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)

I'll note here as I did on your talk page that you are in violation of 3RR on this matter and suggest you do a self-revert. Perhaps you don't understand synthesis. The article takes a bunch of unrelated ideas (obviously some of it is from uncited published sources) and throws them all together without any source which treats them together or says they are related. Unless reliable, unbiased secondary sources say that these ideas are related, it is a synthesis by the editors. Mamalujo 23:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The opening sentence of this entry states: "Religious violence is a term that covers all phenomena where religion, in any of its forms, is either the subject or object of individual or collective violent behavior." Now you may disagree with the existence of an entry of that scope, fine. But if that is really what "religious violence" covers then clearly there are going to be a lot of different phenomena covered here not all of which are "directly related." The point is that the entry discusses very different forms of violence related to religion, but in doing so it does not "contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources." Again, that is what the synthesis tag says. What you are claiming isn't actually what the synthesis tag expresses. Are you disagreeing with that? Do you have some way of decoding what I am taking as the literal meaning of the tag? Also, more generally this entry doesn't claim that these disparate phenomena are directly related, and perhaps that itself is a big problem with this type of presentation, but it makes it even harder to claim that there is any kind of synthesis here ... even the kind you are talking about.PelleSmith 23:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, you are being disengenuos here. If you really believe that this article is not a synthesis then cite in the introduction some sources which treat these ideas together. Otherwise this article does "contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources." You should also note that the tag contains says "may contain". I'm not saying all the ideas have to be directly related. What I'm saying and what the Wikipedia policy maintains is that ideas should not be conflated together that are not treated that way in the sources. This article is saying all these ideas are related; if proper sources don't say that then it is synthesis. Your assertion that it is not synthesis of "published" materials is ridiculous and is only asserted because this article doesn't have any citations. The fact that it doesn't have citations does not mean that it didn't draw from and synthesize published material.Mamalujo 00:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think I've been more than clear and I think you again have chosen to disregard what that tag actually says. You're concern is with references and notability and not with synthesis since, again the entry is clear about how broadly it wishes to treat this term. You think that there is no way to source this broad treatment? If that is the problem then the synthesis tag is misguided. You AfD this entry without tagging it or engaging the talk page, then when the AfD fails you come back and add tags again without engaging the talk page. When someone points out to you the tag is misdirected you decide all of a sudden to defend it to the end. Are you trying to improve the encyclopedic quality of this entry or are you just trying to make it look bad until you AfD it again?PelleSmith 02:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

You write that the article is not a synthesis because "the entry is clear about how broadly it wishes to treat this term." That is exactly the problem and why it is synthesis. Unless sources treat it this broadly, then it is synthesis. Instead of arguing with me on the talk page about a valid tag, if you really believe there are sources which treat the subject this way, find them and cite to them in the introduction. Then the tag will have to be removed.Mamalujo 18:43, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

You have just summarized exactly why the OR tag is appropriate. Stop being so stubborn. You have yet to explain how your use coincides with the explicit text of the tag. I am not suggesting that you are wrong in identifying the issue with the entry, you are just applying the wrong tag. Its clear as day.PelleSmith 22:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

REFERENCES Please note the following Academic reference: Wellman, James K. Jr. and Tokuno, Kyoko. 2004. "Is Religious Violence Inevitable?" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43(3):291–296. Quoted text is from pg. 293.

• "We believe it is folly to assert that true religion seeks peace; or that religion is somehow hijacked when it becomes implicated in conflict or even violence. Indeed, religion does produce conflict and, less frequently, violence. We do not believe that this is a new situation or that it will end soon. These patterns are replete in our studies throughout history. Mesopotamian religion was enormously violent, both in its symbolic cosmogonic portrayals and in its social and military actions toward others. Ancient Israel developed a concept of God that was agonistic to the extreme; it enabled the Jews to trust that God was on their side and that their cosmos reflected their earthly destiny (Niditch 1993; Collins 2003). Ancient Indian and Chinese religious beliefs and behaviors included sanctioned violence in cosmogony, sacrificial ritual, and mortuary practice (Basham 1989; Bodde 1981; Lewis 1990). Buddhists have not shunned the use of force or violence against oneself or others, especially in the sphere of religious nationalism. In medieval Japan, the Buddhist monk Nichiren (1222–1282) inaugurated an exclusivistic religious movement based on the theology of the Lotus S¯utra and an assertion of a nation governed by Buddhist law; the movement provoked conflict and persecution (McMullin 1984; Stone 1994); Buddhists supported Japanese imperialist aggression before and during World War II (Victoria 1997). In the contemporary period, militant political activist monks used violence for political ends in Sri Lanka (Tambiah 1992). Christians, of course, produced the crusades; killing for Christ in the medieval period became a heroic act of piety. To be sure, pious popes inspired and led these social movements (Stark 2001)."

