
Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. By extension, [''heresy'' is an] opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative." ==Etymology== The word "heresy" comes from the Greek language αιρεσις, ''hairesis'' (from αιρεομαι, ''haireomai'', "choose"), which means either a ''choice'' of beliefs or a ''faction'' of dissident believers. It was given wide currency by Irenaeus in his tract ''Contra Haereses'' (''Against Heresies'') to describe and discredit his opponents in the early Christian Church. He described his own position as orthodox (from ''ortho-'' "straight" + ''doxa'' "thinking") and his position eventually evolved into the position of the early Christian Church. Thus it will be perceived that "heresy" has no purely objective meaning: the category exists only from the point-of-view of a position within a sect that has been previously defined as "orthodox". Thus, too, any nonconformist view within any field may be perceived as "heretical" by others within that field who are convinced that their view is "orthodox". Heretics usually do not define their own beliefs as heretical. Heresy is a value-judgment and the expression of a view from within an established belief system. For instance, Roman Catholics held Protestantism as a heresy while some non-Catholics considered Catholicism the "Great Apostasy." For a heresy to exist there must be an authoritative system of dogma designated as orthodox, such as those proposed by Roman Catholic Church. The term ''orthodox'' is used in Eastern Orthodoxy, some Protestantism churches, in Islam, some Judaism, and to a lesser extent in other religion. Variance from orthodox Marxism-Leninism is described as "right" or "left deviationism." The Church of Scientology uses the term "squirreling" to refer to unauthorized alterations of its teachings or methods. ==Religious heresy== ===Christianity=== The use of the term heresy in the context of Christianity is less common today, except for some notable exceptions: see for example the entry Rudolf Bultmann and the ''character'' of debates over feminist theology and gay priests. Popular imagination relegates "heresy" to the Middle Ages, when the Church's power in Europe was at its height, but the case of the scholar and humanist Giordano Bruno was not the last execution for heresy. Heresy remained an officially punishable offense in Roman Catholic nations until the late 18th century. In Spain, heretics were prosecuted and punished even after the Napoleonic Era. ====Roman background==== A concern for uniform practice of ritual, which Romans conceived as civic and public duty, distinguished the Roman civic and public approach to religion from the Greeks', where each locality preserved its archaic characteristics. Plutarch, in his ''Life of Numa Pompilius'' ascribes to the legendary King of Rome the institution of ''pontifex maximus'' which, from Plutarch's 2nd century AD point of view "was to declare and interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred rites; he not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated the sacrifices of private persons, not suffering them to vary from established custom, and giving information to every one of what was requisite for purposes of worship or supplication." The Romans welcomed new Gods in to the pantheon, it did not matter if one believed in some or none of the Gods, so long as one took part in Roman rituals. For example Christians were persecuted not for believing in one God, not for disbelieving in the Roman pantheon of Gods, all perfectly acceptable, but because they refused to participate in civic and public rituals and duty. Deviation from the official norm amounted to impiety: heresy was foreign to the pagan worldview. ====Early Christian heresies==== Urgent concerns with the uniformity of belief and practice have characterized Christianity from the outset. The process of establishing orthodox Christianity was in full swing by middle to late first century when Paul wrote the epistles that comprise a large part of the New Testament. On many occasions in Paul's epistles, he defends his own apostleship, and urges Christians in various places to beware of false teachers, or of anything contrary to what was handed to them by him. The epistles of John and Jude also warn of false teachers, as does the writer of the ''Book of Revelation''. In the middle of the 2nd century, three unorthodox groups of Christians adhered to a range of doctrines that divided the Christian communities of Rome: the teacher Marcion, the pentecostal outpourings of ecstatic Christian prophets of a continuing revelation, in a movement called "Montanism" because it had been initiated by Montanus and his female disciples, and the Gnosticism teachings of Valentinius. Early attacks upon alleged heresies formed the matter of Tertullian's ''Prescription Against Heretics'' (in 44 chapters, written from Rome), and of Irenaeus' ''Against Heresies'' (''ca'' 180, in five volumes), written in Lyon after his return from a visit to Rome. The letters of Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna to various churches warned against false teachers, and the ''Epistle of Barnabas'' accepted by many Christians as part of Scripture in the 2nd century, warned about mixing Judaism with Christianity, as did other writers, leading to decisions reached in the first ecumenical council, which was convoked by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325, in response to further disruptive polemical controversy within the Christian community, in that case Arianism disputes over the nature of the Trinity. During those first three centuries, Christianity was effectively outlawed by requirements to worship the Roman emperor and Roman gods. Consequently, when the Church labeled its enemies as heretics and cast them out of its congregations or severed ties with dissident churches, it remained without the power to persecute them. However, those called "heretics" were also called a number of other things (e.g. "fools," "wild dogs," "servants of Satan"), so the word "heretic" had negative associations from the beginning, and intentionally so. Before 325 AD, the "heretical" nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches. After 325 AD, some opinion was formulated as dogma through the ''canons'' promulgated by the councils. Each phrase in the Nicene Creed, which was hammered out at the First Council of Nicaea, addresses some aspect that had been under passionate discussion and closes the books on the argument, with the weight of the agreement of over 300 carefully selected bishops from around the empire. However, that did not prevent the Arianism who were defeated at the council of 325 from dominating most of the church for the greater part of the fourth century, often with the aid of Roman emperors who favored them. In the East, the successful party of Cyril of Jerusalem cast out Nestorius and his followers as heretics and Book burning. Irenaeus was the first to argue that the "proto-orthodox" position was the same faith that Jesus gave to the apostles, and that the identity of the apostles, their successors, and the teachings of the same were all well known public knowledge. This was therefore an earlier argument on the basis of apostolic succession. Irenaeus' opponents claimed to have received secret teachings from Jesus via other apostles which were not publicly known. (Gnosticism is predicated on the existence of hidden knowledge, but brief references to private teachings of Jesus have also survived in the canonic Scripture.) Irenaeus' opponents also claimed that the wellsprings of divine inspiration were not dried up, the doctrines of continuing revelation. The Hispanic ascetic Priscillian of Avila was the first person to be executed for heresy, only sixty years after the First Council of Nicaea, in 385. He was executed at the orders of Emperor Magnus Maximus, over the procedural objections of bishops Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours. A number of the beliefs the Catholic Church has come to regard as heretical have to do with Christology, the nature of Jesus Christ and the relationship between Christ and God the Father. The orthodox teaching is that Christ was fully divine and at the same time fully human, and that the three persons of the Trinity are equal and eternal. Note that this position was not formally established as the orthodox position until it was challenged in the fourth century by Arius (Nicene creed in 325); nor was the New Testament put into its present form until the end of the 4th century (Athanasius first lists the 27 books we have in the current New Testament in 367(?), but disputes continued; see Biblical Canon). Over the years, numerous Christian scholars and preachers have disagreed with the Church on various issues or doctrines. When the Church has become aware of these beliefs, they have been condemned as heretical. Historically, this often happened when the belief challenged, or was seen to challenge, Church authority, or drew a movement of followers who challenged the established order socially. For entirely secular reasons, some influential people have had an interest in maintaining the status quo or condemning a group they wished to be removed. The Church's internal explanations for its actions were based purely on objection to beliefs and philosophies that ran contrary to its interpretation of the holy scriptures and its official interpretation of holy tradition. *Adoptionism *Apollinarism *Arianism *Arminianism/Semipelagianism *Bogomils *Bosnian Church *Caesaro-papism *Cathar *Docetism *Donatism *Euchites *Gallicanism *Gnosticism *Henry the monk *Jansenism *Luciferians *Lollardry / Lollardy / Lollardism *Marcionism *Monarchianism *Monophysitism *Montanism *Nestorianism *Patripassianism *Pelagianism *Peter of Bruis *Priscillianism *Psilanthropism *Sabellianism *Socianism *Waldensians See also Manichaeism, a pre-Christian religion that influenced early Christians, notably Augustine, often in ways held to be heretical. ====Heresy in Roman Catholicism==== Heresy is defined by Thomas Aquinas as "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogma." Heresy is both the nonorthodox belief itself, and the act of holding to that belief. While the term is often used by laymen to indicate any orthodoxy belief such as Paganism, by definition heresy can only be committed by someone who considers themselves a Christian, but rejects the teachings of what has become the orthodox Christian church. A person who completely renounces Christianity is not considered a heretic, but an apostasy, and a person who renounces the authority of the Church but not its teachings is a schismatic. The Church makes several distinctions as to the seriousness of an individual heterodoxy and its closeness to true heresy. Only a belief that directly contravenes an article of faith, or that has been explicitly rejected by the Church, is labelled as actual "heresy." Canon 751 of the Roman Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983 (abbreviated "C.I.C." for Codex Iuris Canonici), the little-known juridical systematization of ancient law currently binding the world's one billion Latin Rite Catholics, defines heresy as the following: "Heresy is the obstinate denial or doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith." The essential elements of canonical heresy therefore technically comprise 1) obstinacy, or continuation in time; 2) denial (a proposition contrary or contradictory in formal logic to a dogma) or doubt (a posited opinion, not being a firm denial, of the contrary or contradictory proposition to a dogma); 3) after reception of valid baptism; 4) of a truth categorized as being of "Divine and Catholic Faith," meaning contained directly within either Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition per Can. 750 par. 1 C.I.C. ("de fide divina") AND proposed as 'de fide divina' by either a Pope having spoken solemnly \"ex cathedra\" on his own (example: dogmatic definition of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1950), or defined solemnly by an Ecumenical Council in unison with a Pope (ex: the definition of the Divinity of Christ in the Council of Chalcedon) ("de fide catholica"). The penalty for a baptized Catholic above the age of 18 who obstinately, publicly, and voluntarily manifests his or her adherence to an objective heresy is automatic excommunication ("latae sententiae) according to Can. 1364 par.1 C.I.C.. A belief that the church has not directly rejected, or that is at variance with less important church teachings, is given the label, ''sententia haeresi proxima'', meaning "opinion approaching heresy." A theology argument, belief, or theory that does not constitute heresy in itself, but which leads to conclusions which might be held to do so, is termed ''propositio theologice erronea'', or "erroneous theological proposition." Finally, if the theological position only suggests but does not necessarily lead to a doctrinal conflict, it might be given the even milder label of ''sententia de haeresi suspecta, haeresim sapiens'', meaning "opinion suspected, or savoring, of heresy." Some significant controversies of doctrine have risen over the course of history. At times there have been many heresies over single points of doctrine, particularly in regards to the nature of the Trinity, the doctrine of transubstantiation and the immaculate conception. =====Catholic response to heresy===== The Church has always fought in favor of orthodoxy and the Pope authority as the successor of St. Peter to determine truth. At various times in history, it has had varying degrees of power to resist or punish heretics, once it had defined them. In the early church, heresies were sometimes determined by a selected council of bishops, or ecumenical council, such as the First Council of Nicaea. The orthodox position was established at the council, and all who failed to adhere to it would thereafter be considered heretics. The church had little power to actually punish heretics in the early years, other than by excommunication, a spiritual punishment, or, as in the case of Arius, assassination. To those who accepted it, an excommunication was the worst form of punishment possible, as it separated