Talk:Austin Petersen

Agnostic or atheist

In his own words, I have witnessed Austin Petersen publish that he is an atheist. In at least one published article reads "Petersen, an open atheist though still anti-abortion, says he's proud of how many explicitly Christian anti-abortion voters say that they are willing to support an open atheist for the first time over that issue." http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/11/austin-petersen-the-conservatives-libert. A religious based article chooses the word "agnostic," but I will say that what Petersen actually says, carries more weight, would you? Bunco man (talk) 19:00, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

He says he's agnostic multiple times on his Twitter feed. Compare that to the amount of times he's mentioned "atheist". If what he says carries more weight, then his tweets indicate he's agnostic. ^Falling_Gravity 03:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Actually, all through his campaign one of his slogans was that he would be the first atheist president. He stated that he is an atheist on his website and on his Facebook page. The Reason Magazine article, [Austin Petersen, The Conservatives Libertarian Presidential Candidate|http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/11/austin-petersen-the-conservatives-libert] (May 11, 2016) clearly quotes him saying he is an atheist. I have not seen anything about being agnostic, except for one religious article that did not quote Petersen, and the Twitter messages. What I find odd is that three days after telling Reason Magazine he is an atheist, he Twitters that he is agnostic. Again, he published that he is an atheist numerous times during his campaign. Does he not know the difference? Or perhaps is he flip-flopping? Bunco man (talk) 04:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

He's mentioned being agnostic on his Facebook page multiple times. Of course, he has also mentioned being an atheist. According to this tweet he believes that "Technically everyone is an atheist in some way." ^Falling_Gravity 05:00, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

It's much more than just saying "everyone is a little atheist." In the May 11, 2016 Reason article Petersen says that he is an "open atheist though still anti-abortion, says he's proud of how many explicitly Christian anti-abortion voters say that they are willing to support an open atheist for the first time over that issue." One year previous, on June 11, 2015 he published "I'm an outspoken atheist." There are many more examples of him saying this using Google. I don't believe he knows the difference between atheist and agnostic. For the first five months of his failed nomination attempt he didn't know what the Non-aggression principle actually meant, and insisted it was a pacifist and anarchist entity. I am guessing that Petersen also doesn't know the definitions, or he is using Rand Paul's very common flip-flopping tactic of trying to gain support by taking numerous sides. Petersen probably should have researched and decided what he actually is, before doing interviews and telling people that he is both atheist and agnostic. Bunco man (talk) 17:07, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Since he has been unclear on the subject, saying both "atheist" and "agnostic" at different times, it should not be in the infobox. Per Wikipedia practice, recently clarified, a person's religion is only to be listed in the infobox if they clearly and unequivocally state what their belief system is. I think we should remove "agnosticism" from the infobox and leave it blank. His more complicated explanations described above could be expounded in the body of the article. --MelanieN (talk) 17:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Get it? Circles! Like the religious kind? Oh, never mind.

@Bunco man: So first you say "what Petersen actually says, carries more weight" but then his words don't matter because he doesn't know the difference between atheist and agnostic? The difference is heavily debated in religious and non-religious circles (see diagram) and we don't have to fully replicate that debate in the article. When Petersen is called an atheist on Twitter he replies "Agnostic ma'am. Are you familiar with the difference?" It could be he said that because of his political candidacy, but that would be original research. ^Falling_Gravity 17:57, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

@FallingGravity: It has already been shown that Petersen referred to himself as an atheist. Then he decided to go back and forth between saying he is an atheist and an agnostic, all depending on the crowd he is talking to. He did the exact same thing with the non-aggression principle (NAP), abortion, whether he was libertarian, a Republican or a right-winger. Bunco man (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

How about a simple, one-sentence entry in "personal", along the lines of "Petersen has variously described himself as an agnostic (cite) and an atheist (cite)" and let it go at that? --MelanieN (talk) 18:36, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

@MelanieN: I agree.

@FallingGravity: Regarding the "circles" chart, the terms are already defined. To mix definitions is a lot like Republican-Libertarians; yes people say there is such a thing, but the true definitions show them to be different from one-another, even opposites. Bunco man (talk) 20:00, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Just to let people know, I've raised this issue at BLP/N. I'm concerned both about undue but also WP:BLPCAT, especially since we only seem to have one news source which covers the issue, the others are direct Twitter or FB links rather than RS coverage of said comments. In particular, I'm leaning towards keeping the cat out since I'm not convinced it's established the religious views are relevant to the subject's public life or notability. Nil Einne (talk) 13:30, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Nil Einne This consensus was reached almost a year ago. If you want to start a new discussion, please do so at the bottom of the page where people can see it. Smartyllama (talk) 13:48, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Not necessary. This is not a new discussion but a continuation of the old discussion which is still here and people are still linking to it in defending their actions on the article proper and in their comments at COIN. AFAICT nothing significant has changed in that time so it's not like all this old discussion is irrelevant. Instead, the important content is here and it will be better to keep it in context rather than start a new discussion referring old content. If this discussion had already been archived or was formally closed, then it would be a different matter. But neither of these happened. People coming from BLP/N will likely want to read the discussion, to get an idea of the issues involved, especially the sourcing available and whether the right issues were considered. I'd note that BLPCAT doesn't seem to have been considered, despite the fact this article seems to have been categorised in the American atheists category since the earlier part of the discussion [1], which is concerning. Nil Einne (talk) 14:12, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

P.S. Of course I'm not going to stop other people doing whatever they feel is best, but I've never seen the need to post new threads when the only thread is still there and not archived or closed. Especially when the talk page is well watched. To be fair, this talk page is getting a bit long and maybe could do with archiving soon but until then it's pointless to keep the threads here if we aren't going to consider them open issues which could be re-visited as needed. I'd note also that if we do come do a different decision, it would be less confusing to anyone checking this discussion in the future to see all relevant discussion on one place rather than to have to visit threads to find the history. Nil Einne (talk) 14:12, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

New article claims he is agnostic (https://www.ksgf.com/shows/podcasts/podcast-would-you-vote-for-an-agnostic-candidate), and judging by the comments on his Facebook post he appears to agree (https://www.facebook.com/AustinWPetersen/posts/10156332674881774). Computermichael (talk) 04:04, 18 May 2018 (UTC)