User talk:Atheistig

Hi Atheistig and welcome to WikiIslam. You have have made some massive changes to the Scientific Errors in the Qur'an page. These changes include removals and rewrites of entire sections. I would be very grateful if you could provide us with a thorough explanation to the reasons behind them. This is something that is needed before any of these changes can be accepted. Thanks. --Sahabah (talk) 01:20, 14 November 2013 (PST)

Hi Sahabah. New to wikiislam and not sure if I should be responding to your comment here or on your talk page. I was making my edits in response to a Task to:

I've tried to improve the clarity of some of the comments including grammar and remove any arrogant or overtly condescending language. I'm also attempting to consolidate similar sections to reduce the size of the outline and put related content and references together. I did remove a handful of minor points that were either weaker arguments or completely off topic. This included Quran references that had no explanation as to why it was an error (and it wasn't readily evident from the text itself) or were weak (i.e "The Sun is not a star" section shows a verse that itemized the sun separately from stars but this doesn't imply the sun is not a star). In effect, I'm trying to improve quality over quantity. There's a ton of information on that article, some of it good some of it bad, and I think improving the good points (including adding reference and refutations to common apologist counter-claims) and removing the bad ones will improve the overall readability and information of that page. I only updated less than 10% of the article and was hoping to improve other sections as well including rewriting the comments and reorganizing some points (like evolution) to be in the biology section, etc. --Atheistig (talk) 08:42, 14 November 2013 (PST)

Okay. Thanks for your reply. As a rule, edits by new users have to be checked, but please carry on. --Sahabah (talk) 08:50, 14 November 2013 (PST)

I would like to add that separate problems such as "Humans created from clay" or "Fall from paradise down to the earth" should keep their headings (although you can alter what exactly those headings are). The reason for this is that each problem should be easy to find via the contents list. Currently I notice that you have removed several headings. --Sahabah (talk) 08:57, 14 November 2013 (PST)

Sounds good. I'll put back some of those separate headings to make them easier to find in the content section. Should I continue to make all my changes first and then submit them or just submit as I go? I find the later to be easier as my schedule permits. --Atheistig (talk) 09:34, 14 November 2013 (PST)

Others may try to edit it as you're working on it. So, to get around this, I've created a sandbox and copy/pasted the entire page for you: User:Atheistig/Sandbox. You can edit that page at your own pace. Once you're finished, let me know and I'll check it then copy/paste the entire thing into the article. Thanks. --Sahabah (talk) 09:43, 14 November 2013 (PST)

Hi Sahahah,

I've finished up my changes and improvements to the Scientific Error article that's in my User:Atheistig/Sandbox. Please take check it out. Thank you.

--Atheistig (talk) 15:43, 16 November 2013 (PST)

That's great. Thanks! I'll take a look. --Sahabah (talk) 16:45, 16 November 2013 (PST)

Thanks for all your hard work. I've now copy/pasted it into the actual article. As far as I can tell, it looks great. Really glad you decided to join us. The tone of that article was really bothering me. Hope you decide to stay around. --Sahabah (talk) 17:35, 16 November 2013 (PST)

Thanks Sahabah. I've been doing quite a bit of reading and research on the Alexander the Great / Dhul-Qarnayn story. I've even found an online google book to A. W. Budge's full translation of the Christian Syriac legend that the Qur'anic story is clearly based upon. So my immediate next plan is to beef up and significantly expand the Dhul-Qarnayn article which right now looks like it's mainly a slimmed down, copy-and-paste form the wikipedia article. I'm also planning on including rebuttals to alternative theories around the identity of Dhul-Qrnanyn and how the connection to the Alexander legend is embarrassing for Muslim scholars today.

After that, I'd like to expand and rework parts of the Parallelism Between the Qur'an and Judeo-Christian Scriptures set of articles. I'm hoping we can broaden it to be more like "Qur'an and Judeo-Christian Legends and Myths" or something like that, basically broadening the topic to include other legends and stories beyond what is found in just the Bible and Talmud. I think that main page for Parallelism Between the Qur'an and Judeo-Christian Scriptures could be redone to make it more of a summary/link-to-main-article format similar to the Science page. Right now it looks kind of like a table of contents. --Atheistig (talk) 12:24, 17 November 2013 (PST)

Hi Atheistig . Your plans for the Dhul-Qarnayn article sound great. Concerning the other set of articles, it looks like a TOC because it is. Those pages were created specifically as a group (kinda like an online book) by Julian Charteris. It shouldn't be a problem though. If you create a few standalone articles, there will always be a way to link them up for readers to find them. I'll think of something. --Sahabah (talk) 12:51, 17 November 2013 (PST)

Hi Atheistig. Click on any of these links to create a sandbox: User:Atheistig/Sandbox, User:Atheistig/Sandbox2, User:Atheistig/Sandbox3, User:Atheistig/Sandbox4, User:Atheistig/Sandbox5, User:Atheistig/Sandbox6. Create as many as you like (in case you want to work on multiple pages at a time). Or if you want to create a page where you can jot down ideas and stuff, click here: User:Atheistig/Note Pad.--Sahabah (talk) 21:08, 17 November 2013 (PST)

Ahhh. Thank you very much! --Atheistig (talk) 21:14, 17 November 2013 (PST)

Hope you don't mind me touching up the article as you work on it (it's mainly just cosmetic stuff like the ref layout, etc.). BTW it's looking great! Very interesting. Once you are done, let me know. I'll add it to our new articles list (the old Dhul-Qarnayn page can be replaced with your work). Thanks! --Sahabah (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2013 (PST)

Thanks Sahabah for doing that and updating the date of the composition on Revelation. I have to admit, I thought I was going crazy for a second thinking, "I don't remember making that edit". Haha. I just have a few sections to go and hopefully will be able to wrap it up in the next few days. When I'm done, do you mind giving the whole article a once-over to clean it up? That would be really helpful.

--Atheistig (talk) 08:15, 21 November 2013 (PST)

Sure. No problem. --Sahabah (talk) 09:36, 21 November 2013 (PST)

Thanks Sahabah . I've completed the rewrite and updated the old Dhul-Qarnayn page. Thank you in advance for looking at it and for putting a link in the main page. I hope readers of wikiIslam get a lot of benefit out of it. I'm sure I'll find little things to tweak and add as time goes by, but I'm pretty happy with the information that's there.