the individual from the body of Christ, his Church, and prevented salvation. Excommunication, or even the threat of excommunication, was enough to convince many a heretic to renounce his views. Priscillian achieved the distinction of becoming the first Christian burned alive for heresy in 385 at Trier. In later years, the Church instituted the Inquisition, an official body charged with the suppression of heresy. The Inquisition was active in several nations of Europe, particularly where it had fervent support from the civil authority. The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) was part of the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to crush the Cathars. It is linked to the movement now known as the Medieval Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was particularly brutal in its methods, which included the burning at the stake of many heretics. However, it was initiated and substantially controlled by Ferdinand II of Aragon rather than the Church; King Ferdinand used political leverage to obtain the Church's tacit approval. Another example of a medieval heretic (according to some, proto-protestant) movement is the Hussite movement in the Czech lands in the early 1400s. It is widely reported that the last person to be burned alive at the stake on orders from Rome was Giordano Bruno, executed in 1600 for a collection of heretical beliefs including Copernicus and (probably more important) an unlimited universe with innumerable inhabited worlds. The last case of an execution at an ''auto de fe'' by the Spanish Inquisition was the schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll, accused of deism and executed by garroting July 26, 1826 in Valencia after a two-year trial. The development of the printing press removed the ability of the church to quietly suppress dissidents, such that Martin Luther was able to successfully fight the Papacy and forge the Protestant Reformation. =====Modern Roman Catholic response to Protestantism===== The Catholic Church, in the spirit of ecumenism, tends not to refer to Protestantism as a heresy nowadays, even if the teachings of Protestantism are indeed heretical from a Catholic perspective. Modern usage favors referring to Protestants as "separated brethren" rather than "heretics", although the latter is still on occasion used vis-a-vis Catholics who abandon their Church to join a Protestant denomination. Some of the doctrines of Protestantism that the Catholic Church considers heretical are the belief that the Bible is the only source and rule of faith ("sola scriptura"), that faith alone can lead to salvation ("sola fide") and that there is no sacramental, ministerial priesthood attained by ordination, but only a universal priesthood of all believers. ====Protestantism and heresy==== The main meaning of 'heresy' to a Protestant is the concept of telling lies about God. It is not at its core a matter of opposing the authorities (though, like all authorities religious or otherwise, Protestant leaders often invoke the concepts of heresy and apostasy to defend themselves from attack). Protestants chose the difficult course of action, to try to steer a middle course between (1) respecting God enough to care that humans tell the truth about God, and (2) being tolerant and loving of those who honestly see things differently, giving them an open ear because there might be something to learn from them. Protestant sects which seek to reestablish what they see as ancestral Christian principles -- i.e. Fundamentalism -- sometimes refer to Catholicism (or indeed other Protestant groups) as heretical. One aspect of Catholicism many Protestants regard as heresy against original Christianity is the Veneration of saints, and in particular the cultus of the Virgin Mary. Another is the doctrine of transubstantiation. ===Heresy in Judaism=== Orthodox Judaism considers views departing from the traditional Jewish principles of faith to be heretical. Haredi Judaism holds that all Jews who reject their specific understanding of Maimonides's 13 principles of Jewish faith are heretics. Haredi Jews and most Modern Orthodox Judaism Jews consider Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism to be heretical movements, and regard most of Conservative Judaism as heretical. The liberal wing of Modern Orthodoxy is more tolerant of Conservative Judaism, particularly its right wing, as there is some theological and practical overlap between these groups. The Greek term άίρεσις originally denoted "division," "sect," "religious" or "philosophical party," and is applied by Josephus to the three Jewish sects — Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. The specific rabbinical term for heresies, or religious divisions due to an unlawful spirit, is "minim" (lit. "kinds {of belief}"; the singular "min," for "heretic" or "Gnostic," is coined idiomatically, like "goy" and "'am ha-aretz";). The law "You shall not cut yourselves" () is interpreted by the Rabbis: "You shall not form divisions, but shall form one bond." (Source: Midrash Sifre on Deuteronomy 96) Besides the term "min" for "heretic," the Talmud uses the words "Hitsonim" (outsiders), "apikoros," and "kofer ba-Torah" (R. H. 17a), or "kofer ba-'ikar" (he who denies the fundamentals of faith; Pes. xxiv. 168b); also "poresh mi-darke tsibbur" (he who deviates from the customs of the community; Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 5; R. H. 17a). Of all these it is said that they are consigned to Gehinnom for all eternity (Tosef., Sanh. l.c.; comp. ib. xii. 9, apparently belonging to xiii. 5: "He who casts off the yoke [of the Law], and he who severs the Abrahamic covenant; he who interprets the Torah against the halakic tradition, and he who pronounces in full the Ineffable Name—all these have no share in the world to come"). The Mishnah says the following have no share in the world to come: "He who denies that the Torah is divinely revealed, and the apiḳoros." R. Akiba says, "also he who reads heretical books". This is explained in the Talmud (Sanh. 100b) to mean "sifre Ẓeduḳim" (Sadducean writings); but this is an alteration by the censor of "sifre ha-Minim" (books of the Gnostics or Heretics). The Biblical version, "That ye seek not after your own heart" (Num. xv. 39), is explained (Sifre, Num. 115; Ber. 12b) as "Ye shall not turn to heretic views ["minut"] which lead your heart away from God" (see Maimonides, "Yad," 'Akkum, ii. 3). In summarizing the Talmudic statements concerning heretics in Sanh. 90-103, Maimonides ("Yad," Teshubah, iii. 6-8) says: "The following have no share in the world to come, but are cut off, and perish, and receive their punishment for all time for their great sin: the minim, the apiḳoresim, they that deny the belief in the Torah, they that deny the belief in resurrection of the dead and in the coming of the Redeemer, the apostates, they that lead many to sin, they that turn away from the ways of the [Jewish] community. Five are called 'minim': (1) he who says there is no God and the world has no leader; (2) he who says the world has more than one leader; (3) he who ascribes to the Lord of the Universe a body and a figure; (4) he who says that God was not alone and Creator of all things at the world's beginning; (5) he who worships some star or constellation as an intermediating power between himself and the Lord of the World. "The following three classes are called 'apiḳoresim': (1) he who says there was no prophecy nor was there any wisdom that came from God and which was attained by the heart of man; (2) he who denies the prophetic power of Moses our master; (3) he who says that God has no knowledge concerning the doings of men. "The following three are called 'koferim ba-Torah': (1) he who says the Torah is not from God: he is a kofer even if he says a single verse or letter thereof was said by Moses of his own accord; (2) he who denies the traditional interpretation of the Torah and opposes those authorities who declare it to be tradition, as did Zadok and Boethus; and (3) he who says, as do the Nazarenes and the Mohammedans, that the Lord has given a new dispensation instead of the old, and that he has abolished the Law, though it was originally divine." It is noteworthy, however, that Abraham ben David, in his critical notes, objects to Maimonides characterizing as heretics all those who attribute corporeality to God; and he insinuates that the Kabbalah are not heretics. In the same sense all Biblical critics who, like Ibn Ezra in his notes on Deut. i. 2, doubt or deny the Mosaic origin of every portion of the Pentateuch, would protest against the Maimonidean (or Talmudic; see Sanh. 99a) conception of heresy. See Apiḳoros; Articles of Faith; Judaism; Gnosticism. K. ====Legal status==== The status of heretics in Jewish law is not clearly defined. While there are certain regulations scattered throughout the Talmud concerning the minim, the nearest approach to the English term "heretic," these are mostly of a haggadic nature, the codes taking little cognizance of them. The governing bodies of the Synagogue frequently exercised, from motives of self-defense, their power of excommunication against heretics. The heretic was excluded from a portion in the world to come (Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, iii. 6-14); he was consigned to Gehenna, to eternal punishment (R. H. 17a; comp. Ex. R. xix. 5; see Apiḳoros, and compare D. Hoffmann, "Der Schulchan Aruch und die Rabbinen über das Verhältnis der Juden zu Andersgläubigen," 2d ed., Berlin, 1894); but the Jewish courts of justice never attended to cases of heresy; they were left to the judgment of the community. There are, however, in the rabbinic codes, laws and regulations concerning the relation of the Jew to the heretic. The sentiment against the heretic was much stronger than that against the pagan. While the pagan brought his offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem and the priests accepted them, the sacrifices of the heretic were not accepted (Ḥul. 13b, et al.). The relatives of the heretic did not observe the laws of mourning after his death, but donned festive garments, and ate and drank and rejoiced (Sem. ii. 10; "Yad," Ebel, i. 5, 6; Yoreh De'ah, 345, 5). Scrolls of the Law, tefillin, and mezuzot written by a heretic were burned (Giṭ. 45b; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 39, 1; Yoreh De'ah, 281, 1); and an animal slaughtered by a heretic was forbidden food (Ḥul. 13a; Yoreh De'ah, 2, 5). Books written by heretics did not render the hands impure ("Yad," She'ar Abot ha-Ṭum'ot, ix. 10; comp. Yad. iv. 6; see Purity); they might not be saved from fire on the Sabbath (Shab. 116a; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 334, 21). A heretic's testimony was not admitted in evidence in Jewish courts (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 34, 22; see "Be'er ha-Golah" ad loc.); and if an Israelite found an object belonging to a heretic, he was forbidden to return it to him (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ 266, 2). ====Classes of heretics==== The "mumar le-hak'is" (one who transgresses the Law, not for personal advantage, but out of defiance and spite) was placed by some of the Rabbis in the same category as the minim ('Ab. Zarah 26a; Hor. 11a). Even if he habitually transgressed one law only (for example, if he defiantly violated one of the dietary laws), he was not allowed to perform any religious function (Yoreh De'ah, 2, 5; SHaK and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.), nor could he testify in a Jewish court (Sanh. 27a; "Yad," 'Edut, x. 3; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 34, 2). One who violated the Sabbath publicly or worshiped idols could not participate in the "'erub ḥaẓerot" ('Er. 69a; "Yad," 'Erubin, ii. 16; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 385, 3; see 'Erub), nor could he write a bill of divorce (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 123, 2). One who would not permit himself to be circumcised could not perform the ceremony on another (Yoreh De'ah, 264, 1, Isserles' gloss). While the court could not compel the mumar to divorce his wife, even though she demanded it, it compelled him to support her and her children and to pay her an allowance until he agreed to a divorce (Eben ha-'Ezer, 154, 1, and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.). At his death those who are present need not tear their garments (Yoreh De'ah, 340, 5, and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.). The mumar who repented and desired readmittance into the community was obliged to take a ritual bath, the same as the proselyte (Yoreh De'ah, 268, 12, Isserles' gloss, and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.; comp. "Sefer Ḥasidim," ed. Wistinetzki, §§ 200-209). If he claimed to be a good Jew, although he was alleged to have worshiped idols in another town, he was believed when no benefit could have accrued to him from such a course. ===Heresy in Islam=== The two main bodies of Islam are the Sunni Islam and the Shi'a Islam . These main denominations view each other as heretical. Groups like the Sufis, the Harufi and the Bektashi are sometimes regarded as heretical. Although Sufism is often accepted as valid by Sunnis, Islamic fundamentalism Sunni movements like Wahhabism view it as heretical. Both the Ahmadiyya and the Nation of Islam et al are regarded by some Muslims as non-Muslim. Muslims who convert to those faiths tend to be viewed as apostasy, rather than heretics. Those deemed heretics tend to be tolerated by Islamic courts, scholars and power structures, in contrast to those who are deemed to be apostasy, such as the Ahmadis who were excommunicated by the Pakistani state in 1974, yet in Iran the same are considered as Muslim. ==Contemporary heresy== Today, ''heresy'' can be without a religious context as the holding of ideas that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge. Religion is not a necessary component of the term's definition. [http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy] For example, Charles Darwin of natural selection fame was considered a heretic of his day. Other people considered heretics were Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, and many others. The revisionist paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, who published his findings as ''The Dinosaur Heresies'', jokingly treated the mainstream view of dinosaurs as the dogma of a religion. The term ''heresy'' is also used as an ideological Pigeonholing for contemporary writers because by definition heresy depends on contrasts with an established orthodoxy. For example, the tongue-in-cheek contemporary usage of heresy, such as to categorize a "Wall Street heresy" or a "Republican heresy", are metaphors which invariably retain a subtext that links orthodoxies in geology or biology or any other field to the dogmas of religion (although religion may not necessarily appear as an explicit component). Heresy, in these expanded metaphoric senses, is intended to allude to both the ''difference'' between the person's views and the mainstream, and the ''boldness'' of such a person in propounding these views, despite their unpopularity or even forceful opposition. ==See also== *Bida *Brethren of the Free Spirit *Christian theological controversy *Criticisms of Pentecostal and Charismatic belief *History of Christianity *Sabbath Breaking *heterodoxy *:Category:Heretics *orthodoxy *status quo ==External links== * Some quotes and information in this article came from the [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia]. *[http://www.spirithome.com/definic.html#heresy One Christian definition of 'heresy'] Christian law Heresy Religious law
