This article seems have been taken over by Catholics defending their faith, can we get a more even handed (or you know, just get more protestant/international) view on things?
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Um, this is for "Traditional Christianity", so this is in short, about Catholics. Being the oldest branch of Christianity, that is. I think you're looking for "Other Offshoots of Christianity" on the main page.
Really? Am I in the wrong place? Because that comment on sex re:Christianity in general was mine, before this was its own page, and I'm protestant. If this page was actually *called* "Catholicism," I'd butt out, but that doesn't look like how things are divided to me, since the only other Christian category is "Modern Offshoots of Christianity" which contains exclusively comments about Mormonism. Seems a bit of a stretch to call the Reformation modern times. Not trying to debate about who the true church is or anything, but if people want this page to be Catholic they need to call it Catholic and make another one for Protestants; till then I'll comment here.
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel
redacted - wrong placement of comment
Edited by swallowfeather "God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel
Also commented in the wrong place, and redacted.
Edited by 69.172.221.2 Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick
I think this should be renamed "Artistic License Catholicism" as it seems to be solely on that. Perhaps Useful Notes Catholicism, as it seems structured in that way.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick
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The section of Christianity and other belief systems is incredibly semantic and petty, as well as technically inaccurate. I suggest a major rewrite.
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Wereboar
The following entry about the capriform image of a devil: 'It emerged around the 19th century representing the faun Pan as a symbol of pagan decadence' is simply incorrect. There are many examples of a horned Pan-like depictions of devil(s) in the religious paintings from 15th century.
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Destroyer of Weeds
son, I'm having some trouble with your "logical fallacies" entry.
My first problem is that I'm not sure I understand it. You seem to be making a dichotomy between the early 20th-century Fundamentalist and Modernist movements and suggesting those are the only two options for the perspective of all of historical Christianity over two centuries. I find it a little hard to believe that this is really what you mean.
Or maybe you are making a response to a particularly stupid opponent who has claimed that those are the only two options and that Modernism was the original one, and you're simply pointing out that if so, Modernism is to be blamed for the Crusades, etc, etc.
The trouble is, if this is what you're doing, why is it on TV Tropes? In which work of fiction did this opponent show up? Why are you designating him as "many scholars" and what do scholars have to do with TV Tropes?
To me, you sound like you're carrying on one side of a theological debate in isolation rather than correcting a misconception. I don't want to be rude or pushy, but I honestly do not think it belongs here.
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel Hide / Show Replies
The page actually does correct multiple misconceptions. Seriously, have you seen what shows up in the comments of any You Tube video that mentions Christianity?
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[Logical Fallacies]
- "[W]hen Christians specifically break commands they have accepted as part of Christianity (for instance the commandment against murder), they are in fact No True Christian."
I beg to disagree - these Christians who believe in fundamental teachings of Christianity, but break some of them, such as some of the Ten Commandments - are generally still considered Christians - they're called sinners. *)
NoTrueChristian comes in to play when they completely break from/do not observe/do not believe at all in (basic) Christian teachings - e.g. the belief in one God, Jesus Christ His son, the Decalogue, resurrection, salvation etc. - and even amongst early Christian churches there could had been a lot of differences and disagreements on what actually constituted being a (True) Christian.
For example (not that the traditional Christinaty would be reduced to the Roman catholicism only - which is a separate fallacy) until the 1983 CIC it was extremely difficult to cease being Catholic - with the official excommunication by the Church essentially the only option.
- )Wholesale exclusion of sinners from the Christian communion is - paradoxically - actually quite close to the Donatist heresy of 4th/5th Century.
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- [Recent History & Events]
Re cut request: Seconding this. As-is, the page is so natter/Justifying Edit-filled that it's become a discussion board about Christian dogma, the accuracy of various accounts of The Bible and who-knows-what-else. It gives any reader almost nothing in terms of worth.
See also the Ask The Tropers discussion.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This article looks more like a theological debate / apologetics than a proper "Artistic License - X" page.
A lot of it seems to be refuting claims without giving any examples of those claims being made. For example, I have never heard of anyone thinking that Christians follow the rules in Leviticus. Whenever that book gets brought up in arguments (in my experience), it is either to point out that Christians don't follow big chunks of the Bible, and/or to argue that a good God would not make such laws. Pointing out that it is full of Values Dissonance is the point, not the counter.
