Talk:Religious censorship

Comments

Article Moved from Censorship by organized religion April 16, 2006 by me. I have added the ta;k from the old talk page.Angrynight 04:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this should go up for VfD. At best, it should be redirected and/or merged. At worst, it should be deleted. Comments? -- A Link to the Past 09:33, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm.. maybe it should just be tidied up and merged with the "blasphemy law" section of blasphemy, as religiously-motivated censorship tends to be of things considered blasphemous. However, censorship links to this article, so perhaps it should be expanded? --StoatBringer 21:34, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

As written, this is nothing more than an anti-religous screed. None of the assertions are documented, and it is biased against the traditional mono-theistic religious of the western tradition. It should be removed, until someone can come forward to produce a scholarly analysis of the topic. --TheJeffMiller 23:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Pull the plug like you're startin a mower. DELETE! ToddCrowder 04:02, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

---

have removed some pov material, which may be re-inserted in npov form. do not think this article shld be deleted, but agree that it requires lots of rewriting and expansion.

do not think this shld be merged with blasphemy. while censorship of blasphemous material is certainly censorship by organised religion, the latter includes lots more, importantly, censorship of opposition/dissention to religious authority and leaders, which is not strictly blasphemy (as i understand).

this short list of examples shows the significance and scope of this article.

1. heliocentric theory - conflicts b/w science and religion
2. satanic verses - ditto arts
3. taliban, iran ... etc. theocratic states' use of this form of censorship to suppress disssent
4. the inquisition
5. censorship of pornography ... etc, religious versus moral basis for.
6. current debate on US TV censorship - profanity, sex ... etc and its link to the christian conservative base.

have voted to keep the article, and hoping that it improves considerably. Doldrums 12:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we ought to maybe add the suppression of Darwinism to this article.

And let's not forget the attempts at censorship by the scientologists! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.138.4.141 (talk • contribs) .

move to "religious censorship"?

the "organised" qualifier is unnecesary, i think, especially with the rewritten definition the article starts with. Doldrums 04:48, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

If you want to include Salman Rushdie you'll have to. Islam is not an "organized" religion, despite common misconception. Or at least sunni Islam. I often find that the phrase "organized religion" is more often than not a weasle way of reffering to Abrahamic faiths despie the fact that numerous religions implied are not organized, there are plenty of smaller sects of Christianity which are not organized for example. Either define organized, or don't use it. I don;t recommend trying to define it either. Angrynight 01:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I concur. The word "organized" in the title is a problem. "religious censorship" Or "censorship by religion"?DanielDemaret 21:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"Censorship by religion" is more appropriate since more general - it dosen't focus on why the censoring is done (which is clear in the expression "religious censorship"). / Abjad 23:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

So let's put it up to a vote, then.Angrynight 02:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

"Despite modern conservative Christian perceptions that there is a War on Christmas, " This statement should be removed. I agree with the renaming of the article. Android1st 00:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

If there are no objections I will move the article in one week. Angrynight 03:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Article moved Angrynight 04:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

AFD debate link

This article has been kept following this AFD debate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

This article seems biased against Christianity.The article in the first few paragraphs describes censorship but then goes on for the rest of the article to describe ways the Christian church has censored things.Serenacw 23:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

I don;t have the time or means to fix it, but I tagged this as POV because all it seems to do is focus on the Catholic church, and is extremely negative. I also added a globalize tag because of this. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 17:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

And I have removed some off-topic stuff: as deplorable as the Albigensian crusades might be, they do NOT constitute a form of censorship. Also, the passages about the Inquisition were ill-informed, off-topic and POV. I also separeted the Gospel of Thomas bit from the Index, as that book was long lost before anybody thought up an Index. Still, there remain heavy problems of POV. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 08:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Badly-named topic

Only an entity with political power can truly "censor"; meaning that each and every case of so-labeled "religious censorship" is actually government censorship. If the religious entity in question overtly controls a government, then to refer to it is (merely) "religious" rather than political is to withhold crucial context. OTOH, if the religious entity is enforcing its edicts, fatwas, etc., extra-legally, and violently forbids apostasy, then labeling them as anything other than terrorist also withholds crucial context.

Rename article to "Censorship and religion"

Then it could incorporate both censorship by religious authorities and censorship of religion by non-religious authorities. 154.20.253.36 11:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Really? But who censors religion? As far as I'm concerned, religion is all around this fucking world and IT judges and censors everything else!!!