== Discourse == First of all, I think this is an excellent beginning for this article. I do think that Protestantism probably shouldn't be included in a list of heresies though. As a movement, from the Roman Catholic POV, I would guess that Protestantism involves both heresy and schism, two different offenses. It would be helpful to list specific heresies such as Arianism as such, as long as we identify who consideres them to be heretical. Such things should be bodies or systems of belief; the first three items on the list are good examples. (Arianism, Nestorianism, and I can't remember the third right now.) --User:Wesley :It is given as a heresy in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It seems to me that at its beginnings Protestantism was a heresy, but modern Protestants aren't heretics. Does that makes sense? Only those who first opposed the doctrines of Rome were heretics. Oonce they left the Church they became schismatics. :I don't think it's necessary to say who considers them heretical. Heresy is a legal judgement made by the Catholic Church. Afaik, no other church uses the term, but of course I could be wrong. --User:David_Merrill ::As far as I know, technically (from the RC POV), Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Eastern Orthodox religions are schismatic; other Protestant churches (maybe not Calvinism?) are heretical, since they deny many or most tenets of RC-ism and have no link to apostolic succession. I guess if the CE lists it as such, and the list is attributed, than I guess I can't really argue with including it. I was thinking that just leaving the church is an act of schism, not by itself an act of heresy. A heresy is a teaching or idea. But I should probably go read the entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia. The :Eastern Orthodox Church also uses the term, but with slightly different definitions. I don't think they would call it a "legal judgement" since they generally don't have as much "legal" thinking in their theology. I think that early church historians would use the term when discussing things like Arianism, using the term as it was used in the councils. --User:Wesley :I just tried to put it in context by distinguishing the beliefs of early protestants as heresies, not the movement after the schism, or today. Tweak as needed. --User:David_Merrill ::: But I think that's wrong. Catholics consider a a number of Protestant beliefs to be heretical. :True, but not Protestantism in general, just the particular beliefs. And the holding to that belief is only heresy when it is held by a Catholic. --User:David_Merrill ---- Does the Roman Catholic Church really reject the 'universal priesthood of all believers', or simply the idea that such a priesthood of all believers is incompatible with the ordained priesthood? IIRC, the Eastern Orthodox church manages to affirm both, by assigning different definitions and roles to the two priesthoods. ---- I'd like to remind those who edit this page, and other pages referring to "heresies", that the Catholic historical position is a POV which must be noted as such when writing Wikipedia. It is disharmonious with NPOV to describe so-called "heretical" religious beliefs as being wrong, or un-Christian, or rejections of faith. (It is, of course, ''necessary'' to accurately report the Catholic POV that heresies exist and are such, though.) This applies equally to "historical" controversies as to more current issues such as Protestantism. --User:Fubar Obfusco ---- RK -- Could you please use α β γ type Greek character entities? (E.g.: αβγ ... χψω) The numerical ones are dependent upon your character map and do not display correctly on many browsers/platforms, whereas any conforming browser should display the "spelled out" ones correctly. These are also easier for others to read and understand in the page source than the numerical ones. --User:Fubar Obfusco :Any conforming browser will display the numeric ones correctly too. They are Unicode, and don't depend on any browser-specific or platform-specific character map. (Of course, we should aim for things to work also on as many non-conforming browsers as possible, but I don't know which is best in that respect.) --User:Zundark 23:28 Feb 17, 2003 (UTC) :Also, using HTML entities is going to (I think) restrict you to monotonic Greek, whereas words such as these are being quoted from historical, that is, polytonic Greek, right ? ---- ''heresy was considered an offense punishable by clerical or secular powers'' :What, they punished heretics by giving them powers? -- User:Wapcaplet 05:27 6 Jul 2003 (UTC) ::Try substituting "authorities" for "powers". I'd change it in the article, but I don't think it's true: heresy could be discerned by religious inquisitions, but heretics were remanded to the secular authorities for punishment/execution on the grounds that the church did not "shed blood". -- User:Someone else 05:37 6 Jul 2003 (UTC) ::: I've changed it to "heresy was considered a punishable offense". Short and uninformative, but hopefully accurate. :) -- User:Oliver Pereira 06:16 6 Jul 2003 (UTC) ---- "Heresy is a value-judgment" is a bit sappy, and passive tense is a symptom of dodging the issue as ever ("heresy was considered an offense punishable...") but there are certain axioms that need to be worked out here, and then set into the entry's opening paragraphs. Please treat the following as stubs to work on: The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' has a useful long entry of "Heresy" as you may imagine: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm User:Wetman 18:27, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC) Heresy depends on dogma. Without promulgated dogma arrived at by ecumenical understanding and officially promulgated, no opinions are yet "heretical." Heresy, like orthodoxy, evolves in history. (The opposing view, namely that dogma exists outside of time from the Beginning and is merely sequentially ''revealed'' needs to be expressed in its own paragraph.) No statements about what a community believes make sense outside a historical framework. Heresy exists within theology (Your axiom goes here) ==to be added== *Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica that heretics deserve capital punishment. http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/aquinas.htm User:StopCultPropaganda 20:44, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC) * The Christian countercult movement are the modern successors of the battle agains the heretics. User:StopCultPropaganda 20:44, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC) : any number of people may claim the mantle of "modern successors of the battle against the heretics". The Christian countercult movement is just one, and in reality not even the most prominent. User:Wesley 04:06, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Revisionist history? == I started trying to fix the bad history and speculation in the following paragraph, but I think it may be better off deleted. : ''Since the orthodox church (really proto-orthodox) was originally just one group amongst many others (who all regarded themselves as followers of Jesus), calling these other versions of Christianity heresies seems slightly anachronistic if applied to groups who operated in or before the 3rd century (or perhaps even the early 4th century). Most of these creeds would have been seen at the time (by their followers at least) as being just as legitimate as the proto-orthodox group. The orthodox church succeded in a slow process of legitimation of its authority and was able to label all their enemies as heretics and persecute them (thus giving the term an association with illegitimacy). At the time the term was coined, it probably did not have nearly such negative associations (except among the proto-orthodox).'' First, the "process of legitimation" was in full swing by middle to late first century when Paul wrote the epistles that comprise a large part of the New Testament. On many occasions, he defends his own apostleship, and urges Christians in various places to beware of false teachers, or of anything contrary to what was handed to them. The letters of John and Jude also warn of false teachers. Beyond these, Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian wrote their respective treatises against heresies in the second century. At the time Christianity was outlawed; the Church clearly managed to label its enemies as heretics ''without persecuting them''. Assuming those two things always went together is what is anachronistic here. As for whether the word "heretic" had such negative associations, most or all of these writers used enough other, er, descriptive language to ensure the negative connotations were not lost on their readers. Besides, this article is primarily about heresy the concept, not heresy the word. :::The problem, Wesley, is that all the sources you quote you may quote because the dominant group, i.e. the Catholic Church, allowed it to exist. Archeological finds do not paint the picture that you show from the sources. Suppose L. Ron Hubbard had founded his church around the same time and managed to defeat the Orthodox Church; perhaps the only mainstream, surving documentation then would, unsurprisingly, show a tendency to discussing volcanos etc. :::: So, what hypothetical sources might have existed to demonstrate that the "process of legitimation" was ''not'' in full swing by the middle to late first century? Or that John, Jude, Irenaeus, and Tertullian did not write against heresies in the first and second centuries? Are there specific archeological finds that show that Christians persecuted any of these heretics prior to the fourth century? User:Wesley 04:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) So, any objections to removing the paragraph, or suggestions for salvaging it? User:Wesley 03:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC) :A good discussion of heresy contains a discussion of the historical unfolding of the orthodoxy that defines heresy. The sections is not specific or informative. Rather than just suppressing the section, can you recast it as a discussion of the unfolding of an orthodoxy, including your objections as you outline them here? User:Wetman 04:46, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC) :: I tried to follow your advice by discussing the unfolding of orthodoxy. While I'm sure my revisions will need some work to smooth over, I hope the result isn't wholly unsatisfactory. There are still some problems with the overall flow and structure of that Early Christianity section. User:Wesley 03:00, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Other religions == Several other religions have concepts of heresy. The Church of Scientology uses the term "squirreling" to refer to unauthorized alterations of its teachings or methods. The Church of Scientology is a legal U.S. establishment of a cult. Many countries do not recognize the Church of Scientology as a religion and, in some cases, federal action has been taken to remove the Church of Scientology from their borders. This is a poor example for the ''Other religions'' section of heresy. Considering that there are many actual religions in the world, find something better and leave the Church of Scientology controversy to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scientology Talk:Scientology] group. User:Adraeus 21:01, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Let's see- the Church of Scientology is under 100 years old. Now, when the Catholic Church was about the same age, it managed to secure a legal vote(Nicaea) outlawing its enemies (Arianism), similar to the Church of Scientology getting court injunctions against its enemies. The Catholic Chuch made assumptions, many at the time considered 'out there'- the trinity, etc. The Church of Scientology has similar 'out there' concepts, overall resembling a form of Gnosticism. Saying that the Church of Scientology is less capable of using the concept 'heresy' is historical nearsightedness. User:24.176.6.165 :Perhaps a cult that uses the concept of "heresy" is apropos in an entry Heresy. User:Wetman 21:14, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Or we could change the section title to ''Other organizations'' or ''Other belief systems'' in order to allow for a broader range of entries and retain the CoS instance. By the way, there is an interesting article titled ''[http://www.metavirus.net/docs/Bob_Eddy_-_On_Beliefs_and_Belief_Systems.pdf On Beliefs and Belief Systems]'' by the late Bob Eddy of the Institute of General Semantics which I recommend reading. User:Adraeus 01:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) ==Modern Heresy== ''(2004) The