In this paragraph the authors cover the gamut of religious violence. Cheers.PelleSmith 22:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability

In case anyone was wondering a search for "religious violence" in ATLA (the major religion database at least in the United States) turns up 76 references, and that does not even include any related searches, but only ones with that specific term in the title. Most of these references are recent, and some refer to books about religious violence but the point is that this term is certainly notable in academia. In other words I think there is much hope to make a good entry here.PelleSmith 03:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Implementing Stubbify result of AfD

Given that the Afd outcome of "stubbify" was arguably only partially implemented, text needs to be sourced in order to be kept. The idea that eating animals and body-piercing (among other examples of behavior generally done and accepted in Western societies) represent forms of violence is not universally accepted. I intend to apply the following rule regarding "universal acceptance": If the article on the consensual BDSM community (and similar articles) cites notable opinion that a particular activity is not regarded as a form of violence in that context, I will delete statements on this article which declare that activity to be a form of violence as unattributed fact. This article can state that certain people regard certain activities as forms of violence, but the "violence" status of solo/consensual activities in particular is subject to dispute. Best, --Shirahadasha 18:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you make a good point that needs to be more throughly thought through. However, it is not helpful to essentialize animal sacrifice as simply the consumption of animal flesh. Besides that what you seem to be saying is that there is no objective measure of violence, that the very idea of violence is socially constructed, and as such value judgments about activities that are construed as violent by one group are frequently contested by other groups. One possible solution here is to be more precise about what we mean by violence. Would that be an improvement? Violence is not always a contested term that is inherently seen as judgmental ... take for instance the description of a "violent storm system." I would prefer being precise instead of pandering to cultural politics, even if we remain sensitive to these types of issues.PelleSmith 21:02, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I propose to merge Sikh Extremism here and shrink it greatly.

Sikh Extremism has proven a magnet for anti-Sikh sentiment. I propose to cut it to its key points, and merge it here, leaving a redirect to the (relatively short) section, tentatively title Sikh separatist violence.- sinneed (talk) 00:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I am going to make a broader search for where this should go. This may not be the best spot.- sinneed (talk) 00:15, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Christian Terrorism

"Terrorism" is defined as killing civilians by non-government groups for the purpose of destabilizing a government or to further a political end. [1]

"Violence" is defined as "an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws: to take over a government by violence" [2]

This article is poorly named, because violence is defined as unlawfully using or threatening deadly force, while terrorism is likewise unlawful killing of civilians by non-government individuals or groups for political purposes. Both terms rest on the assumption that there is a distinction between lawful killing and unlawful killing, and that there is an objective source of law. Both terms are also, therefore, loaded words that contain a negative moral connotation.

It would be more objective to use the term "killing" or "bloodshed" instead of the terms "violence" and "terrorism" here.

Law is always rooted in a concept of right and wrong which is fundamentally religious in nature. Shariah law encourages Muslims to follow the Sunna, or example, of Mohamed, who said:

I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and that they establish prostration prayer, and pay the alms-tax [i.e., convert to Islam]. If they do so, their blood and property are protected [Sahih Muslim C9B1N31; also in Sahih Bukhari B2N24].

So, from the Islamic ethical framework, a suicide bomber is a "martyr", not a "terrorist" because his act of bloodshed is positively sanctioned by the Shariah law.

Likewise, Christians who serve in war who do not use force against non-combatants are not considered guilty of violence by their framework of law (with the exception of certain sects), because they are fulfilling their sanctioned duty of the state in defending the nation.

The section entitled "Christian Terrorism" currently gives several examples of war and political oppression by Christian governments, but it gives no examples of terrorism or violence, properly defined. Nor does it demonstrate that the alleged killing and genocide were positively sanctioned by the Christian religion.

What exactly is this article supposed to be about? Is it just a platform for anyone to draw up a laundry list of killing by various governments to be attributed to a particular religion as violence?

It would make more sense to talk about how all religions advocate a moral law, which civil laws are inevitably based on, and what kind of killing those religious laws condemn and what kind they advocate.

Humans have never been a consistent lot. We all know what we should and shouldn't do, but we all do the wrong thing at times. So drawing up a list of violent acts by followers of particular religions does not logically implicate the religions themselves unless the religion specifically endorses that kind of killing.

I would suggest that if the goal is an article about what religions teach about killing, it should be renamed "Religious Killing". If the goal is to give examples of unlawful killing done in the name of religion, then we need to remove all of the examples of killing by governments in the name of religion, and use real examples of terrorism and violence.

Cadwallader (talk) 02:50, 20 June 2010 (UTC)