There is also a lot of arguing about interetation of Biblical verses and doctrine (something Christians and theologians do all the time) and the very first sentance ("...when Christians specifically break commands they have accepted as part of Christianity... they are in fact No True Christian") implies that any Christian who sins ceases to be a Christian, which is definitely not standard Christian doctrine.
This really neads to be pared down, and turned into a normal list of examples of mainstream Christian beliefs being mis-represented in the media. Any other worthwhile information (and a lot of what we have here isn't) can be moved into a "useful notes" page.
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I agree. Or at the very least, this article should have a lot of its points moved to a YMMV section. Some of the points here are in constant debate between those who defend Christianity and those who attack it. Like slavery: of course modern-day Christians will try to weasel out of biblical slavery by assuring us that it was completely different from the kind of black slavery in America. They essentially use exactly the arguments written here. But their opponents have refutations - they point out how the bible says you can beat your slave, sell him, inherit him etc. Then there are points which are true for one branch of Christianity and not another, where essentially one type of Christian belief (that is really held by many) is considered a missinterpretation of "real Christianity".
This whole page seems to largely be concerned with Catholicism. A name change to Artistic License: Catholicism is perhaps in order.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick
Destroyer of Weeds
Hey, a question for whoever gave that info about the upside-down cross. I once had some Sunday School teacher or something tell me that the peace symbol was supposed to be an upside-down cross with the "arms" broken and hanging down, thus mocking Christianity. I suspect that was hogwash, but do you know anything about that?
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel Hide / Show Replies
the upside down cross is known as peters cross, when he was crucified he had asked to be hung upside down as he did not feel worth enough to be punished in the same way as Jesus. so the people who try to use the upside down cross to "insult" are just using an alternate religious symbol, rather funny really.
The peace symbol was originally the Nuclear Disarmament symbol. It is inspired by the semaphore flag positions (that one with the man waving 2 flags) for the letters N (the arms and flag form a inverted V) at and D (one arm straight up and the other straight down, forming a line).
Edited by Gemmabeta
That was supposed to be St. Andrew, hence St. Andrew's Cross [1]
, perhaps most famous in the US for use on the Confederate battle flag.
This sentence:
" Islam as practiced by most ordinary Muslims includes a belief in saints and the holiness of their shrines, and praying at these sites hoping for intercession, even as purist "Salafis" and others scream and yell (and occasionally tear down a shrine"
Really? What does "most ordinary Muslims" mean, exactly? That makes no sense. Also, in the Islamic faith, Muslims believe in God, and God alone. Muslims would argue that asking for intercession from people who passed away is a sin, as these people are with God, and Muslims should direct their prayers directly to Him, without need for intercession. I'll just delete that part, now.
Destroyer of Weeds
I don't know how to look far back enough in the history to see who's responsible, but does every entry have to be so long? Someone writing on here is both verbose and a tad overenthusiastic, and I think it takes away from the quality of the page and makes people less likely to read it. I understand enthusiasm for defending your faith as well as anyone, but it actually comes across better when you manage to sound somewhat objective. And short, concise entries are really much easier to read.
You've got a whole lot of good info, whoever you are, I'm just asking if maybe you could edit for tone and word count, to make your entries better.
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel Hide / Show Replies
This page is to present and disprove common misconceptions about (Traditional) Christianity, which are quite numerous. As I see it, if you try to edit it out for word count, it leaves holes if done incorrectly because of insufficient depth. Holes can be an opening for Natter, which is almost READY AND PRIMED to happen on a topic like this (and religion in general). On a side note, this is TV Tropes. The tone is supposed to be, as the home page puts it, "a buttload more informal" than The Other Wiki. In spite of this, I still understand what you're saying— I could only imagine that quite some work would have to be done to keep the page atleast somewhat objective while still retaining the info and depth.
Edited by seg162
OK, having educated myself about how to read the History, etc, I can clarify:
A user named Hadashi, who (I'm told) is now banned, wrote more than half the entries on this page. They're Walls of Text, they're responses to atheist forum arguments rather than actual mistakes in works of fiction, they preach, and they're not funny. They speak with definiteness about matters that are in dispute or are completely subjective. They generalize, exaggerate and imply that religious people are always in the right. They're borderline Flame Bait, and some of them aren't so borderline.