term heresy is increasingly used to mean the holding of ideas that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge; thus, religion is not a necessary component of the term's definition. For example, Charles Darwin of evolution fame is considered a heretic of his day. I removed this here because "heresy" just is not used in this way by grown-ups, and the slightly tongue-in-cheek use of "heresy" in science, to make a point about its rigidly-held beliefs, has already been touched on in the Bob Bakker mention. More could be added to that comparison of "bad science" to religion. But there's nothing that scientists regard as "heretical" about Darwin, unless the word is to lose all point--- which may be the intention here. User:Wetman 10:13, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC) Fortunately, the definition of the term ''heresy'' is gradually moving towards general applicability. Religion is not a necessary component of the definition. Wikipedia is not a podium for your personal beliefs. By the way, Charles Darwin was considered a heretic in his day as were Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and others. Additionally, the definition of ''heresy'' as it applies in modern contexts is supported by etymological research. I'm re-adding the section regardless of your dogma and will continue to re-add it every time you remove it. Your removal was wrong and I suggest you refrain from speaking on behalf of "grown-ups." All you need is a http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy good dictionary (http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heretic 1 http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heretical 2 http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=nonconformity 3. If such a definition is alien to you or doesn't conform to your perception of the topic, then I think the term has met its objective. User:Adraeus : Note the passive of non-attribution in the phrase ''Charles Darwin was considered a heretic in his day,'' Anglican bishops considered Charles Darwin a heretic, within the terms of the Church. That's the accurate statement. User:Wetman 21:58, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC) 00:34, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Darwin, Newton and Einstein could all be considered herectical in a religious sense depending on the readers views. Can you provide other examples where there are clearly no religious ties? Science and heresy have such a long a history it is confusing. But perhaps in business? Or some other modern usage of the word that doesnt involve science, then it might be more clear.User:Stbalbach ::The ''modern heresy'' definition does not directly concern religion. It concerns perceptions that are contrary to a popular opinion. As an answer to your question, I say there are far too many heretics in business, which is a social science, and other sciences to compose a complete list. For that reason, only persons who are known to many categories of people were included as an example of the definition. Here are a few not-so-well-known heretics: [http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=626272002 Henry Mintzberg], [http://www.dailyrecord.com/business/business2-bor0720.htm Zvi Bodie], [http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/1999/nt_1999_09_20_heretic.htm Gerry McGovern talks about modern heresy], [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385489765/ref=olp_product_details/102-4797257-2676108?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance Clifford Stoll], [http://www.stratren.com/article3.asp 'maverick' is sometimes interchanged], and a quite a few more. The Internet is an amazing resource. Search it. User:Adraeus 02:29, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) :::Well, then, why not put those in as modern examples instead of the scientific examples? I would do so, but you have already made it clear you would "re-add it every time you remove it". User:Stbalbach ::::All examples are people from a scientific field. Business ''is'' a social science. As Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, we can create a categorical list of past and present heretics. I merely provided a starting point, however, I think it'd be best if we posted only exoteric and unambiguous examples. User:Adraeus 05:48, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::::Darwin in particular is an Ambiguous example, clearly heretical to Christian Creationism (just ask the public schools in Georgia). Newton and Einstein less so, but could be seen as ambiguous. Why not choose an example of "heretic" that is clearly unambigious and exoterically non-religious? User:Stbalbach ::::Charles Darwin is not an ambiguous example nor is Alfred Russel Wallace. Have you even read the Charles Darwin entry? Your orientation is incredibly pedantic. I could have used Leonardo da Vinci as an example and you'd object, "But the Church! The Church was involved in his history!" Let's get one thing straight: religion is a meme. It is a powerful and influential meme that has existed for centuries. Religion has affected many of the key figures of the modern world and to not use an example because of an association with religion would just simply be foolish. If you can come up with a better example, by all means, wiki away. User:Adraeus 11:46, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) It seems to me that this use of the term "heresy" — to refer, e.g., to a scientific innovator — is a metaphor. It is intended to allude to both the ''difference'' between the person's views and the mainstream, and the ''boldness'' of such a person in propounding these views despite their unpopularity or even despite forceful opposition. It is certainly a very colorful metaphor, and various writers have played upon it extensively, adding "inquisitions" and "orthodoxies" and so forth to stories about resistance to new or unproven ideas. (Consider Robert Anton Wilson's ''The New Inquisition'' for one example.) (The metaphor is also, oddly enough, sometimes applied to innovators who were throughout their working lives considered respected parts of the ''establishment'', such as Sir Isaac Newton, mentioned above.) In any event, I have to wonder about the importance of describing metaphorical uses such as this in a Wikipedia article — particularly if the metaphor is so contentious. As silly as it may be to argue over whether Darwin ''"was"'' a scientific heretic (since it is only a metaphor anyway, since science, business, etc. do not operate by canon law) it may indicate that this is not a matter upon which Wikipedia needs to speak conclusively. —User:Fubar Obfusco 06:18, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) Sorry, Fubar Obfusco, but that is incorrect. The described definition of heresy is not a metaphor. It is an actual definition. [http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=heresy&x=0&y=0 Webster: "heresy"], [http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy Princeton WordNet: "heresy"]. The term ''heresy'' is not limited to religious contexts; thus, canon law and "respect" (refer: your comment about Isaac Newton) has nothing to do with this definition of heresy. Presenting an objective and unambiguous model of reality is within the scope of Wikipedia. If you choose to present a topic from one side, in this case religion, you've devalued Wikipedia. This definition is a logical definition and applies to both religious and other contexts. ''heretic'' is defined as "a person who holds unorthodox opinions in any field (not merely religion.)" ''unorthodox'' has two similar definitions: a) "independent in behavior or thought" (with maverick and irregular as synonyms), and b) "breaking with convention or tradition." So now, ''heretic'' is defined as "a person who holds (irregular, maverick, unorthodox) opinions in any field ..." We also find that the antonym of unorthodox is ''orthodox'' which is defined as "adhering to what is commonly accepted" and ''orthodoxy'' as "a belief or orientation agreeing with conventional standards." Now we have ''heretical'' as "independent of behavioral or intellectual constraint imposed by conventional standards", ''heretic'' as "a person who holds opinions contrary to the status quo ..." and finally ''heresy'' as "a holding of ideas, not necessarily beliefs, that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge" or as "any opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or orthodox position." ''Heresy'' can then be likened to a process of continual innovation. It is a constant disagreement with what ''is''. By the way, for those of you that are religionists simply arguing against what you perceive as an attack from science on a religious concept, understand this: science is not a competing religion. User:Adraeus 09:24, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) Stbalbach: I disagree with your addition to contemporary heresy in which you consistently refer to the usage of heresy as a metaphor. [http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy It is not a metaphor]. It's merely an alternate definition often forgot by those too caught up in heresy's etymological religious roots. User:Adraeus 04:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) == eretico == I removed the bit about the Italian language calling "eretico" a Protestant, because it's simply false - the common word is "Protestante". User:Alfio 20:18, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC) :Eretico was certainly the common expression when I lived in Florence in the 1960s, and "protestante" drew blanks. The suppression of information is often as informative as the information itself. User:Wetman 20:22, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Here's a webpage where they are used together: "When he learned that I was a Seventh-day Adventist, he told the whole class that I was “Un Protestante eretico—A heretical Protestant,” and consequently they should keep away from me." [http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/eti_63.pdf] User:Jayjg 03:33, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC) == Article needs help == I can't even see the TOC because the opening overview has become as long as the article its self and scrolled the TOC off the screen. The first paragraph should be about 3 or 4 sentences that defines what it is and a high level broad overview with no details. The rest of it needs to be integrated into the article body. User:Stbalbach 20:55, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC) :We'll be here to pick up any pieces that get dropped in the process. I've moved down the section on the extension of "heresy" using some material from the discussion above (rendered more NPOV) It helped a little... User:Wetman 21:31, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::Excellent, User:Stbalbach. What a simple solution. User:Wetman 01:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::More moves to beef up parts of the body and free up space in the start. Wetman hope I understood your thoughts correctly in the recently added paragraph want to clarify.User:Stbalbach 22:31, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Etymology == *[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=heresy&searchmode=none heresy] "an opinion of private men different from that of the catholick and orthodox church" [Johnson], c.1225, from O.Fr. heresie, from L. hæresis, "school of thought, philosophical sect," used by Christian writers for "unorthodox sect or doctrine," from Gk. hairesis "a taking or choosing," from haireisthai "take, seize," middle voice of hairein "to choose," of unknown origin. The Gk. word was used in N.T. in ref. to the Sadducees, Pharisees, and even the Christians, as sects of Judaism, but in Eng. bibles it is usually translated sect. Meaning "religious belief opposed to the orthodox doctrines of the Church" evolved in L.L. in the Dark Ages. Heretic (c.1330) is ult. from Gk. hairetikos "able to choose," the verbal adj. of hairein User:Adraeus 04:18, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Oxford English Dictionary v3 entry: "heresy" == [http://www.metavirus.net/docs/OED3_Atheism.html OED3_Atheism.html] - saved directly from the OED v3 software. User:Adraeus 09:56, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) :What a convoluted, ungainly and awkward way of putting it. Exactly what we need, obtuse 19th century language instead of clear and concise post-modern original 21st century prose from Wikipedians. I particularly like how quoting the OED v3 source makes it authoritative, as if the reader could not look it up in a more modern dictionary, relegating Wikipedia to only being authoritative to 1921 and earlier like some kind of dusty tomb with little value other than antiquarian. User:Stbalbach 14:43, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::19th century? Read the Oxford English Dictionary article. The OED v3 software was released in 2002 with 2002 updates. That's hardly 19th century. User:Adraeus 23:23, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) == request for justification == ''"Heretics do not define their beliefs as heretical; instead, heretics view opposing orthodoxy as heretical."'' Please justify this claim that all heretics are unaware of their heresy. Moreover, if this claim is true then "orthodoxy" is a misnomer for simply different opinions. Note this statement's logic: #Heretics view orthodoxy as heretical and are unaware of their heresy. #Orthodoxists view heresy as heretical and are unware of their heresy. #Thus, heresy and orthodoxy are both heretical and orthodox. Clearly, the phrase that explains this logic is "what is to one is not to another." Shouldn't such "original research" be avoided? User:Adraeus 11:11, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :I think the way it was phrased originally flowed better, the word "indeed" has more life and puts more emphesis than the word "instead" and the use of a ";" in a sentence breaks up the flow and train of thought and is more stark. It is a point of style not content. User:Stbalbach 16:40, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::The addition of a semicolon is a matter of