Talk:Eternal life

Eternal life (Christianity)

Is not simply the belief of life after death but it starts now as it is described in the Gospel. God so loved the world that he gave his son that whoever beliefs in him shall not perish but have eternal life (from now). It's now or never. Alan347 (talk) 06:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry Allen, but in Wikipedia's online version and in most Bible printings John 3:16 reads:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.

and does not have the "(from now)" that you typed above. Is there a misprint in all those printed Bibles that needs to be corrected? Thanks. History2007 (talk) 08:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Neither does it have "(After you die)". But if you read 1 John 3:14, you'll see the past tense there. Thanks Alan347 (talk) 09:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Anyway we can only use WP:Secondary sources, so our own interpretation is beside the point and not usable in Wikipedia. As here John has both present and future interpretations but the Synoptics have much less focus on the present. That is what the WP:Secondary sources say. But that is a discussion for the Christian article, not this disambiguation page. History2007 (talk) 09:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It's wrongly described on the disambig page. This whole talk of secondary and primary articles is illogical. It's not an interpretation but a description of what is IN THERE. μεταβεβήκαμεν - Perfect, active indicative. "We have passed" 1 John 3:14 Alan347 (talk) 09:30, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry, but the statement "This whole talk of secondary and primary articles is illogical." is not based on WP:Policy. WP Policy requires reliance on WP:Secondary sources, based on their being WP:RS. History2007 (talk) 09:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the easiest thing would be to delete the interpretation "in life after death" which makes the issue moot and leaves the disambiguation page more accurate for almost every point of view. Cheers Fæ (talk) 09:43, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, a disambig page is not the place for explaining doctrine, but just briefly referring to it. History2007 (talk) 09:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

What about "A Christian belief in supernatural life" ? Can we agree on this who's in it ?Alan347 (talk) 10:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The linked article makes no reference to the "supernatural" and it might be thought an inflammatory description. I still recommend just trimming the article description back to the minimum for this DAB page, this will avoid any debate and it seems highly unlikely that any layman reader would be confused by what the link is for. Fæ (talk) 10:34, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It will become undescrptive for there are many Christian beliefs so I for example would like to have an adjective describing what the blief consists of. What I definitely want is to take away the after death heresy. It starts here not after death, we either say it or else say nothing but not say a heresy. Alan347 (talk) 11:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The details of what might be heresy can be safely left to the article, the disambiguation could say "a Christian belief in eternal life" which seems to avoid the "after death" issue and appears neutral and sufficient to me. Obviously there are incredible number of variations of interpretation of the afterlife and eternal life in different branches of Christianity, the disambiguation page is not the right place to start digging into these issues. Fæ (talk) 12:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Right, how about "Eternal life (Christianity), a Christian teaching" and just telegram it and let the user click on for further info. History2007 (talk) 13:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I have never liked seeing the word "teaching" or "teachings" without unambiguous context, I can see it is used in one paragraph of the lead of the linked article (as are "term" and "New Testament" (directly and indirectly)), but it is not necessarily a meaningful word as it may mean current teachings but not all things ever taught by Christian groups over all time, may be different from publications or the early scripture and may vary from one Christian group to another. Including the word in this DAB would require some rather painful explanation. Fæ (talk) 15:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

No big deal. How about "Eternal life (Christianity), a Christian X" and please just choose X = belief, tenet, etc. This should not be a big issue at all. There are so many big ticket problems in Wikipedia, e.g. on the page for Kingdom of Heaven that relates to this and time should really be spent cleaning those up, not on these issues. So if you can just edit it as a 3rd party, we can be done and move on. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 15:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I have trimmed back to belief. The article lead covers both beliefs that eternal life is from the resurrection and the alternative of "from now" per Alan347's preference, consequently it's too tricky to explain in the DAB. As History2007 points out this is a bit of a time suck for little value though if someone has a useful compromise and can propose neutral wording it would be nice to see it as a further edit request. I suggest the protection runs for a week as RH has set it to avoid being led into temptation. Fæ (talk) 16:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you - and nice pun. History2007 (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Eternal life: starts now OR starts later? BIG not a trivial difference. Alan347 (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The other article

Fæ and/or RH, Now that you are looking at this page, could please you help with this edit ? I just don't feel like starting a revert cycle - yet that edit is clearly not a suitable opening for the article. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 20:31, 14 September 2011 (UTC)