Is Wikipedia Trustworthy on Topics Religious?

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The Venerable Bede cautions against relying on Wikipedia, especially on matters related to Christianity. Given his personal experience on that site regarding the myth of Christian responsibility for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, it is worth taking note of his opinion.

Comments

Peter Kirby said…
I will see what I can do about the Library of Alexandria page.

best,
Peter Kirby
8/16/2005 03:07:00 AM
Peter Kirby said…
It appears that Bede's contributions were in two areas (besides the Talk page):

Deleting this paragraph:

" If indeed a Christian mob was responsible for the destruction of the Library, it is to be expected that such an act embarrassed later generations, who may have decided to alter or not to preserve the historical records in order to conceal it. In any case, both the contradictions in the historical record and the lack of a definitive account of the destruction of the Library in pre-Christian times are striking, given that it was the goal of Christian writers such as Orosius to highlight such evidence wherever they could find it."

And rewording a reference to him as a Christian apologist to:

"Detailed article about the libraries complete with annotation and full bibliography."

It is not surprising that an undiscussed deletion of a full paragraph did not go unchallenged; they rarely do. Bede would have done better to make a positive contribution to the article. That would have much better chances of enduring; and, of course, it would be a real contribution.

Neverthless, I will see what I can do about the POV (bias, a no-no) that is represented in the article as it stands.
8/16/2005 04:29:00 AM
Layman said…
Thanks for the feedback, Peter. I'll pass this along to Bede.
8/16/2005 09:26:00 AM
James said…
Actually, IIRC, I wrote quite a bit more on that Alexandria page previously which was largely removed by the German atheist. Besides, the final paragraph I deleted is so ridiculous that no intelligent person should even need an explanation. That the paragraph was put back (and it is nothing more than a blatant piece of anti-Christian propaganda) was unacceptable in any forum claiming to be neutral.

Best wishes

Bede
8/17/2005 02:37:00 AM
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