grammar. "Therefore" should never be left alone. "; therefore," is proper. User:Adraeus 22:36, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Heresy's existence depends upon a system of dogma. In the absence of dogma, all is simply personal opinion. So I have returned the edit ''a dogmatic authoritative system'' to ''an authoritative system of dogma.'' The system concerned here is a system of dogma, not other areas of systematic church organization. Revising this to incorporate your criticism: A better antithesis in the quote above would be ''"Heretics do not define their own beliefs as heretical; in fact, minorities in matters of dogma may even hold the majority in error, thus heretical. in other words, movements which have been called ''heretical'' that is to say, ''incorrect'' may make the very same charge against the mainstream church."'' Any further objections to this evolving disambiguation? --User:Wetman 20:45, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Sounds good; however, "indeed" seems to more POVish than "instead" since, like Stbalbach said, "indeed" is an intensifier. "Indeed" is also used as an expression of surprise, skepticism and irony. Further complicating matters is the definition of "indeed" as "in truth." Whose truth? Your truth? My truth? Roman Catholic truth? "Truth" is too flimsy a word. "Instead" fits better. I continue to maintain my objection to "heretics do not define their beliefs as heretical" for there exist many heretics who know what they do is contrary to the status quo. For instance, many businesses are founded with a unique competitive advantage which is sometimes the opposite of what is. Think Microsoft Windows versus Redhat Linux. I don't think the claim that (all) heretics are unaware of their "contrariness" is valid. It seems to be a generalization. User:Adraeus 22:42, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :The remark about Robert Bakker's ''Dinosaur Heresies'' title makes this point, that for rhetorical effect, a revisionist may describe himself as a "heretic." Edit the passage in the article, though, to make it strong enough to suit you. --User:Wetman 23:38, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) I do not think that the discussed sentence means, "Heretics don't think they are weird or different from the mainstream." Rather, I think what is meant is, "The movements which have been called ''heretical'' -- that is to say, ''incorrect'' -- make the very same charge against the mainstream church." One implication of this is that, in the ancient church, both "heretics" and "orthodox" believed religious truth to be singular and absolute, rather than multiple and relative as many people believe today. Thus, in order to believe a "heresy" one must at the same time believe that the "orthodox" position is incorrect in both facts and morals -- that the mainstream church believes something false and is being led astray by its leaders. --User:Fubar Obfusco 23:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) Yes. But isn't this implicit in the ''"an authoritative system of dogma"'' part? Make the point more strongly if you want. --User:Wetman 23:38, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) == Categorisation == From Wikipedia:Categorization: :An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, for example Microsoft Office is in Category:Microsoft software, so should not also be in Category:Software. Accordingly, this article should not be in :Category:Religion if it is also in :Category:Religious law. —User:Ashley Y 03:14, 2005 May 15 (UTC) :I apologize for describing your removal as vandalism. I thought you removed :Category:Religious law again. User:Adraeus 05:43, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Category for heresy and related subjects Religious philosophy and doctrine Catholic theology and doctrine
Isn't this category rather POV? According to it, certain religious movents are really heresies and only the Catholic church has the right to define a heresy. Also, word "heresy" looks really ugly in the bottom of the aricle. You can't have any explanation there for the category wording. -User:Hapsiainen 22:07, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Heresy:
Heresy
Heresy
Heresy
Heresy
Heresy
Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. By extension, [''heresy'' is an] opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative." ==Etymology== The word "heresy" comes from the Greek language αιρεσις, ''hairesis'' (from αιρεομαι, ''haireomai'', "choose"), which means either a ''choice'' of beliefs or a ''faction'' of dissident believers. It was given wide currency by Irenaeus in his tract ''Contra Haereses'' (''Against Heresies'') to describe and discredit his opponents in the early Christian Church. He described his own position as orthodox (from ''ortho-'' "straight" + ''doxa'' "thinking") and his position eventually evolved into the position of the early Christian Church. Thus it will be perceived that "heresy" has no purely objective meaning: the category exists only from the point-of-view of a position within a sect that has been previously defined as "orthodox". Thus, too, any nonconformist view within any field may be perceived as "heretical" by others within that field who are convinced that their view is "orthodox". Heretics usually do not define their own beliefs as heretical. Heresy is a value-judgment and the expression of a view from within an established belief system. For instance, Roman Catholics held Protestantism as a heresy while some non-Catholics considered Catholicism the "Great Apostasy." For a heresy to exist there must be an authoritative system of dogma designated as orthodox, such as those proposed by Roman Catholic Church. The term ''orthodox'' is used in Eastern Orthodoxy, some Protestantism churches, in Islam, some Judaism, and to a lesser extent in other religion. Variance from orthodox Marxism-Leninism is described as "right" or "left deviationism." The Church of Scientology uses the term "squirreling" to refer to unauthorized alterations of its teachings or methods. ==Religious heresy== ===Christianity=== The use of the term heresy in the context of Christianity is less common today, except for some notable exceptions: see for example the entry Rudolf Bultmann and the ''character'' of debates over feminist theology and gay priests. Popular imagination relegates "heresy" to the Middle Ages, when the Church's power in Europe was at its height, but the case of the scholar and humanist Giordano Bruno was not the last execution for heresy. Heresy remained an officially punishable offense in Roman Catholic nations until the late 18th century. In Spain, heretics were prosecuted and punished even after the Napoleonic Era. ====Roman background==== A concern for uniform practice of ritual, which Romans conceived as civic and public duty, distinguished the Roman civic and public approach to religion from the Greeks', where each locality preserved its archaic characteristics. Plutarch, in his ''Life of Numa Pompilius'' ascribes to the legendary King of Rome the institution of ''pontifex maximus'' which, from Plutarch's 2nd century AD point of view "was to declare and interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred rites; he not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated the sacrifices of private persons, not suffering them to vary from established custom, and giving information to every one of what was requisite for purposes of worship or supplication." The Romans welcomed new Gods in to the pantheon, it did not matter if one believed in some or none of the Gods, so long as one took part in Roman rituals. For example Christians were persecuted not for believing in one God, not for disbelieving in the Roman pantheon of Gods, all perfectly acceptable, but because they refused to participate in civic and public rituals and duty. Deviation from the official norm amounted to impiety: heresy was foreign to the pagan worldview. ====Early Christian heresies==== Urgent concerns with the uniformity of belief and practice have characterized Christianity from the outset. The process of establishing orthodox Christianity was in full swing by middle to late first century when Paul wrote the epistles that comprise a large part of the New Testament. On many occasions in Paul's epistles, he defends his own apostleship, and urges Christians in various places to beware of false teachers, or of anything contrary to what was handed to them by him. The epistles of John and Jude also warn of false teachers, as does the writer of the ''Book of Revelation''. In the middle of the 2nd century, three unorthodox groups of Christians adhered to a range of doctrines that divided the Christian communities of Rome: the teacher Marcion, the pentecostal outpourings of ecstatic Christian prophets of a continuing revelation, in a movement called "Montanism" because it had been initiated by Montanus and his female disciples, and the Gnosticism teachings of Valentinius. Early attacks upon alleged heresies formed the matter of Tertullian's ''Prescription Against Heretics'' (in 44 chapters, written from Rome), and of Irenaeus' ''Against Heresies'' (''ca'' 180, in five volumes), written in Lyon after his return from a visit to Rome. The letters of Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna to various churches warned against false teachers, and the ''Epistle of Barnabas'' accepted by many Christians as part of Scripture in the 2nd century, warned about mixing Judaism with Christianity, as did other writers, leading to decisions reached in the first ecumenical council, which was convoked by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325, in response to further disruptive polemical controversy within the Christian community, in that case Arianism disputes over the nature of the Trinity. During those first three centuries, Christianity was effectively outlawed by requirements to worship the Roman emperor and Roman gods. Consequently, when the Church labeled its enemies as heretics and cast them out of its congregations or severed ties with dissident churches, it remained without the power to persecute them. However, those called "heretics" were also called a number of other things (e.g. "fools," "wild dogs," "servants of Satan"), so the word "heretic" had negative associations from the beginning, and intentionally so. Before 325 AD, the "heretical" nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches. After 325 AD, some opinion was formulated as dogma through the ''canons'' promulgated by the councils. Each phrase in the Nicene Creed, which was hammered out at the First Council of Nicaea, addresses some aspect that had been under passionate discussion and closes the books on the argument, with the weight of the agreement of over 300 carefully selected bishops from around the empire. However, that did not prevent the Arianism who were defeated at the council of 325 from dominating most of the church for the greater part of the fourth century, often with the aid of Roman emperors who favored them. In the East, the successful party of Cyril of Jerusalem cast out Nestorius and his followers as heretics and Book burning. Irenaeus was the first to argue that the "proto-orthodox" position was the same faith that Jesus gave to the apostles, and that the identity of the apostles, their successors, and the teachings of the same were all well known public knowledge. This was therefore an earlier argument on the basis of apostolic succession. Irenaeus' opponents claimed to have received secret teachings from Jesus via other apostles which were not publicly known. (Gnosticism is predicated on the existence of hidden knowledge, but brief references to private teachings of Jesus have also survived in the canonic Scripture.) Irenaeus' opponents also claimed that the wellsprings of divine inspiration were not dried up, the doctrines of continuing revelation. The Hispanic ascetic Priscillian of Avila was the first person to be executed for heresy, only sixty years after the First Council of Nicaea, in 385. He was executed at the orders of Emperor Magnus Maximus, over the procedural objections of bishops Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours. A number of the beliefs the Catholic Church has come to regard as heretical have to do with Christology, the nature of Jesus Christ and the relationship between Christ and God the Father. The orthodox teaching is that Christ was fully divine and at the same time fully human, and that the three persons of the Trinity are equal and eternal. Note that this position was not formally established as the orthodox position until it was challenged in the fourth century by Arius (Nicene creed in 325); nor was the New Testament put into its present form until the end of the 4th century (Athanasius first lists the 27 books we have in the current New Testament in 367(?), but disputes continued; see Biblical Canon). Over the years, numerous Christian scholars and preachers have disagreed with the Church on various issues or doctrines. When the Church has become aware of these beliefs, they have been condemned as heretical. Historically, this often happened when the belief challenged, or was seen to challenge, Church authority, or drew a movement of followers who challenged the established order socially. For entirely secular reasons, some influential people have had an interest in maintaining the status quo or condemning a group they wished to be removed. The Church's internal explanations for its actions were based purely on objection to beliefs and philosophies that ran contrary to its interpretation of the holy scriptures and its official interpretation of holy tradition. *Adoptionism *Apollinarism *Arianism *Arminianism/Semipelagianism *Bogomils *Bosnian Church *Caesaro-papism *Cathar *Docetism *Donatism *Euchites *Gallicanism *Gnosticism *Henry the monk *Jansenism *Luciferians *Lollardry / Lollardy / Lollardism *Marcionism *Monarchianism *Monophysitism *Montanism *Nestorianism *Patripassianism *Pelagianism *Peter of Bruis *Priscillianism *Psilanthropism *Sabellianism *Socianism *Waldensians See also Manichaeism, a pre-Christian religion that influenced early Christians, notably Augustine, often