Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Freud and Religion

:{{la|Freud and Religion}} – (View AfDView log)

:({{Find sources|Freud and Religion}})

Apparent original research, since there are no sources. Also, this is an essay, not something that would be acceptable as an encyclopedia article. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiManOne (talk • contribs) 06:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. Complete non-starter as an article, but a very notable topic with lots of scholarly sources, http://www.google.com/search?q=+nabarro+llp&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7#sclient=psy&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us%3AIE-SearchBox&tbs=bks:1&q=+freud+religion&aq=f&aqi=g1g-o1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=f0ddf7f432501006 Seems like a candidate for Article rescue squadron. I will add the appropriate tag. Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

:Just wanted to add I will take improvement of this one on as a project over the next few weeks if it is kept. Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:42, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

::You can always do this in your userspace - see WP:USERFY. Fæ (talk) 13:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• DeleteMerge - per the guidelines of WP:CFORK and WP:OR. I put this up for PROD back in September and I see little material improvement and so consequently there is a low prospect of significant improvement in the short term. One can imagine an array of potential weakly sourced essays in this area Freud and sex, Freud and death, Freud and cocaine, Freud and Star Trek... none of which would seem particularly useful as stand-alone articles. Fæ (talk) 13:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

:I will do this in userspace if necessary. However, this will not be "weakly sourced". Freud wrote about religion in very notable essays including "Moses and Monotheism" and "The Future of an Illusion". If you follow the Google books link above, you will see there are susbtantial scholarly sources. A full discussion of his views and influence would overweight the existing Freud article, so I envision adding a paragraph there and linking to a "Freud and Religion" article. Jonathanwallace (talk) 16:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

::Perhaps a good article about "Freud and Religion" could be created, but is this that article? The answer has to be no. "Freud's views on religion" would be a better title for an article on Freud and religion, but there's no point to moving this article to that title as there's no worthwhile content. Better to just delete it and start a new article with the different title. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 18:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• My original issue of original research has been addressed so I have struck my delete opinion, however I struggle to see this as a encyclopaedic topic as it still reads as an essay of 'X and Y' style and would be more suitable as a shorter segment in the main article, consequently my Merge opinion rather than a Keep. If the ground-swell of opinion is that such articles are a good idea, then I would expect "Freud and sex" to be of more interest to the layman closely followed by "Freud in popular culture". Fæ (talk) 08:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. -- Fæ (talk) 16:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
• Delete: unsourced WP:CFORK of Theories of religion#Sigmund Freud. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 16:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

:I have taken the liberty of adding some paragraphs on "The Future of an Illusion" and Karen Armstrong's views on Freud in A History of God, and deleting the former material violating WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Under the circumstances, I would ask that this nomination be withdrawn or resolved as "Keep" to give me a chance to keep working on the article. Jonathanwallace (talk) 19:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

::Thanks for trying to produce a worthwhile article. But with respect, if you want to do that, it's not such a good idea to source it mainly to Freud's own works, since there's a strong risk of OR in interpreting such primary source material. It might be better to userify the article until it's ready for the encyclopedia, under whatever name. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

:::Thanks. I have saved the source and can place it in user-space if the article is deleted. I plan to add a lot more secondary source material tonight and tomorrow in the hope of saving this one, though. Jonathanwallace (talk) 19:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

::::I have continued to add secondary sources and will keep doing so. The article at this point is completely different than the one which was nominated (only one para in common). Jonathanwallace (talk) 20:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

:::::OK, you're probably right that there's no point in deletion at this stage. But even though I'm the one who nominated this article for deletion, that shouldn't mean that this AfD is concluded, as several other editors voted delete, and they may still feel that the article should be deleted. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 23:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

:*The 'The Future of an Illusion' section is poorly composed and sourced solely to Freud himself, so gives no reason to retain this material. The other, less substantial, but more substantive, material would probably have been enough to make me hold-off a delete !vote in the first place, but is not (yet) enough for me to change that !vote. As the article stands, I don't really see it as much (any?) of an improvement over Theories of religion#Sigmund Freud, so am ambivalent over its retention. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:51, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

::I cut down the "Future of an Illusion" section and added two secondary sources. I added a "Moses and Monotheism" section sourced entirely to secondary sources. The article now quotes Karen Armstrong, Irving Kristol, Peter Gay, Harold Bloom, the New York Times, the Huffington Post etc etc. Jonathanwallace (talk) 07:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

::I have paraphrased some of the quotes, added a section on "Civilization and its Discontents" and many more secondary sources. Jonathanwallace (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

:*Keep: the article now unambiguously demonstrates notability. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I have no doubt that this topic is notable. If the article is completely useless (I don't have the time to check this), then it should be turned into a redirect to an appropriate section of another article, but with no prejudice against recreation with proper, reliably sourced, content. Hans Adler 19:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for {{tl|rescue}} by the Article Rescue Squadron. SnottyWong ^spout 20:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per improvements made to the article since it was nominated. It now has over 20 sources, many of which are reliable and deal with the subject in a significant way. SnottyWong ^spout 20:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Keep Clicking on the Google search results at the top of the AFD, I find there are certainly a lot of books written on this topic. The News results seem promising as well. Article is now referenced, so no need to shift through them. Obviously a notable topic. Dream Focus 19:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

: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.