Is it ok to get knowledge Especially religious From Wikipedia ?

From Krishna Gaura Dasa

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, is it okay to get knowledge especially religious from Wikipedia Answer, we have to look at the sources which are being used the primary source of knowledge for us is shabda and then as far as perfection and agree with shabda, we can use that, so if we want say certain information specifically for example certain information about say which year Bhaktivinoda Thakur started a specific thing or which year Bhaktivinoda Thakur did a particular thing and if that is available with proper references to authorize biographies then that can surely be used and the utility of Wikipedia is that it gives sources and we can look down at the sources and find which sources are being used so if devotee scholars or people who are or some other devotional is being quoted with reference for a particular point then using that is good there is nothing wrong in it at all because it’s just a we are basically using parampara sources only for the purpose of deepening our providing some information for our outreach or our understanding and Wikipedia is simply serving as a source for parampara as a compiled or organized source of parampara information for us, but when conceptual understanding is concerned the academic mode of analysis is what is primarily used in sources like Wikipedia, Wikipedia has a standard that they use only published references and the most of the published references today give you the reductionistic secular manistic view of religion wherein everything is spiritual is ultimately reduced to something material, so that’s why the conceptual analysis we have to be careful and we shouldn’t just indiscriminately take that now there are some devotees who are working at an individual level to try to make the information available in Wikipedia harmonized with devotional standards we cannot have on Wikipedia the understanding, this is the way for example if we have article about Krishna the tradition understands him to be the supreme personality of Godhead, the highest truth, now he is the highest truth, but that is not the way it can be presented in Wikipedia this is the traditional perspective and then this is the modern perspective on how Krishna is seen or how particular aspect is seen so if we are simply getting the traditional understanding and that traditional sources given for the traditional understanding are the one are the parampara sources that means the paramparthis, acharyas or contemporary scholars understanding then that understanding is again as I said earlier just a reference just a compilation of parampara sources available in an easily accessible way so for information sake, Wikipedia is quite useful for conceptual analysis for philosophical or theological understanding then we have to be more careful because the predominant analysis will be based on the academic perspective, the academic perspective is more or less as Shilpa Gopal said like licking honey from outside the bottle so much of the essence is missed in analysis and that’s why we have to be careful about that kind of analysis it’s like the information may be correct like a mother who wants to, who knows her child and a doctor who knows about the child so the doctor may know more but from the heart point of view, the relationship point of view mother knows more so devotee scholars can be those with the mother’s heart and the doctor’s expertise and if we have that kind of information source that is the best but as we don’t have that, we can with discrimination use Wikipedia also