in ways held to be heretical. ====Heresy in Roman Catholicism==== Heresy is defined by Thomas Aquinas as "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogma." Heresy is both the nonorthodox belief itself, and the act of holding to that belief. While the term is often used by laymen to indicate any orthodoxy belief such as Paganism, by definition heresy can only be committed by someone who considers themselves a Christian, but rejects the teachings of what has become the orthodox Christian church. A person who completely renounces Christianity is not considered a heretic, but an apostasy, and a person who renounces the authority of the Church but not its teachings is a schismatic. The Church makes several distinctions as to the seriousness of an individual heterodoxy and its closeness to true heresy. Only a belief that directly contravenes an article of faith, or that has been explicitly rejected by the Church, is labelled as actual "heresy." Canon 751 of the Roman Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983 (abbreviated "C.I.C." for Codex Iuris Canonici), the little-known juridical systematization of ancient law currently binding the world's one billion Latin Rite Catholics, defines heresy as the following: "Heresy is the obstinate denial or doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith." The essential elements of canonical heresy therefore technically comprise 1) obstinacy, or continuation in time; 2) denial (a proposition contrary or contradictory in formal logic to a dogma) or doubt (a posited opinion, not being a firm denial, of the contrary or contradictory proposition to a dogma); 3) after reception of valid baptism; 4) of a truth categorized as being of "Divine and Catholic Faith," meaning contained directly within either Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition per Can. 750 par. 1 C.I.C. ("de fide divina") AND proposed as 'de fide divina' by either a Pope having spoken solemnly \"ex cathedra\" on his own (example: dogmatic definition of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1950), or defined solemnly by an Ecumenical Council in unison with a Pope (ex: the definition of the Divinity of Christ in the Council of Chalcedon) ("de fide catholica"). The penalty for a baptized Catholic above the age of 18 who obstinately, publicly, and voluntarily manifests his or her adherence to an objective heresy is automatic excommunication ("latae sententiae) according to Can. 1364 par.1 C.I.C.. A belief that the church has not directly rejected, or that is at variance with less important church teachings, is given the label, ''sententia haeresi proxima'', meaning "opinion approaching heresy." A theology argument, belief, or theory that does not constitute heresy in itself, but which leads to conclusions which might be held to do so, is termed ''propositio theologice erronea'', or "erroneous theological proposition." Finally, if the theological position only suggests but does not necessarily lead to a doctrinal conflict, it might be given the even milder label of ''sententia de haeresi suspecta, haeresim sapiens'', meaning "opinion suspected, or savoring, of heresy." Some significant controversies of doctrine have risen over the course of history. At times there have been many heresies over single points of doctrine, particularly in regards to the nature of the Trinity, the doctrine of transubstantiation and the immaculate conception. =====Catholic response to heresy===== The Church has always fought in favor of orthodoxy and the Pope authority as the successor of St. Peter to determine truth. At various times in history, it has had varying degrees of power to resist or punish heretics, once it had defined them. In the early church, heresies were sometimes determined by a selected council of bishops, or ecumenical council, such as the First Council of Nicaea. The orthodox position was established at the council, and all who failed to adhere to it would thereafter be considered heretics. The church had little power to actually punish heretics in the early years, other than by excommunication, a spiritual punishment, or, as in the case of Arius, assassination. To those who accepted it, an excommunication was the worst form of punishment possible, as it separated the individual from the body of Christ, his Church, and prevented salvation. Excommunication, or even the threat of excommunication, was enough to convince many a heretic to renounce his views. Priscillian achieved the distinction of becoming the first Christian burned alive for heresy in 385 at Trier. In later years, the Church instituted the Inquisition, an official body charged with the suppression of heresy. The Inquisition was active in several nations of Europe, particularly where it had fervent support from the civil authority. The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) was part of the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to crush the Cathars. It is linked to the movement now known as the Medieval Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was particularly brutal in its methods, which included the burning at the stake of many heretics. However, it was initiated and substantially controlled by Ferdinand II of Aragon rather than the Church; King Ferdinand used political leverage to obtain the Church's tacit approval. Another example of a medieval heretic (according to some, proto-protestant) movement is the Hussite movement in the Czech lands in the early 1400s. It is widely reported that the last person to be burned alive at the stake on orders from Rome was Giordano Bruno, executed in 1600 for a collection of heretical beliefs including Copernicus and (probably more important) an unlimited universe with innumerable inhabited worlds. The last case of an execution at an ''auto de fe'' by the Spanish Inquisition was the schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll, accused of deism and executed by garroting July 26, 1826 in Valencia after a two-year trial. The development of the printing press removed the ability of the church to quietly suppress dissidents, such that Martin Luther was able to successfully fight the Papacy and forge the Protestant Reformation. =====Modern Roman Catholic response to Protestantism===== The Catholic Church, in the spirit of ecumenism, tends not to refer to Protestantism as a heresy nowadays, even if the teachings of Protestantism are indeed heretical from a Catholic perspective. Modern usage favors referring to Protestants as "separated brethren" rather than "heretics", although the latter is still on occasion used vis-a-vis Catholics who abandon their Church to join a Protestant denomination. Some of the doctrines of Protestantism that the Catholic Church considers heretical are the belief that the Bible is the only source and rule of faith ("sola scriptura"), that faith alone can lead to salvation ("sola fide") and that there is no sacramental, ministerial priesthood attained by ordination, but only a universal priesthood of all believers. ====Protestantism and heresy==== The main meaning of 'heresy' to a Protestant is the concept of telling lies about God. It is not at its core a matter of opposing the authorities (though, like all authorities religious or otherwise, Protestant leaders often invoke the concepts of heresy and apostasy to defend themselves from attack). Protestants chose the difficult course of action, to try to steer a middle course between (1) respecting God enough to care that humans tell the truth about God, and (2) being tolerant and loving of those who honestly see things differently, giving them an open ear because there might be something to learn from them. Protestant sects which seek to reestablish what they see as ancestral Christian principles -- i.e. Fundamentalism -- sometimes refer to Catholicism (or indeed other Protestant groups) as heretical. One aspect of Catholicism many Protestants regard as heresy against original Christianity is the Veneration of saints, and in particular the cultus of the Virgin Mary. Another is the doctrine of transubstantiation. ===Heresy in Judaism=== Orthodox Judaism considers views departing from the traditional Jewish principles of faith to be heretical. Haredi Judaism holds that all Jews who reject their specific understanding of Maimonides's 13 principles of Jewish faith are heretics. Haredi Jews and most Modern Orthodox Judaism Jews consider Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism to be heretical movements, and regard most of Conservative Judaism as heretical. The liberal wing of Modern Orthodoxy is more tolerant of Conservative Judaism, particularly its right wing, as there is some theological and practical overlap between these groups. The Greek term άίρεσις originally denoted "division," "sect," "religious" or "philosophical party," and is applied by Josephus to the three Jewish sects — Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. The specific rabbinical term for heresies, or religious divisions due to an unlawful spirit, is "minim" (lit. "kinds {of belief}"; the singular "min," for "heretic" or "Gnostic," is coined idiomatically, like "goy" and "'am ha-aretz";). The law "You shall not cut yourselves" () is interpreted by the Rabbis: "You shall not form divisions, but shall form one bond." (Source: Midrash Sifre on Deuteronomy 96) Besides the term "min" for "heretic," the Talmud uses the words "Hitsonim" (outsiders), "apikoros," and "kofer ba-Torah" (R. H. 17a), or "kofer ba-'ikar" (he who denies the fundamentals of faith; Pes. xxiv. 168b); also "poresh mi-darke tsibbur" (he who deviates from the customs of the community; Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 5; R. H. 17a). Of all these it is said that they are consigned to Gehinnom for all eternity (Tosef., Sanh. l.c.; comp. ib. xii. 9, apparently belonging to xiii. 5: "He who casts off the yoke [of the Law], and he who severs the Abrahamic covenant; he who interprets the Torah against the halakic tradition, and he who pronounces in full the Ineffable Name—all these have no share in the world to come"). The Mishnah says the following have no share in the world to come: "He who denies that the Torah is divinely revealed, and the apiḳoros." R. Akiba says, "also he who reads heretical books". This is explained in the Talmud (Sanh. 100b) to mean "sifre Ẓeduḳim" (Sadducean writings); but this is an alteration by the censor of "sifre ha-Minim" (books of the Gnostics or Heretics). The Biblical version, "That ye seek not after your own heart" (Num. xv. 39), is explained (Sifre, Num. 115; Ber. 12b) as "Ye shall not turn to heretic views ["minut"] which lead your heart away from God" (see Maimonides, "Yad," 'Akkum, ii. 3). In summarizing the Talmudic statements concerning heretics in Sanh. 90-103, Maimonides ("Yad," Teshubah, iii. 6-8) says: "The following have no share in the world to come, but are cut off, and perish, and receive their punishment for all time for their great sin: the minim, the apiḳoresim, they that deny the belief in the Torah, they that deny the belief in resurrection of the dead and in the coming of the Redeemer, the apostates, they that lead many to sin, they that turn away from the ways of the [Jewish] community. Five are called 'minim': (1) he who says there is no God and the world has no leader; (2) he who says the world has more than one leader; (3) he who ascribes to the Lord of the Universe a body and a figure; (4) he who says that God was not alone and Creator of all things at the world's beginning; (5) he who worships some star or constellation as an intermediating power between himself and the Lord of the World. "The following three classes are called 'apiḳoresim': (1) he who says there was no prophecy nor was there any wisdom that came from God and which was attained by the heart of man; (2) he who denies the prophetic power of Moses our master; (3) he who says that God has no knowledge concerning the doings of men. "The following three are called 'koferim ba-Torah': (1) he who says the Torah is not from God: he is a kofer even if he says a single verse or letter thereof was said by Moses of his own accord; (2) he who denies the traditional interpretation of the Torah and opposes those authorities who declare it to be tradition, as did Zadok and Boethus; and (3) he who says, as do the Nazarenes and the Mohammedans, that the Lord has given a new dispensation instead of the old, and that he has abolished the Law, though it was originally divine." It is noteworthy, however, that Abraham ben David, in his critical notes, objects to Maimonides characterizing as heretics all those who attribute corporeality to God; and he insinuates that the Kabbalah are not heretics. In the same sense all Biblical critics who, like Ibn Ezra in his notes on Deut. i. 2, doubt or deny the Mosaic origin of every portion of the Pentateuch, would protest against the Maimonidean (or Talmudic; see Sanh. 99a) conception of heresy. See Apiḳoros; Articles of Faith; Judaism; Gnosticism. K. ====Legal status==== The status of heretics in Jewish law is not clearly defined. While there are certain regulations scattered throughout the Talmud concerning the minim, the nearest approach to the English term "heretic," these are mostly of a haggadic nature, the codes taking little cognizance of them. The governing bodies of the Synagogue frequently exercised, from motives of self-defense, their power of excommunication against heretics. The heretic was excluded from a portion in the world to come (Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, iii. 6-14); he was consigned to Gehenna, to eternal punishment (R. H. 17a; comp. Ex. R. xix. 5; see Apiḳoros, and compare D. Hoffmann, "Der Schulchan Aruch und die Rabbinen über das Verhältnis der Juden zu Andersgläubigen," 2d ed., Berlin, 1894); but the Jewish courts of justice never attended to cases of heresy; they were left to the judgment of the community. There are, however, in the rabbinic codes, laws and regulations concerning the relation of the Jew to the heretic. The sentiment against the heretic was much stronger than that against the pagan. While the pagan brought his offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem and the priests accepted them, the sacrifices of the heretic