I would agrre, the title as it stands now sounds like it refers to a list, which isn't the case. And as mentionned by the above editor, it isn't only governments which censor religions. Sfacets 01:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Organizing and Improving List of Examples

While I know that some groups have advocated censorship against Brokeback Mountain and The Golden Compass that belong to Abrahamic religions isn't it a bit much to say Abramamic religions in general? Honestly, I was under the impression that only a few fundamentalist groups even bothered to speak out against the movies. Should references be given for the censorship examples? And also the example from the bible doesn't quite fit into the list. Should it be moved to a new section such as "Examples of Censoship in the Bible" or maybe a broader "Examples of Censorship in Religious Texts"? --Deepraine (talk) 00:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Subject of article seems confused

This article seems to be attempting to deal with several different things at once. There are a few internal conflicts in the article, which seem to me to be to its detriment.

The article names as "censorship" the condemnation of works of art or science by religious groups, irrespective of how powerful those religious groups may be. Hence the condemnation of The Satanic Verses, which bore with it a very real threat of murder backed by a national government, is set alongside the condemnation of the Harry Potter books by religious advocacy groups with no such power.

Likewise it treats similarly instances of "censorship" which actually led to the legally-mandated destruction or unavailability of works, and instances which merely amount to a group putting forth its opinion that the works in question are not morally suitable. This lends itself to one of the worst fallacies that arises in discussions of "censorship": the claim that disapproval of a work is morally equivalent to violent suppression of that work. --FOo (talk) 06:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"Religious controversies" article may address some of the previous concerns

I have created the Religious controversies article. It should be used for both censored and controversial cases since they can be one and the same. Some of the items in the Example section may heave to be moved there - hence the disputed tag. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 10:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Perfect Marriage

I can't find any record of a book entitled The Perfect Marriage, muchless it being considered banned. Is this confusion with the banned sex manual s:Married Love which was banned in the United States? I don't have a copy of the Index to check the veracity. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 07:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It's apparently a Dutch book from the 1930's- the real title is "Het volkomen huwelijk". There's more detail at the author's article here, but it's still short references. --Clay Collier (talk) 08:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Acts 19:19

Note that the example in Acts 19:19 is new converts is bringing their own scolls to be burned. I can see how this could still be considered a limited form of censorship, but how is it a good example censorship, and thus one that needs to be in the article? --^{Carlaude:Talk} 08:15, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree - its more like burning your own flag. Some people might not like it, but they are your own books - its more a freedom of expression. 173.123.91.136 (talk) 15:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Evolution/Judaism

There is no censorship under Judaism concerning evolution yet the article reads:

Examples: Biological evolution (Fundamentalist Islam, Fundamentalist Christianity, Charedi Judaism)

Judaism may maintain that the world was created by God less than 6,000 years ago, but it does not impede teaching of Biological evolution. Bus stop (talk) 11:14, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Many Orthodox Jewish day-schools do, in fact, censor text books from anything saying "millions" of years old, and do not teach evolution. Take it from me, i've been to yeshiva. User:sanhedrinmakos 10:50, 3 August 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by עזרא משה (talk • contribs)

In Judaism

I translated the beginning of this section from the hebrew wkipedia article "צנזורה". I have not completed writing this section. עזרא משה (talk) 03:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)3 August 2011, 11:28

Move request

I think this page should be moved to Religious censorship which is currently an edited REDIRECT page, so the move can be done only by administrator. My very best wishes (talk) 14:51, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support - This is a more common name for this concept, and would agree with the format for Corporate censorship & Political censorship. While at the same time not precluding this page from being the main for Category:Censorship by religion. --Andrewaskew (talk) 01:02, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support - The phrase "censorship by religion" is used very rarely outside of Wikipedia. Jarble (talk) 04:34, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. I support the move if the word "censorship" is retained in the title, but would like to point out a distinction in determining the scope of the article and organizing it coherently. There's a difference between a religious authority placing a ban or prohibition on a book or other work (of which a fatwa is an example) and having the power to censor a text or performance by successfully demanding that portions of it be removed or suppressing it altogether. The Satanic Verses wasn't censored; Rushdie got to publish the text as he wished. It was placed under a religious prohibition. As a user points out above, a religious authority can't censor (that is, actually suppress content) unless it also has the political power to do so. Examples might include the role of Roman Imperial authority in determining the canon of the New Testament, with several gospels relegated to apocryphal status; the Spanish Inquisition; Muslim countries that control the availability of books and movies based on whether they conform to the state's religious preferences; and perhaps (though this is only arguably religious in nature) the Israeli ban on imported Arabic books produced in enemy states. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:33, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

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Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith has a hierarchical Administrative Order that has engaged in various forms of religious censorship, including a process euphemistically termed review and a separate, distinct process involving the posthumous editing of works related to the Faith. Mention of both forms of censorship merit inclusion in this article. Regards, A35821361 (talk) 16:01, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

