Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atheist Atrocities fallacy

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

The result was Draftify. There are apparently two questions in this discussion, whether this is its own concept and separate enough from tu quoque and whether the current article is in an acceptable form. It seems like there is agreement (including by the article author) that the current article needs serious work and some people have proposed draftification or want to delete the text altogether for this reason. The first question is harder; SpinningSpark and ThePromenader have provided some sources that have been contested by Huitzilopochtli1990; other editors who have commented on this question are SJK, Curdle and StudiesWorld. My sense is that there isn't a consensus here that this is or isn't distinct enough to merit a page separate from Criticism of Atheism; the fact that it's not clear if this is a good name might be further muddying the waters.

So the consensus appears to be that there is no consensus on whether this topic is articleworthy - perhaps a dedicated merger discussion in the future might help - but clear consensus that the current text is inadequate and a widely shared suggestion to draftify. Thus draftification it is. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Atheist Atrocities fallacy[edit]

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A form of the tu quoque, the phrase was coined by Richard Dawkins and has appeared in print, but this is an essay, largely unsourced and POV. Suggest redirect to tu quoque. Kleuske (talk) 13:37, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and redirect to tu quoque. This is a badly sourced and non-neutral personal essay about one example of a tu quoque fallacy. Reyk _YO! 13:43, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the suggested redirect would be useful unless the target article was expanded to include some mention of this term. Really, I would simply say delete, an essay on a term of doubtful currency.TheLongTone (talk) 13:45, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I could see the argument for a redirect but I'm not convinced the term is notable enough on its own. It does have some limited coverage, but appears to have been coined by Richard Dawkins some time in the last five years, and used largely as a non-neutral term in various atheist v theist debates. I'd want to see some more independent and serious academic coverage of it before it was included even as a redirect, let alone as an article. Hugsyrup (talk) 14:22, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The page was created by a new, inexperienced user, apparently in response to a request on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Social sciences/Religion. While the article is largely unsourced, it looks to me like the majority of the material has been taken from the first of the five sources listed in the request [1]. Note that the author is not Dawkins so this goes beyond him. The creator has made the great mistake of taking on the POV of the source, but this is not irretrievable. She has already indicated she is going to address the referencing issue so may be willing to carry on working on this. This debate is certainly notable, there are plenty of sources that discuss this issue, or aspects of it (but possibly not under the exact article title). For book sources, for instance, there is 50 Great Myths About Atheism and on the other side of the argument The Irrational Atheist. SpinningSpark 01:51, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 02:22, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 02:22, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Moving to Draft space may be another option, it is obviously not ready for main space. —Paleo Neonate – 02:26, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Move to draft space: Agree with comment above. It is not ready yet, but a good article is possible. --Bduke (talk) 01:23, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Atheism-related deletion discussions. MrClog (talk) 12:14, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify - could be a good article once the issues have been resolved. --MrClog (talk) 12:15, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Move to draft space: Hi, I'm the author of this article, it has been created for a University assignment and I am new to Wikipedia. I uploaded it prematurely before I finished adding the rest of the information/sources and when I went back to edit it, it was already up for deletion. I am more than happy to move this article to the draft space to complete it as I have quite a few other sources and more information that I'd like to add. User:Grace654321 —Preceding undated comment added 12:22, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify It is a concept, and has been discussed before Dawkins (see the Atheism and politics section under Criticisms of Atheism) There does seem to be some academic material there. Expanding on that could make a good article with a bit of tweaking. Curdle (talk) 19:34, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I don't think this concept is significant enough for an article of its own. Also, searching for the article title phrase suggests to me that the phrase "Atheist Atrocities fallacy" is mainly used by unreliable blogs rather than high quality published reliable sources. The concept probably could be discussed in some article like Criticism of atheism, but I'm unconvinced there will ever be enough here to justify a standalone article. SJK (talk) 00:59, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify (from FTN) - This looks like it will be able to be expanded and improved and the sources suggest notability. StudiesWorld (talk) 09:57, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Looking for sources, I have found myself mistaken that it could be expanded. StudiesWorld (talk) 10:10, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - am leaning towards delete because the topic does not exist in any reliable sources. I see it on blogs on google. But I also checked Google Scholar to see if there was any scholarly discussion of it - sometimes it happens - and I literally found no hit whatsoever [2]. The sources in the article are very poor: Kierkegaard and Locke do not discuss such a thing, Baggini actually links communism with atheism but adds that it does not apply vice versa. He says that "atheism formed an essential part of soviet communism, even though communism does not form an essential part of atheism”. Duh. The same goes for Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and any other worldview. No belief system is inherently for a particular political configuration. Also most of the article has no citations whatsoever so that is pretty much WP:OR. Now, if some reliable sources can be found for this supposed fallacy, then under those conditions, I would say keep.

