Talk:List of religious hoaxes

Golden Plates

I removed them from the list. Not sure why they were on since the only evidence of them being a hoax seems to be skepticism. 71.126.66.111 (talk) 01:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Good call - we should reserve this list for confirmed hoaxes. Everything in religion is treated with skepticism (I'm thinking of Richard Dawkins here), and skepticism alone does not make a hoax. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 01:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Controversial Gospels

I removed the Mar Saba letter (Secret Gospel of Mark) and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife from the Christian hoax section, as the issue of their authenticity is far from settled. Certainly they have been accused of being hoaxes, but there are plenty of serious New Testament scholars who accept their ancient origins, or at least remain undecided. Lusanaherandraton (talk) 23:57, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Neopaganism vs. Paganism

Since the Book of Veles was the only entry under Neopaganism, I changed the heading to Paganism. It looks like the work was claimed to be part of ancient pagan culture, rather than any modern revival of old religions.

Sources?

Why is there a no sources disclaimer, this is only a list of supposed religious hoaxes? Swedra (talk) 14:03, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Hoaxes

I started out adding citations to this list, as this is exactly the sort of article that is useless without references, but I ended up expanding with new entries that I found while looking for the references. Additionally, I also added as short description of each of the hoaxes, trying to succinctly capture their nature.

I tried to use sources that were very credible and even added two citations where one wasn't definitive enough, given the sensitive nature of the topic.

Because I am a new user, I'm not very comfortable with removing stuff, so I will list here things that I think maybe don't belong on the list:

1. Orthodox Holy Fire - I added a citation describing the phenomenon, but I can't find any actual reference proving it's a hoax. I see a previous talk page point was about removing the entry about the Mormon golden plates because the only objection to it was skepticism. If that doesn't make the list, I don't think the orthodox Holy Fire should, either.

2. 2006 Mumbai sweet seawater incident is well documented, but while it lacks a concrete scientific explanation, it's not explicitly linked to a religious belief.

3. Similarly, while the Hindu milk miracle has a much more direct link to religion, I wonder if it wouldn't be a stretch to call it a "hoax". Seeing how the majority of the list is made up of forged documents and texts, I believe these two entries don't belong here, but maybe in a different article.

4. The "sexual jihad" entry can also fall in the same category. It's not a hoax or a forgery as much as it is a myth that has spread throughout many Muslim countries.

Looking forward to receiving input from more experienced editors.

Insolent1 (talk) 03:57, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I think there are several problems with this list. To add to what you've listed, there is still good reason to believe that the Shroud of Turin is not a medieval forgery. Some of the researchers on the team that collected samples for carbon dating are convinced that it is not a forgery (including one who is not Christian). Thus, many articles on shroud.com could be cited as proof that it is not a hoax. 204.191.85.34 (talk) 03:27, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I removed the entry for the Holy Fire: Talk:List of religious hoaxes#Removed entry for Holy Fire

The source sites skepticism and not a confirmed hoax. Ednedfred (talk) 18:52, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

young man from India

Has anyone ever heard of a teenaged boy from India, in 1970's claiming to be an incarnation of God? 162.222.238.197 (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Removed entry for Holy Fire

I removed the entry about the Holy Fire in Jerusalem, because, though there is speculation by some that it is a hoax, it does not meet the criteria that the other entries do in this list. In other words, it is not a confirmed hoax. Additionally, the reference cited to it being a hoax was suspect. The link is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100410130116/http://forum.stirpes.net/orthodox-church/3270-michael-kalopoulos-miracle-holy-light-jerusalem.html#post37609.

The above link is to an archived forum post that is supposedly the archive of an even older article. A forum post should not be a valid citation. Even if it was, the claims in the forum are just that... claims and not proof. The forum post has no cited academic papers or historical accounts of the events it claims (i.e. creating seemingly spontaneous igniting fire to disprove the event). Even if creating fire in such a way is possible (I do not doubt that it is), it does not bring the Holy Fire to the category of a hoax, but provides a skeptic's explanation for how an event like this might happen.

The other cited articles were just an explanation of the Holy Fire (https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-of-orthodox-christians-hold-holy-fire-ceremony-in-jerusalem/) and some seemingly defunct page in Russian (http://palomnic.org/sz_sr/personalii/porfiri_uspenski/).

Long story short, skepticism of a religious event is not the same as a verified hoax, so I removed the entry. Ednedfred (talk) 18:51, 28 July 2024 (UTC)