Can we clean these up now?
Yes, TV Tropes is informal, but for this page to actually look like the rest of TV Tropes, it would need:
- to have actual examples from works of fiction
- to stick pretty much to misconceptions that actually appear in works of fiction
- to stick to matters that are clear and objective enough so that actual mistakes and misconceptions exist about them, rather than matters that are officially the subject of controversy. (Eg. "Sodom and Gomorrah weren't destroyed for homosexuality" is clear and objective. "The Bible does/doesn't condemn homosexuality" is not. Actual practices of missionaries are objective; whether missionaries are good is not.)
- to be fairly light-toned and funny
Does anyone have any objection to my starting to clean up Hadashi's entries now, deleting the truly bad ones and cutting the others down to what's good in them? Or does anyone feel like taking this further? Say, taking it TRS or putting it back into the Artistic License - Religion page so at least it's connected to some fiction examples?
For the record, I'm an evangelical Christian married to a Catholic, and I'm not trying to make trouble for religious people; I think having "our" page look so polemic gives us a bad name, that's all.
Edited by swallowfeather "God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel
There is definitely no objection from me; Useful Notes pages are for correcting common misconceptions in media, not giving big theological arguments for debating on forums. Good call on the objective/subjective stuff, too, since this isn't a place to intepret the Bible in depth.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
I'm going to proceed carefully. I'll condense examples rather than revert them if and when they can be made into real TV Tropes style entries, I'll consult on this page, and I'll take it to Ask The Tropers if anything starts looking really edit-warrish.
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel
Destroyer of Weeds
"son", sorry, I just deleted a section that shouldn't be here and then realized you just now added an entry to it. I'll look at it again in a little while but I have to log off right now... if you feel strongly about it, put it back, but please think over whether this type of discussion belongs on the "Artistic License" page, that's all I ask.
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel Hide / Show Replies
"Clear errors", nuff said. We can debate whether said errors ARE errors or rather just interpretation, but the oversimplifications in the fallacy section are themes in fiction used to criticize Christianity in Author Filibusters.
Edited by son
Take the "pick and choose" section. (Regardless of your view point on gay marriage) Prop 8 the Musical from funny or die.com back in 2008, had a message condemning Christians from "picking and choosing", yet then beseeched Christians to "pick love instead of hate". There is a purpose for the apparent "picking and choosing" and most Christians (regardless of denomination) would agree.
Edited by son
"We can debate" - that's kind of the problem. In the rest of the Artistic License - Religion page, I don't see matters for debate being brought up. I see people informing us that Islam considers Jesus a prophet, that a Jewish boy doesn't actually need a bar mitzvah to become a man, and that the Mormon health code doesn't strictly ban coffee. These are the kinds of things where the reader nods, goes "hm. I didn't know that" and is pleased to have learned something. That's what an Artistic License page is for.
There are very, very many entries on this page that are not in that category.
The "pick and choose" entry could, I think, be put into that category with some editing for tone—changing it to simply informing people that most denominations consider some parts of the Bible to have more authority for the modern-day church than others. But can you imagine someone having that "Oh, I see" reaction to the No True Scotsman entry?
This needs to get cleaned up one way or another.
"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel
Some of these things could be argued slightly. Overall it's a very good article, but a couple of things are a bit odd. Like the bit about sex not being solely for procreative purposes. While *technically* true, sex is only considered acceptable when it is open to procreation, which is the point most people are making anyway when they say "Catholicism says sex is just for procreation". The point most people are making (even if it's not phrased well) is in fact true, so I don't think it really fits in as a misconception. And the next part about inability to procreate is misleading as well, since you can't get married in the Catholic Church if you're infertile. I don't see anything wrong per se, just some things that seem misleading or dodging/misunderstanding the main point being made. Seeing as I'm not *too* well versed in the Catholic faith (nothing past high school) I won't make any changes myself since I wouldn't know *how* to clear it up exactly.
- "Catholicism is often claimed to be quasi-polytheistic by non-Catholics (veneration of saints and the Mother Mary). While humans in general tend to be polytheistic, Catholics don't actually worship the saints, including Mary, any more than they worship icons such as the crucifix."
TV Tropes, I am starting to believe in you again.
" in fact, since antiquity, the belief that witches have supernatural powers has been regarded as heresy."
Umm... Source?
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