But that seems unlikely since the main and only source for the article itself is a blog The Atheist Atrocities Fallacy – Hitler, Stalin & Pol Pot by Michael Sherlock. Richard Dawkins did not coin this fringe idea, it was Michael Sherlock posting in recharddawkins.net Michael Sherlock's post on richarddawkins.net. Actually, I suspect that Michael Sherlock himself wrote this article himself or a follower of this fringe theory since it follows his sections from his actual blog post almost exactly as it is in the article right now! The editor that wrote the whole article is a new editor User:Grace654321. Literally the article right now has similar structure and even the same wording as the blog post: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Tu quoque (“You Too”) Fallacy, False Analogy Fallacy, False Cause Fallacy, Poisoning the Well Fallacy, Slippery Slope Fallacy. Compare the article right now [3] with Michael Sherlock's original blog. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 09:31, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Ramos1990: ...topic does not exist in any reliable sources is not so as I already pointed to one in my post above. 50 Great Myths About Atheism by Blackford and Schüklenk has, at Myth 27, "Many atrocities have been committed in the name of atheism", and Myth 28, "Adolf Hitler was an atheist", directly addresses one of the main contentions of the article. There are certainly sources that contend that atheists gaining power leads to atrocities. Examples include Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist and Louis Markos, Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century. Whatever the faults of the current article, this subject should certainly be discussed on Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 12:39, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Spinningspark: Can you provide a few sources that uses that term? I mean, you have to have some substantial basis for making a whole new article not just WP:COATRACK right? The term and concept are not used at all in Google Scholar [4] - not even one hit except the blog! And google general search is even worse since only blogs use it. At least with all of these you can see if the idea is notbale to some extent or not. Clearly no one uses it in reliable sources like academic sources. The point is that this article is claiming there is a fallacy, but no reliable source makes such a claim. The sources you have mentioned disagree with each other, but none call each other a fallacy. Also if you plan on using the sources and saying that the authors of Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century and The Irrational Atheist commit the fallacy, you would be literally violation policy due to WP:SYN since the sources do not make that claim. There is no substance to this fallacy, but if you can find a reliable source that says "source A committed the Atheist Atrocity Fallacy by saying blah blah" then you would have something and I would argue for keep if enough sources say that.

Also, the 3 sources you mentioned, I have already read 2 of them and they are much more nuanced than the fallacy. They do not blame atheism as being the sole source of any of these atrocities, they argue that these governments when having atheism as part government policy did not result in religious tolerance or religious freedom - something that State Religion offered in general. It is kind of a reaction to how atheists have constantly made a fallacy of blaming religion for atrocities, when the realities are much more complex.(eg. 50 Great Myths of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) see "Myth 8. Religion Causes Violence" )

Finally, there is already the Criticism of Atheism article which seems more fitting for your 3 sources since there they can address comepletely the arguments and carry the nuances. I see that 50 Great Myths About Atheism by Blackford and Schüklenk is already there. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 17:45, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that we should get too hung up on the exact title of the article. In fact, I think it should be changed because it is POV simply by calling it a fallacy. Something like Atheist atrocities controversy would be better. The Criticism of atheism article is a more general topic, the topic of this page addresses a very specific criticism of atheism. SpinningSpark 22:23, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify and decide a proper article name. A single author may have coined the term (and the 'reliability' of the traction it has gained remains to be determined), but the phenomenon it describes is very real, as demonstrated by the well-sourced and well-cited article itself.

I do find it odd that other articles on this theme, whose topic-names are practically equally absent from mainstream reliable sources, are given quite the opposite of the 'delete treatment' demanded here. Cheers. TP ✎ ✓ 17:29, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm.. you cited the blog too. Is there any reliable source for this concept? The blog, which is the only one anyone is able to cite, does not count since it is not written by an expert on the topic. On the other hand,the "other articles on this theme" you mentioned actually have significant number of academic sources in it already (at least +100) and google scholar shows lots of hits [5]. Considering the RFC you made over neologisms on that article, I am surprised you all of a sudden want to support this one and it clearly is one since only an unreliable source - a blog exists for it. Like you said "A single author may have coined the term". Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 18:05, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Therefore I do not see reason for 'keep as-is', perhaps re-read my comment? And google books is not a denoter of 'reliable mainstream status' (and often quite the opposite, as any WP:FRINGE view-book can be found there, too). No matter what one 'thinks' (or how they 'vote'), if an article's title-topic is not present in the sources it cites, that is a problem, period. So either the article must be made to be about the term (and who coined/uses it, etc.), or its title must be changed. And that rule holds true for any article of any topic, anywhere on Wikipedia. TP ✎ ✓ 18:38, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete . No reliable sources, no obvious need. desmay (talk) 15:21, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:ESSAY. Filled with bad logic and POV-pushing, unseemly in a page on rhetoric. For example, slippery slope is misleadingly described as a "fallacy; sloppy argumentation such as "Stalin used atheism as a means by which to build his presence as a personality not as reasoning as to why he committed so many atrocities", but mostly delete because it's just a Tu quoque and because it fails WP:NEO.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:41, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Move to draft space article should be developed and sourced. WP:PRESERVE Lubbad85 (☎) 22:01, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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