Religion / Discussion

Ectospheno: Uh, what is the point of this page?

Velobici: Sensei's Library is a wiki. If the page has value it will grow. If the page does not have value, it may be changed to gain value, otherwise it will be a wiki orphan and deleted at some point (months?) into the future.
Religion seems to be a program for conducting ones life: behavioral norms, rituals, organization of individuals into groupings, etc. The page does not seem to address these aspects. Rather than religion, perhaps philosophy might be slightly better. Who knows. Lets see what happens. :)

Phelan: I think "Go as religion" (or maybe philosophy, as velobici suggested) makes some sense to me. Since I started playing Go, I've applied some of its concepts to my daily life, and guide some of my choices by them. Sometimes the way I think of Go seems rather spiritual. But maybe philosophy makes more sense, and is accepted by more people.

Ectospheno: As the page stands now (6/18/2005) it doesn't say or mean much of anything at all. If the page was fleshed out I think "philosophy" would fit its content more than the word "religion". I think neither the dictionary definition nor the popular connotation of the word religion match what's on this religion wiki page.

unkx80: Although the page philosophy does not exist, the page Scartol/Philosophy of Go exists. So if any of you think that the contents of the parent page is useful, please adapt the contents and merge them into the Scartol/Philosophy of Go page. Then flag the religion page for deletion.

Thank you for your thoughts

Jared (June 19 2005): I have added some and rearanged some and there are a few new thoughts on the page. I added a Scartol/Philosophy of Go link and I want to move some of these comments out of the discussion. I liked what Phelan said:

"Since I started playing Go, I've applied some of its concepts to my daily life, and guide some of my choices by them. Sometimes the way I think of Go seems rather spiritual"

I agree, and I think Go can teach us about ourselves if we pay attention.

I do not want this page deleted. I think just as we have both a kiri page and a cut page, we must also have both a Religion page and a Philosophy page.

Thanks you all for your attention, and I hope for further discussion.

unkx80: kiri is an alias to cut, just as philosophy is now an alias to Scartol/Philosophy of Go. The page contents are no different, =P

jared: heh. oh. bad example then :) how about: We need both Mental Process and Mental Activity

Ectospheno: My apologies to anyone not from the U.S., but I'll exercise a little free speech and say I think the page is fairly stupid. But if other people like it them by all means keep it. Better to keep the page than censor it.

unkx80: I am halfway around the world from the U.S., and I am not from U.S., but I agree with Ectospheno. While I am not into censoring other people's speech, I am concerned with the number of pages on a Go wiki that has little or no relevance to Go. In this respect, some of the other librarians are more strict: they will straightaway empty an irrelevant page and flag it for deletion, so long not too much discussion has already taken place.

jared: so SL is just for strictly go-related stuff? why do we have personal pages? humor pages? they are fairly unrelated to go. if SL is just for joseki and BQM etc. then just say so ... but i will miss just being able to throw a topic out there for discussion ...

Dieter: The page is not technical but certainly shows the intention to talk about Go. If the page starts talking exclusively of religion, then it becomes problematic, but this is not the case here.

Please avoid creating pages by typing in the URL directly

unkx80: One more thing. Please avoid creating pages by typing in the URL directly. Instead, create links to the new page from some other appopriate pages. We want each page from SL to be reachable from the front page.

Ectospheno: All discuss pages are available by clicking on the Discuss link on the parent page. You want an explicit link as well?

Velobici: unkx80 is referring to the fact that Religion is a wiki orphan at this time (16 June 2005). No page other than its own discussion page refers to Religion. That alone is a comment on the page's value. Heavily linked pages are important...think nodes in a network (roads, servers, routers, neurons...its all the same). The most interconnected nodes/pages may be critical to the overall connectedness of the structure.

Ectospheno: Well, now that you linked to it above its no longer on the orphan page. Seems odd we stop listing a page as an orphan when its only referenced from its own discussion page. As for the pages "value" I think it has none.

Velobici: I have removed the links from this page to its parent...re-orphan the page.

Tamsin: An angel (nay, a Goddess) rushes in where fools fear to tread...whatever...

Maybe, religion can have a relationship with go that is distinct from philosophy. For example, religion can give an individual a sense of perspective and feeling that is beyond that which is obtained from philosophical introspection. Such a feeling could have an impact of a player's approach and development.

In a different sense, maybe we could use go to express religious metaphors. For instance, sometimes the smaller group conquers the larger one (technically, through greater efficiency). This may be held as a demonstration that the humble are superior to the mighty.

Finally, what about go's distant history? If I understand correctly, the go board and stones may have developed out of tools for divination (communicating with spirits). While I have no wish to compare the game with the Ouija board, there is a spiritual angle here that may be worth discussing on this page.

Anyway, I hope the above suggestions may prove stimulating.