were not accepted (Ḥul. 13b, et al.). The relatives of the heretic did not observe the laws of mourning after his death, but donned festive garments, and ate and drank and rejoiced (Sem. ii. 10; "Yad," Ebel, i. 5, 6; Yoreh De'ah, 345, 5). Scrolls of the Law, tefillin, and mezuzot written by a heretic were burned (Giṭ. 45b; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 39, 1; Yoreh De'ah, 281, 1); and an animal slaughtered by a heretic was forbidden food (Ḥul. 13a; Yoreh De'ah, 2, 5). Books written by heretics did not render the hands impure ("Yad," She'ar Abot ha-Ṭum'ot, ix. 10; comp. Yad. iv. 6; see Purity); they might not be saved from fire on the Sabbath (Shab. 116a; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 334, 21). A heretic's testimony was not admitted in evidence in Jewish courts (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 34, 22; see "Be'er ha-Golah" ad loc.); and if an Israelite found an object belonging to a heretic, he was forbidden to return it to him (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ 266, 2). ====Classes of heretics==== The "mumar le-hak'is" (one who transgresses the Law, not for personal advantage, but out of defiance and spite) was placed by some of the Rabbis in the same category as the minim ('Ab. Zarah 26a; Hor. 11a). Even if he habitually transgressed one law only (for example, if he defiantly violated one of the dietary laws), he was not allowed to perform any religious function (Yoreh De'ah, 2, 5; SHaK and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.), nor could he testify in a Jewish court (Sanh. 27a; "Yad," 'Edut, x. 3; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 34, 2). One who violated the Sabbath publicly or worshiped idols could not participate in the "'erub ḥaẓerot" ('Er. 69a; "Yad," 'Erubin, ii. 16; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 385, 3; see 'Erub), nor could he write a bill of divorce (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 123, 2). One who would not permit himself to be circumcised could not perform the ceremony on another (Yoreh De'ah, 264, 1, Isserles' gloss). While the court could not compel the mumar to divorce his wife, even though she demanded it, it compelled him to support her and her children and to pay her an allowance until he agreed to a divorce (Eben ha-'Ezer, 154, 1, and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.). At his death those who are present need not tear their garments (Yoreh De'ah, 340, 5, and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.). The mumar who repented and desired readmittance into the community was obliged to take a ritual bath, the same as the proselyte (Yoreh De'ah, 268, 12, Isserles' gloss, and "Pitḥe Teshubah," ad loc.; comp. "Sefer Ḥasidim," ed. Wistinetzki, §§ 200-209). If he claimed to be a good Jew, although he was alleged to have worshiped idols in another town, he was believed when no benefit could have accrued to him from such a course. ===Heresy in Islam=== The two main bodies of Islam are the Sunni Islam and the Shi'a Islam . These main denominations view each other as heretical. Groups like the Sufis, the Harufi and the Bektashi are sometimes regarded as heretical. Although Sufism is often accepted as valid by Sunnis, Islamic fundamentalism Sunni movements like Wahhabism view it as heretical. Both the Ahmadiyya and the Nation of Islam et al are regarded by some Muslims as non-Muslim. Muslims who convert to those faiths tend to be viewed as apostasy, rather than heretics. Those deemed heretics tend to be tolerated by Islamic courts, scholars and power structures, in contrast to those who are deemed to be apostasy, such as the Ahmadis who were excommunicated by the Pakistani state in 1974, yet in Iran the same are considered as Muslim. ==Contemporary heresy== Today, ''heresy'' can be without a religious context as the holding of ideas that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge. Religion is not a necessary component of the term's definition. [http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy] For example, Charles Darwin of natural selection fame was considered a heretic of his day. Other people considered heretics were Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, and many others. The revisionist paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, who published his findings as ''The Dinosaur Heresies'', jokingly treated the mainstream view of dinosaurs as the dogma of a religion. The term ''heresy'' is also used as an ideological Pigeonholing for contemporary writers because by definition heresy depends on contrasts with an established orthodoxy. For example, the tongue-in-cheek contemporary usage of heresy, such as to categorize a "Wall Street heresy" or a "Republican heresy", are metaphors which invariably retain a subtext that links orthodoxies in geology or biology or any other field to the dogmas of religion (although religion may not necessarily appear as an explicit component). Heresy, in these expanded metaphoric senses, is intended to allude to both the ''difference'' between the person's views and the mainstream, and the ''boldness'' of such a person in propounding these views, despite their unpopularity or even forceful opposition. ==See also== *Bida *Brethren of the Free Spirit *Christian theological controversy *Criticisms of Pentecostal and Charismatic belief *History of Christianity *Sabbath Breaking *heterodoxy *:Category:Heretics *orthodoxy *status quo ==External links== * Some quotes and information in this article came from the [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia]. *[http://www.spirithome.com/definic.html#heresy One Christian definition of 'heresy'] Christian law Heresy Religious law
Heresy
== Discourse == First of all, I think this is an excellent beginning for this article. I do think that Protestantism probably shouldn't be included in a list of heresies though. As a movement, from the Roman Catholic POV, I would guess that Protestantism involves both heresy and schism, two different offenses. It would be helpful to list specific heresies such as Arianism as such, as long as we identify who consideres them to be heretical. Such things should be bodies or systems of belief; the first three items on the list are good examples. (Arianism, Nestorianism, and I can't remember the third right now.) --User:Wesley :It is given as a heresy in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It seems to me that at its beginnings Protestantism was a heresy, but modern Protestants aren't heretics. Does that makes sense? Only those who first opposed the doctrines of Rome were heretics. Oonce they left the Church they became schismatics. :I don't think it's necessary to say who considers them heretical. Heresy is a legal judgement made by the Catholic Church. Afaik, no other church uses the term, but of course I could be wrong. --User:David_Merrill ::As far as I know, technically (from the RC POV), Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Eastern Orthodox religions are schismatic; other Protestant churches (maybe not Calvinism?) are heretical, since they deny many or most tenets of RC-ism and have no link to apostolic succession. I guess if the CE lists it as such, and the list is attributed, than I guess I can't really argue with including it. I was thinking that just leaving the church is an act of schism, not by itself an act of heresy. A heresy is a teaching or idea. But I should probably go read the entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia. The :Eastern Orthodox Church also uses the term, but with slightly different definitions. I don't think they would call it a "legal judgement" since they generally don't have as much "legal" thinking in their theology. I think that early church historians would use the term when discussing things like Arianism, using the term as it was used in the councils. --User:Wesley :I just tried to put it in context by distinguishing the beliefs of early protestants as heresies, not the movement after the schism, or today. Tweak as needed. --User:David_Merrill ::: But I think that's wrong. Catholics consider a a number of Protestant beliefs to be heretical. :True, but not Protestantism in general, just the particular beliefs. And the holding to that belief is only heresy when it is held by a Catholic. --User:David_Merrill ---- Does the Roman Catholic Church really reject the 'universal priesthood of all believers', or simply the idea that such a priesthood of all believers is incompatible with the ordained priesthood? IIRC, the Eastern Orthodox church manages to affirm both, by assigning different definitions and roles to the two priesthoods. ---- I'd like to remind those who edit this page, and other pages referring to "heresies", that the Catholic historical position is a POV which must be noted as such when writing Wikipedia. It is disharmonious with NPOV to describe so-called "heretical" religious beliefs as being wrong, or un-Christian, or rejections of faith. (It is, of course, ''necessary'' to accurately report the Catholic POV that heresies exist and are such, though.) This applies equally to "historical" controversies as to more current issues such as Protestantism. --User:Fubar Obfusco ---- RK -- Could you please use α β γ type Greek character entities? (E.g.: αβγ ... χψω) The numerical ones are dependent upon your character map and do not display correctly on many browsers/platforms, whereas any conforming browser should display the "spelled out" ones correctly. These are also easier for others to read and understand in the page source than the numerical ones. --User:Fubar Obfusco :Any conforming browser will display the numeric ones correctly too. They are Unicode, and don't depend on any browser-specific or platform-specific character map. (Of course, we should aim for things to work also on as many non-conforming browsers as possible, but I don't know which is best in that respect.) --User:Zundark 23:28 Feb 17, 2003 (UTC) :Also, using HTML entities is going to (I think) restrict you to monotonic Greek, whereas words such as these are being quoted from historical, that is, polytonic Greek, right ? ---- ''heresy was considered an offense punishable by clerical or secular powers'' :What, they punished heretics by giving them powers? -- User:Wapcaplet 05:27 6 Jul 2003 (UTC) ::Try substituting "authorities" for "powers". I'd change it in the article, but I don't think it's true: heresy could be discerned by religious inquisitions, but heretics were remanded to the secular authorities for punishment/execution on the grounds that the church did not "shed blood". -- User:Someone else 05:37 6 Jul 2003 (UTC) ::: I've changed it to "heresy was considered a punishable offense". Short and uninformative, but hopefully accurate. :) -- User:Oliver Pereira 06:16 6 Jul 2003 (UTC) ---- "Heresy is a value-judgment" is a bit sappy, and passive tense is a symptom of dodging the issue as ever ("heresy was considered an offense punishable...") but there are certain axioms that need to be worked out here, and then set into the entry's opening paragraphs. Please treat the following as stubs to work on: The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' has a useful long entry of "Heresy" as you may imagine: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm User:Wetman 18:27, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC) Heresy depends on dogma. Without promulgated dogma arrived at by ecumenical understanding and officially promulgated, no opinions are yet "heretical." Heresy, like orthodoxy, evolves in history. (The opposing view, namely that dogma exists outside of time from the Beginning and is merely sequentially ''revealed'' needs to be expressed in its own paragraph.) No statements about what a community believes make sense outside a historical framework. Heresy exists within theology (Your axiom goes here) ==to be added== *Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica that heretics deserve capital punishment. http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/aquinas.htm User:StopCultPropaganda 20:44, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC) * The Christian countercult movement are the modern successors of the battle agains the heretics. User:StopCultPropaganda 20:44, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC) : any number of people may claim the mantle of "modern successors of the battle against the heretics". The Christian countercult movement is just one, and in reality not even the most prominent. User:Wesley 04:06, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Revisionist history? == I started trying to fix the bad history and speculation in the following paragraph, but I think it may be better off deleted. : ''Since the orthodox church (really proto-orthodox) was originally just one group amongst many others (who all regarded themselves as followers of Jesus), calling these other versions of Christianity heresies seems slightly anachronistic if applied to groups who operated in or before the 3rd century (or perhaps even the early 4th century). Most of these creeds would have been seen at the time (by their followers at least) as being just as legitimate as the proto-orthodox group. The orthodox church succeded in a slow process of legitimation of its authority and was able to label all their enemies as heretics and persecute them (thus giving the term an association with illegitimacy). At the time the term was coined, it probably did not have nearly such negative associations (except among the proto-orthodox).'' First, the "process of legitimation" was in full swing by middle to late first century when Paul wrote the epistles that comprise a large part of the New Testament. On many occasions, he defends his own apostleship, and urges Christians in various places to beware of false teachers, or of anything contrary to what was handed to them. The letters of John and Jude also warn of false teachers. Beyond these, Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian wrote their respective treatises against heresies in the second century. At the time Christianity was outlawed; the Church clearly managed to label its enemies as heretics ''without persecuting them''. Assuming those two