Talk:Religious violence

Cleanup request

I found this article in a bit of a weaker state, but with more specific examples into religious violence. I have removed them for the moment since they're such a small subset and seem to POV the article, but I would think that this article might be a good place to discuss religiously violent actions by individuals rather than between nations or churches (i.e. an abortion clinic bomber rather than the Christian Crusades).

I have some concerns over the POV status of this article. I believe it could be NPOV and that my edits have taken it toward there for the moment, but to enforce NPOV, it would be better to have both those sympathetic and antagonistic toward religion (but still bound together in pursuit of NPOV) work together on this article rather than one side running away with it as it so easily could be.

Suggestions and edits appreciated. -SocratesJedi | Talk 01:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey,

I added some bits in there. I hope this provides some context for the topic and provides readers with a reasonable understanding of the bigger picture, while keeping the the thing well in the realm of NPOV. I know the 9/11 thing may be a kind of a touchy subject still, but it's a damn good example of extreme religious violence. Anyway, what I did is just a suggestion -- if you don't like or think it should be expressed differently, please give it a shot. It's an interesting topic, to be sure. -- Captain Disdain 17:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

<<Hello,

I'm working on expanding this page... I think it should deal with all the various forms religious violence takes and what it means.

A basic division of religious violence into Individual and Collective makes sense, in my POV, to differentiate the scope of violence that does not necessarily have wider social impacts and violence that does.

This page should have sub-pages added.

Also, I think sectarian violence should be thrown right out, as there is no way of distinguishing between cults, sects and religions without negative connotations for those belief systems in a minority position in a certain culture or society.

Lrejec<<

Jewish (secular), Jewish (religious), and Zionist terrorism

I'm concerned that the term "Jewish terrorism" is directed to the page for religious terrorism. This is misleading and inappropriate as it does not recognise the simple fact that the term "Jew" refers both to a race and/or a religion: one can be a secular Jew, can one not? An individual searching for information on Jewish terrorism should see a list of all such groups, regardless of belief in a higher being. But the incorporation under the religious title means that all secular Jewish and Zionist terrorist groups are missing from the list. It should be recorded properly that Jewish terrorism (secular), Jewish terrorism (religious), and Zionist terrorism (for which there already exists a page) are three different - but not entirely unrelated - things. This is a major problem which needs to be resolved quickly in the interests of accuracy and fairness. Can we have a page or section leader that covers all three? 80.6.30.24 15:23, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Which groups do you think fall into each category? Jayjg ^(talk) 18:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Clearly the Kahane related/derived groups are ultra-religious. Someone searching for "Jewish terrorism" should be presented with a list that also includes Irgun and Lehi/Stern Gang. Both these Jewish groups are considered Zionist, but non-religious (highly subjective of course, I don't agree personally). Haganah belongs in there somewhere too. I don't see why a distinction should be made regarding the centrality of religion to aims without a page that includes them all. How about linking the terms "Jewish terrorism" and "Zionist terrorism" and listing all groups? Religious or not, all will be covered. 80.6.30.24 22:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Respectfully disagree with the proposal to merge Religious violence and Religious terrorism. While both articles are bad, the notions are clearly distinguishable. Terrorism is but a special case of violence. Mukadderat 02:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree. All that's needed is to put a suitable reference in the Religious violence article (which I've done). Mark Sedgwick 08:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC) What really matters is that the Religious terrorism article be merged into the Religious terrorists subsection of Terrorist groups. At present there are two nearly identical articles. Assuming that the average user starts with Terrorism and then wants to look for something on varieties of terrorism, the next destination is going to be Terrorist groups, and Religious terrorists is the first subsection there. Mark Sedgwick 09:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, if they are talking about the same things, they should be merged.

They must speak about different things. For starters, we cannot apply the terms "terrorism", human rights, etc., for the times of, say, Ottoman Empire or bronze age. It would be anachronism. "Terrorism" is a terminology of new days. It will be silly to say that, e.g., Crusade is terrorism. Mukadderat 17:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No Merging

Religious violence is an old concept and does not apply only in the modern context. Terrorism aside religious violence has been prevalent since Luther nailed his 95 thesis in Wittemberg. the Wars of Religion in France between 1550s and 1589, the War of the three Henris, the 30 years war in mid 1600s, they all shaped the political and national identity of nations in Europe. Merging does not sound very applicable.

 Although religious terrorism is a form of violence, events demonstrate increasingly that it needs separate analysis.

I Agree, No Merging

Religious violence can range from simply slurring inappropiate comments to slapping someone in the face. Terrorism, on the other hand is a much more broader term that usually implies muich more extreme examples of violence. If one begins to merge these two terms, then Anti-Semitics, Nazis, just to name a few will be considered TERRORISTS which will give the wrong impression given the condition and the current state of affairs that the West is now involved in. The idea is not to propagate this concept of "terrorism" when it is not needed to be applied. They are two separate things, plese do not merge.

redirect

Ill set this to redirect, if noone opposes. Anachronisms such as the crusades already have their own articles, so nothing is lost.--Urthogie 15:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, i dunno where else to say this, but we shouldn't merge these two parts, religious violence isn't necessarily terrorism!

I would go so far as to say that religious violence isn't necessarily religious, either. "Devil and the Deep Black Void", and the sequel "The Gardener" are discussed in the Baha'is in Fiction topic. This article incorrectly says "Devil" is a story about ramming Earth with a starship ... that is a background element in the story, but is not the central focus of it. I did write the ramming story ("For a Little Price") but it was never published ... "too dark" the editor said. "Price", which was written before Sept 11, 2001, does have the attempt made by terrorists who purport to be Islamic, but the details of the story show that they are, in fact, guilty of grossly distorting the beliefs they pretend to follow. I have yet to find anything in the Quran that justifies terrorism (in fact, the leader is a heretic who is clearly damnable according to the Quran). I do find teachings in the Quran that are quite against terrorism, which are pointed out in "Price". But I doubt it will ever be published ... a shame as its intent was to point all this out.

More recently, Analog (October 2007) published "El Dorado", also by me, which features an even more extreme assault on humanity, again with a purported religious motivation (this time from an alien race we know almost nothing about). The sequel is in the works now, and will attempt to examine the motive. Let's just say that I personally believe that most terrorism that purports to have a religious basis either distorts, or totally ignores, the religion in question. It is done to satisfy the ulterior motives of people.

Certainly there must be other examples in fiction besides mine. Tomligon 15:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sectarian violence

The old text asserted 'there is no way to empirically distinguish between "sects" and "religions" in a non-arbitrary way'. While this is sometimes the case, the difference can be obvious. Hindu/Muslim violence is not sectarian. Christian/Atheist violence is not sectarian. Etc. --Chinasaur 08:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

How about circumcision?

Circumcision can also be seen as a form of religiously motivated violence. Not by everyone, but it can. 84.44.171.28 23:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Stub

This article has been stubified by excising over 1,000 bytes of original content. Bearian 19:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

The synthesis tag is not appropropriate here

I am going to remove the synthesis tag once again. Please explain how the wording of that tag represents the content here at all. Here is what the tag says:

• This article or section may contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources.

What published material is being synthesized? What ideas that are not attributable to the phantom "original sources"? If what you are trying to convey is that this concept is very broad and that the entry lists several diverse forms of violence associated with religion under an umbrella term in a way that you find problematic then you aren't expressing that with this tag at all. You can't change the fact that the tag says what it says. Please don't re-add the tag just to tag the entry. We all know it has real problems, so it isn't constructive to get misdirected towards phantom ones.PelleSmith 23:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)