For one thing, the posthumous editing is a normal part of publishing and claiming it is censorship is dubious. The changes were mostly insignificant and the originals are not suppressed. E.G. Browne's early writings were sympathetic, but later turned against the Faith and treated Baha'is as partisan rivals to the Azalis. You know how I learned that? Because I have a large compilation of E.G. Browne's writings on my bookshelf published by a Baha'i publisher. Browne's writings are not censored, but his later more critical writings are not given prominence for obvious reasons. You provided two references that are critical of posthumous editing, one of them is an openly polemic attack on the religion by a Christian author, the full title of which is Baha'i: A Christian response to Baha'ism, the religion which aims toward one world government and one common faith., which you failed to cite properly. I doubt you can argue that this is a reliable unbiased source. The other is an unpublished article, also written by an openly Evangelical Christian attacking the Faith, which in my opinion simply documents changes made to books to keep them up to date and relevant. Until 1963 nobody knew that Shoghi Effendi would be the last Guardian, so books after that would reflect the new understanding. The issue of the Guardianship is not a secret or suppressed, you can find many letters directly addressing it.

Secondly, I cleaned up what was a messy and sloppy section and made it flow better, and better match the references. If you think I left out something important, try simply editing over it instead of reverting, and your edits may actually stick. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:09, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

What you dismiss as "a normal part of publishing" are significant changes. Works subject to posthumous editing include John Esslemont's Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, from which references to the early Bahá'í historian and later apostate Avarih (named "Chief of Missionaries") were removed, and John Ferraby's All Things Made New, in which references to "The First Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith" was changed to simply "The Guardian" and other references to "the Guardian" replaced with "the Universal House of Justice."

You talk extensively about the Orientalist Edward Granville Browne. E.G. Browne died in 1926, the works posthumously edited, as cited by Vance Salisbury, include Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era (initially published in 1923 and edited after ) and All Things Made New (initially published in 1957). Clearly, the posthumous editing of these works could not have been referred to by E.G. Browne.

You dismiss Vance Salisbury's article "A Critical Examination of 20th-Century Baha'i Literature" as being "by an openly Evangelical Christian attacking the Faith, which in my opinion simply documents changes made to books to keep them up to date and relevant." His article is appropriately cited and speaks for itself.

Regards, A35821361 (talk) 22:34, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

The changes you mentioned are not significant. You seem to think that the act of posthumous editing of any kind is scandalous. Discussing the details is not even relevant, because there is no censorship. The older versions are freely available and not suppressed or discouraged, so not relevant in an article on censorship. The Baha'i review process can at least be reasonably regarded as censorship.

And if you had read the references, you would have understood the comment about Browne. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 23:03, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

How is the wholesale removal of embarrassing and objectionable material by the Administrative Order from books without the authors' acquiescence (since they are dead) not a form of religious censorship? Again, Edward Granville Browne died in 1926, the works posthumously edited, as cited by Vance Salisbury, include Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era (initially published in 1923 and edited after ) and All Things Made New (initially published in 1957). Clearly, the posthumous editing of these works could not have been referred to by E.G. Browne. Yes, E.G. Browne cited significant changes in Bahá'í historical texts, but those were done during the lifetimes of their authors. None of the works cited by Vance Salisbury would qualify. Regards, A35821361 (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

The changes are not removing embarrassing or objectionable material. Everything you claim to be embarrassing is fully addressed somewhere in Baha'i literature. The changes were acknowldged in the preface to the 1970 edition of Baha'u'llah and the New Era "to bring the book up to date in order to maintain its usefulness for modern readers. This has been done with a minimum of alteration to the text, and chiefly by the use of footnotes and of an epilogue". It was also done by the publishing trust, not what you call the "Administrative Order". The review process that is done by appointees of the National Assembly, after the publisher creates a final draft, is to avoid misrepresentation in formal publiations. Your claims sound like a standard conspiracy theory. The book became outdated and needed minor corrections, especially after 1963. The publisher needed to either make the changes or stop printing the book. Not a big deal. Not censorship. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 08:09, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Edits such as the removal of references to a continuing institution of the Guardianship or any mention of the "Chief of Missionaries" who apostatized are not merely "minor corrections". The publisher of these works is not an independent entity, but an arm of the Administrative Order. Regards, A35821361 (talk) 16:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

And what's strange about changing the description of a continuing Guardian? The issue is not covered up or ignored, but the situation changed when there weren't any more, so books that are published after 1963 would reflect that reality. You are really grasping for criticism here where there is none, and regardless nothing is being censored so there is no reason for it to even be mentioned on this page. The publisher works independently and submits manuscripts for review. They are a business and without editing to bring the book up to date they would simply not publish it any more. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:38, 21 January 2018 (UTC)