Talk:Raëlism

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Raëlism article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2

Raëlism has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 17, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 6, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
March 12, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
April 29, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed
April 30, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed
June 1, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
June 4, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed
June 24, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed
July 13, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
August 14, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 13, 2009	Good article reassessment	Kept
Current status: Good article

Religion: New religious movements Top‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by New religious movements work group (assessed as Top-importance).

Alternative views Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative viewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative viewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative viewsAlternative views articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Skepticism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Swastika

"a symbol that had been prominently used by Germany's Nazi..."

Ignorance! that symbol is thousands of years old. The Ukrainians too used is to paint on their Easter eggs! So what!?

That just does paint the right picture of this age old symbol. Stjohn1970 (talk) 16:29, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

prominently used. Not exclusively used. Its connotations, however, are mostly anti-Semitic and is primarily associated with Nazis. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 05:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Its connotations, however, are mostly anti-Semitic and is primarily associated with Nazis...in the western world. This doesn't necessarily hold true in other parts of world, e.g. Asia. Beware systemic bias. 73.239.149.166 (talk) 21:18, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Old Logo at article beginning

The symbol at the beginning of this article includes the Swastika variant of the logo, captioned "The Raëlan symbol". However, later in the article it clearly states that they switched from the old logo (containing the Swastika) to a new logo (containing a spiral) in order to avoid false assumptions towards their religion. Not only is the header image for this article outdated, it may lead to some false and hasty assumptions regarding the "symbol that had been prominently used by Germany's Nazi[s]..." being embedded at the center of their logo. Infectiontag (talk) 03:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Both https://www.rael.org/ and https://raelusa.org/symbol-of-infinity/ use the version with the Swastika. I don't know if the Raelian movement switched back to this, or if the version with the spiral only ever was an alternate option, but not the main symbol. Anyway, I've changed the image and caption so that now both symbols are shown. --Jonas kork (talk) 14:50, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is covered quite plainly in the article, with sources:

From 1991 to 2007, the official Raëlian symbol in Europe and America did not have the original swastika, but Raël decided to make the original symbol, the Star of David intertwined with a swastika, the only official symbol of the Raëlian Movement worldwide.

Source: [1] 73.239.149.166 (talk) 20:07, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Swastika-containing logo was changed because at the time they (the Raelians) were trying to establish an embassy in Jerusalem and for obvious reasons this was a non-starter. Note however, that other religious movements such as Theosophy that also use the Swastika have a presence in Israel. The latter is tolerated I think because these movements pre-date Nazism and the Swastika in these contexts don't hold the same type of negative connotation. It seems foolish and antagonistic to chose this symbol in the modern era though, if one were choosing a symbol for a new religion. Valgrus Thunderaxe (talk) 12:00, 24 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

The page currently gives "/ˈreɪlɪzəm/", "/reɪl/". As I just brought up on Raël's talk page, I see no reason why the English pronunciation of this name should be homophone with "rail", when it clearly has a diaeresis over the e and thus should be pronounced homophone with "ra el" (like the two gods Ra and El), or like the last part of "Israel"—from which it is allegedly derived. However, I accept sometimes English pronunciations are just wacky. So, it seems to me like we need some good and representative sources for this part... Dingolover6969 (talk) 11:39, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is a REALLY good question. I went digging and I'll be damned if I can find a WP:RS on this. No dictionary seems to have it, YouTube pronunciation videos (which aren't RS anyway) are all over the place, and the Raelism website doesn't explicitly say. The best I could do was dig up some videos of Claude Vorilhon doing seminars and it would SEEM like he's saying /ˈreɪlɪən/ when speaking English, but I'm also hearing it through a thick French accent. Frankly, given that there are no WP:RS I can find on this, I would be just fine if the IPA just disappeared. 24.22.161.114 (talk) 21:17, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks for looking! Interesting findings. I've thrown some ^{[citation needed]}s up on the IPAs because we need some, but I currently have no opinion about whether they should stay or go. Perhaps if you could link me the Claude Vorilhon seminars I could take a listen to them. Dingolover6969 (talk) 06:44, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cloning

do they understand that cloning is not resurrection or eternal life? The clone is just your identical twin living its own life with a personality molded by its own experiences and memories... Do they envisage that the donor also performs some kind of brain dump onto the clone body? 2A01:CB0C:1704:9A00:E467:7C49:5293:F2D5 (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance

have they ever addressed the incoherence of the elohim returning with guidance precisely when we have shown we no longer need it? 2A01:CB0C:1704:9A00:E467:7C49:5293:F2D5 (talk) 20:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Swastika

yes we know it is a much older sigil co-opted by the nazis but that being so, did the problem that might cause, particularly with Israel but really with decent people everywhere, only dawn on the elohim in 1992? 2A01:CB0C:1704:9A00:E467:7C49:5293:F2D5 (talk) 20:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]