Talk:Republic of Heaven

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Religion Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
	This article falls within the scope of the Interfaith work group. If you are interested in Interfaith-related topics, please visit the project page to see how you can help. If you have any comments regarding the appropriateness or positioning of this template, please let us know at our talk page

	Literature Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
	This article has been automatically rated as Stub-Class because it uses a stub template. If you agree with the assessment, please remove auto=yes from this template. If you disagree, please change the assessment by editing the class= parameter in this template and removing the stub template from the article itself.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Fantasy task force. (with unknown importance)
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

This article has been automatically assessed as Stub-Class by WikiProject Novels because it uses a stub template. If you agree with the assessment, please remove {{WikiProject Novels}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page. If you disagree with the assessment, please change it by editing the class parameter of the {{NovelsWikiProject}} template, removing {{WikiProject Novels}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page, and removing the stub template from the article.

[edit] Anonymous user's comments

That second section sounds dangerously close to bullshit. 76.180.120.161 16:59, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it's just completely baseless. I've never heard of a religion in which a 'Republic of Heaven' exists, and if there is one, it does not specify it. 76.180.120.161 17:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Republic of Heaven as Religious Belief

I copied the following from an earlier version of this article, and I bring it here for discussion. It was deleted by an anonymous editor who made scurrilous comments here on the talk page about this section, but offered no real critique of the ideas or their sources.

Some religious adherents believe in a literal Republic of Heaven to which they will ascend to in the afterlife. Such a scenario may involve a god, several gods, or a godless spirit realm, but the uniting principle is a governmental system in the afterlife that is owned and controlled by its occupants. It may involve direct democracy, a representative government model, or some other variant on a republican system by which to make decisions in the afterlife.

However, others believe that a Republic of Heaven must be established first, and doing so may involve a revolution in the afterlife in which they must participate in some way to overthrow a heavenly monarchy or dictatorship, not unlike the plot of the His Dark Materials series itself.

Another possible scenario is that the term "Republic of Heaven" is a metaphor for the underlying theme of the His Dark Materials trilogy of freedom in all things. In The Amber Spyglass, after Metatron & the Authority are defeated, we never find out what happened to Metatron's moving castle, the Chariot, which was a vehicle of oppression. In the trilogy, protagonist figures state many times that contrary to the Church's view, living or being part of the living world is the greatest freedom of all. It can be concluded the term "Republic of Heaven" simply means that where you are right now is heaven & that the voters in the Republic are/is yourself.

Granted that this section is unreferenced and reads like original research, but this can be said for the article in its entirety. Better that it be brought here, and some discussion occur, than delete it without a valid argument. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 18:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I also grant that the section is unreferenced (first half) and original research (second half). To merit inclusion, I would say: find citations. But don't include it until this is done. Best, Anthony Krupp 18:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, believe me, Anthony, I completely agree. I have no intention of putting this back in the article without major cleanup. The article in general needs cleanup and referencing, and I do not want to make the situation worse. Thanks for your response. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 00:01, 1 December 2007 (UTC)