Talk:American civil religion

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[edit] United States civil religion

This article should be moved to United States civil religion as America covers a much greater region than the US and this article does not, SqueakBox 22:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome squeak, and thanks for your suggestion. The term American civil religion was coined by Robert Bellah in 1967, not United States civil religion. I understand that in most cases this would be the correct move, because I am sensitive to Americans calling the United States America when it is the whole continent too. But:
  1. But since Robert Bellah coined American civil religion, I think this is correct.
  1. In addition, the English language has no substitute for American, and Robert Bellah is discussing American's individual and collective views, not the American states views.

I look forward to your edits in this article. It is rather new, and I hope to get more people editing this article.22:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, dont know how confident I feel to edit this as I know almost nothing about US society, unfortunately there is no real translation for the word American, as wikipedia has abundantly shown me, SqueakBox 23:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence

The first sentence does not quite make sense in its present form because of the word essays:

American civil religion is a term coined by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967, since becoming one of the most debated and controversial essays in United States sociology.

Basically the sentence says the term became one of the most debated and controversial essays. I don't know anything about this topic, but from a grammatical poit of view, I would suggest soemthing like:

American civil religion is a term coined by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967. It sparked one of the most debated and controversial debates in United States sociology.

or

American civil religion is a term coined by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967 in the essay titled XXX, which since became one of the most debated and controversial essays in United States sociology.

Someone who knows about this topic please fix this first sentence! Thanks JenLouise 06:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the great suggestion. Travb (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nom for deletion

This is basically a non-article. There's not much information, and what's there is almost incomprehensible. It's also not quite notable enough to have its own article. Therefore, I've nominated it for deletion. Graymornings 08:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I will rewrite the information. Thanks for the critique.
There is a huge number of sociologists who disagree with you that this term is notable. See the referene section. 08:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I just read over the information. What is not comprehensible? Travb (talk) 08:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The "three periods" section is poorly-written and has a couple of sentences that don't go anywhere, such as:

When "the spiritual glue that had bound the nation together in previous years had simply collapsed".

It's not exactly a sentence and the punctuation is a bit off. I don't really know how to fix the section, though, as I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to mean. At the very least it's an unsourced quote. Graymornings 02:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the sentence. I really appreciate your criticisms Graymornings but in my opinion the way you went about expressing those criticisms: putting a deletion tag on this page is appalling and troubling. In my opinion this is yet another case of the deletion tags being abused. I am sure you will disagree but I won't argue. Any other criticisms you have please express them here, and I will try my hardest to fix them, or, if possible, WP:BB and attempt to fix them yourself.
99.9% of the time all of my contributions are sourced. This section is no different with two sources (see paragraph). Travb (talk) 04:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's "appaling" [sic] to recommend the article for deletion. However, I'm not going to put it back on if you don't feel it's necessary. Still, I question your ability to edit this page effectively if you can't use basic spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The sentence I mentioned was not the only typo on the page -- still isn't, by the way, though I doubt you know where the rest are. You seem to have taken "ownership" of the article, which Wikipedia does not recommend. To put it bluntly, you're taking criticism of the article too personally. It's not about you; it's about the content. At the very least, I'm putting a cleanup tag on it. I don't know enough about the subject to do an in-depth edit (not to mention a proofread), but an objective person with basic English skills needs to edit the article. Graymornings 05:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Is the pargraph better written now?
Again, I appreciate your constructive criticims of the article.
Piety personal attacks I can do without. Travb (talk) 06:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

You have an entire section with evidence supporting Bellah but nothing about controversy or criticisms - I'm sitting here in religious studies class and my teacher is talking about how his stuff has come under criticism lately, but I get here and all I see are an explanation of the ideas and then support for them. How can you have support and not criticism? Kuronue | Talk 16:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:BB add the criticism section with sourced and cited information. I am not aware of the criticism section, I look forward to you adding it and learning from you. Travb (talk) 23:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)