. TFD (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And you think the best way to accomplish this is to eliminate all the edits that I made, which showed that the acts in question were undoubtedly motivated by religion? And that's not even getting into the resolution, passed by senior members of a local Christian church, including Catholic priests, that the Swami and his "Satanic" minions had to be "sacrificed" because they were standing in the way of the "Lord's work". The only reason I haven't included that on the page before is due to my inability to locate a translation of the resolution (which is written in Oriya) outside of a few pages that would likely not pass scrutiny. I could post a link to an un-translated version, but I think that's against WP policy. Numerous articles in newspapers refer to the church resolution, but none of the English language ones that I've found contain the actual quotations. (Here's an example: [30]) The only real "controversy" is how much the Maoists were involved. Were they paid mercenaries for the church? Were they acting alone (for some unknown reason)? Were they even involved? (Note: Many spokesmen for the Maoists have denied involvement, and stated that Panda's "admission" was intended to absolve the Christians of their guilt, and stop the anti-Christian violence that erupted after the murder.) Did they train the actual murderers, and/or supply them with weapons? What is NOT, however, "controversial" is why the Swami (and some of his congregation, who are often overlooked) was murdered: Because he was a prominent Hindu religious figure who openly advocated against the Christian missionaries. Every news outlet and book that I've seen admits that. But hey, keep on telling yourself that there was no religious motivation or something. Yeah, that makes total sense. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 05:29, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Presenting evidence to prove the violence is terrorism that was motivated by religous belief is original research. We need a source that makes the connection. Most terrorism experts say that ethnic/nationalist conflict - not religion or even Maoism - is the cause of the violence, and the article needs to reflect that, per weight. That does not mean that the experts are necessarily right, but that is what policy requires us to do. TFD (talk) 06:01, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you obviously did not read any of the references. Duly noted. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 12:42, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What is more likely is that he did read them, and saw they did not actually support what you assert. Collect (talk) 12:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, it's okay. I see the writing on the wall now. You guys don't give a damn about anything except the destruction of this page, nor are you interested in reading any RS that conflicts with your weltanschauung. At least you're being open about your motivations nowadays, especially you, Collect. I award you the "Barnstar of Everlasting POV". I can certainly understand how "Christian militants" [31] conducting terrorist attacks aren't Christian terrorists. It's so obvious now. /sarcasm. I'll take my response off the air. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 13:39, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually all the other editors want to do is follow Wikipedia policies with the goal of producing a properly sourced encyclopedia article. For example your source just now says "Police are concerned that if anti-Christian riots continue, the Christians may also join forces with Muslim militants to take on Hindus. Which suggests the problem appears to be "anti-Christian riots" which one would be hard pressed to remotely call "Christian terrorism." In fact it appears to be "anti-Christian terrorism" which is covered. "Sajan K George, president of the Global Council for Indian Christians, said Hindu activists had been persecuting Christians in Orissa for several years." is also a clue as to what the source actually states. As is "These Hindu leaders are demanding that none be allowed to practise Christianity in Kandhamal," Mr George said. "It means all Christians must leave Orissa if they do not convert to Hinduism within a month. From the Hindu militants it is a clear signal of another spell of violent attack on the Christians." That you appear to use this source as a basis for a claim of "Christian terrorism" is not reasonable as far as anyone else reading this article can determine. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you'd actually paid attention, you'd notice that I tried to present the issue neutrally, as both sides are guilty of committing acts of terror against the other. And as I've said previously, if you want to discuss "Anti-Christian Terrorism" on WP, I'm sure there's an article on it somewhere on WP where that issue would be relevant. Nice to see that you actually read a part of one of the sources, while conveniently ignoring all of the mentions of "Christian militants" in it, of course. (And there is even one use of the term "Christian Terrorist", employed by an anonymous law enforcement official.) You have no intention of following any WP policies, and no goals other than the elimination of this page. That's painfully honest to anyone looking at your actions. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 14:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you note WP:AGF and note that those who assert that anyone is acting other than in the stated rule of policy well ought to be prepared to prove it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:21, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is really becoming a bit disturbing. Bryonmorrigan is AGFing, and maybe Collect too. Tryptofish what you would suggest? Bladesmulti (talk) 15:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I read the sources. It is not sufficient to say that one group is Christian, another is Hindu, therefore the cause of the conflict is religious differences. So if the British had not converted anyone to Christianity, there would be no conflict. The fact that they are Sino-Tibetan in a country that is mostly Indian has nothing to do with it. TFD (talk) 15:36, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

[32] Bryonmorrigan's analysis of that change was correct, you have a reliable citation for that and other user had reverted other change in good faith, not that he brought something new. Bladesmulti (talk) 14:54, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Collect is proving that I was correct about his motives, as he just attempted to delete sourced material, from a peer-reviewed article (printed as a collection of such in a book), that specifically uses the terms "religious terrorism" and "Christian terrorism" in regards to the issues. I'm sure he'll say now that, because it's written by Indians, it's not "reputable", or some other nonsense. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 14:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And nemo me impune lacessit - you appear to be evincing a strong battleground attitude with your iterated claims about me. And your implication that I am biased against "Indians" is harmful to Wikipedia. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:12, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're doing EXACTLY what I predicted you would. You're chipping away at the article, because you want this article to go away. You created the "battleground" by your constant deletions and reversions of reputably sourced material on this page, which is based on nothing but 100% POV. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to protect Christianity from criticism. I suggest you go to "Conservapedia" if you want to force your positions on people with impunity. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 15:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]