things always went together is what is anachronistic here. As for whether the word "heretic" had such negative associations, most or all of these writers used enough other, er, descriptive language to ensure the negative connotations were not lost on their readers. Besides, this article is primarily about heresy the concept, not heresy the word. :::The problem, Wesley, is that all the sources you quote you may quote because the dominant group, i.e. the Catholic Church, allowed it to exist. Archeological finds do not paint the picture that you show from the sources. Suppose L. Ron Hubbard had founded his church around the same time and managed to defeat the Orthodox Church; perhaps the only mainstream, surving documentation then would, unsurprisingly, show a tendency to discussing volcanos etc. :::: So, what hypothetical sources might have existed to demonstrate that the "process of legitimation" was ''not'' in full swing by the middle to late first century? Or that John, Jude, Irenaeus, and Tertullian did not write against heresies in the first and second centuries? Are there specific archeological finds that show that Christians persecuted any of these heretics prior to the fourth century? User:Wesley 04:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) So, any objections to removing the paragraph, or suggestions for salvaging it? User:Wesley 03:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC) :A good discussion of heresy contains a discussion of the historical unfolding of the orthodoxy that defines heresy. The sections is not specific or informative. Rather than just suppressing the section, can you recast it as a discussion of the unfolding of an orthodoxy, including your objections as you outline them here? User:Wetman 04:46, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC) :: I tried to follow your advice by discussing the unfolding of orthodoxy. While I'm sure my revisions will need some work to smooth over, I hope the result isn't wholly unsatisfactory. There are still some problems with the overall flow and structure of that Early Christianity section. User:Wesley 03:00, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Other religions == Several other religions have concepts of heresy. The Church of Scientology uses the term "squirreling" to refer to unauthorized alterations of its teachings or methods. The Church of Scientology is a legal U.S. establishment of a cult. Many countries do not recognize the Church of Scientology as a religion and, in some cases, federal action has been taken to remove the Church of Scientology from their borders. This is a poor example for the ''Other religions'' section of heresy. Considering that there are many actual religions in the world, find something better and leave the Church of Scientology controversy to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scientology Talk:Scientology] group. User:Adraeus 21:01, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Let's see- the Church of Scientology is under 100 years old. Now, when the Catholic Church was about the same age, it managed to secure a legal vote(Nicaea) outlawing its enemies (Arianism), similar to the Church of Scientology getting court injunctions against its enemies. The Catholic Chuch made assumptions, many at the time considered 'out there'- the trinity, etc. The Church of Scientology has similar 'out there' concepts, overall resembling a form of Gnosticism. Saying that the Church of Scientology is less capable of using the concept 'heresy' is historical nearsightedness. User:24.176.6.165 :Perhaps a cult that uses the concept of "heresy" is apropos in an entry Heresy. User:Wetman 21:14, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Or we could change the section title to ''Other organizations'' or ''Other belief systems'' in order to allow for a broader range of entries and retain the CoS instance. By the way, there is an interesting article titled ''[http://www.metavirus.net/docs/Bob_Eddy_-_On_Beliefs_and_Belief_Systems.pdf On Beliefs and Belief Systems]'' by the late Bob Eddy of the Institute of General Semantics which I recommend reading. User:Adraeus 01:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) ==Modern Heresy== ''(2004) The term heresy is increasingly used to mean the holding of ideas that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge; thus, religion is not a necessary component of the term's definition. For example, Charles Darwin of evolution fame is considered a heretic of his day. I removed this here because "heresy" just is not used in this way by grown-ups, and the slightly tongue-in-cheek use of "heresy" in science, to make a point about its rigidly-held beliefs, has already been touched on in the Bob Bakker mention. More could be added to that comparison of "bad science" to religion. But there's nothing that scientists regard as "heretical" about Darwin, unless the word is to lose all point--- which may be the intention here. User:Wetman 10:13, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC) Fortunately, the definition of the term ''heresy'' is gradually moving towards general applicability. Religion is not a necessary component of the definition. Wikipedia is not a podium for your personal beliefs. By the way, Charles Darwin was considered a heretic in his day as were Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and others. Additionally, the definition of ''heresy'' as it applies in modern contexts is supported by etymological research. I'm re-adding the section regardless of your dogma and will continue to re-add it every time you remove it. Your removal was wrong and I suggest you refrain from speaking on behalf of "grown-ups." All you need is a http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy good dictionary (http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heretic 1 http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heretical 2 http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=nonconformity 3. If such a definition is alien to you or doesn't conform to your perception of the topic, then I think the term has met its objective. User:Adraeus : Note the passive of non-attribution in the phrase ''Charles Darwin was considered a heretic in his day,'' Anglican bishops considered Charles Darwin a heretic, within the terms of the Church. That's the accurate statement. User:Wetman 21:58, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC) 00:34, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Darwin, Newton and Einstein could all be considered herectical in a religious sense depending on the readers views. Can you provide other examples where there are clearly no religious ties? Science and heresy have such a long a history it is confusing. But perhaps in business? Or some other modern usage of the word that doesnt involve science, then it might be more clear.User:Stbalbach ::The ''modern heresy'' definition does not directly concern religion. It concerns perceptions that are contrary to a popular opinion. As an answer to your question, I say there are far too many heretics in business, which is a social science, and other sciences to compose a complete list. For that reason, only persons who are known to many categories of people were included as an example of the definition. Here are a few not-so-well-known heretics: [http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=626272002 Henry Mintzberg], [http://www.dailyrecord.com/business/business2-bor0720.htm Zvi Bodie], [http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/1999/nt_1999_09_20_heretic.htm Gerry McGovern talks about modern heresy], [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385489765/ref=olp_product_details/102-4797257-2676108?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance Clifford Stoll], [http://www.stratren.com/article3.asp 'maverick' is sometimes interchanged], and a quite a few more. The Internet is an amazing resource. Search it. User:Adraeus 02:29, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) :::Well, then, why not put those in as modern examples instead of the scientific examples? I would do so, but you have already made it clear you would "re-add it every time you remove it". User:Stbalbach ::::All examples are people from a scientific field. Business ''is'' a social science. As Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, we can create a categorical list of past and present heretics. I merely provided a starting point, however, I think it'd be best if we posted only exoteric and unambiguous examples. User:Adraeus 05:48, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::::Darwin in particular is an Ambiguous example, clearly heretical to Christian Creationism (just ask the public schools in Georgia). Newton and Einstein less so, but could be seen as ambiguous. Why not choose an example of "heretic" that is clearly unambigious and exoterically non-religious? User:Stbalbach ::::Charles Darwin is not an ambiguous example nor is Alfred Russel Wallace. Have you even read the Charles Darwin entry? Your orientation is incredibly pedantic. I could have used Leonardo da Vinci as an example and you'd object, "But the Church! The Church was involved in his history!" Let's get one thing straight: religion is a meme. It is a powerful and influential meme that has existed for centuries. Religion has affected many of the key figures of the modern world and to not use an example because of an association with religion would just simply be foolish. If you can come up with a better example, by all means, wiki away. User:Adraeus 11:46, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) It seems to me that this use of the term "heresy" — to refer, e.g., to a scientific innovator — is a metaphor. It is intended to allude to both the ''difference'' between the person's views and the mainstream, and the ''boldness'' of such a person in propounding these views despite their unpopularity or even despite forceful opposition. It is certainly a very colorful metaphor, and various writers have played upon it extensively, adding "inquisitions" and "orthodoxies" and so forth to stories about resistance to new or unproven ideas. (Consider Robert Anton Wilson's ''The New Inquisition'' for one example.) (The metaphor is also, oddly enough, sometimes applied to innovators who were throughout their working lives considered respected parts of the ''establishment'', such as Sir Isaac Newton, mentioned above.) In any event, I have to wonder about the importance of describing metaphorical uses such as this in a Wikipedia article — particularly if the metaphor is so contentious. As silly as it may be to argue over whether Darwin ''"was"'' a scientific heretic (since it is only a metaphor anyway, since science, business, etc. do not operate by canon law) it may indicate that this is not a matter upon which Wikipedia needs to speak conclusively. —User:Fubar Obfusco 06:18, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) Sorry, Fubar Obfusco, but that is incorrect. The described definition of heresy is not a metaphor. It is an actual definition. [http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=heresy&x=0&y=0 Webster: "heresy"], [http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy Princeton WordNet: "heresy"]. The term ''heresy'' is not limited to religious contexts; thus, canon law and "respect" (refer: your comment about Isaac Newton) has nothing to do with this definition of heresy. Presenting an objective and unambiguous model of reality is within the scope of Wikipedia. If you choose to present a topic from one side, in this case religion, you've devalued Wikipedia. This definition is a logical definition and applies to both religious and other contexts. ''heretic'' is defined as "a person who holds unorthodox opinions in any field (not merely religion.)" ''unorthodox'' has two similar definitions: a) "independent in behavior or thought" (with maverick and irregular as synonyms), and b) "breaking with convention or tradition." So now, ''heretic'' is defined as "a person who holds (irregular, maverick, unorthodox) opinions in any field ..." We also find that the antonym of unorthodox is ''orthodox'' which is defined as "adhering to what is commonly accepted" and ''orthodoxy'' as "a belief or orientation agreeing with conventional standards." Now we have ''heretical'' as "independent of behavioral or intellectual constraint imposed by conventional standards", ''heretic'' as "a person who holds opinions contrary to the status quo ..." and finally ''heresy'' as "a holding of ideas, not necessarily beliefs, that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge" or as "any opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or orthodox position." ''Heresy'' can then be likened to a process of continual innovation. It is a constant disagreement with what ''is''. By the way, for those of you that are religionists simply arguing against what you perceive as an attack from science on a religious concept, understand this: science is not a competing religion. User:Adraeus 09:24, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) Stbalbach: I disagree with your addition to contemporary heresy in which you consistently refer to the usage of heresy as a metaphor. [http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy It is not a metaphor]. It's merely an alternate definition often forgot by those too caught up in heresy's etymological religious roots. User:Adraeus 04:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) == eretico == I removed the bit about the Italian language calling "eretico" a Protestant, because it's simply false - the common word is "Protestante". User:Alfio 20:18, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC) :Eretico was certainly the common expression when I lived in Florence in the 1960s, and "protestante" drew blanks. The suppression of information is often as informative as the information itself. User:Wetman 20:22, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::Here's a webpage where they are used together: "When he learned that I was a Seventh-day Adventist, he told the whole class that I was “Un Protestante eretico—A heretical Protestant,” and consequently they should keep away from me." [http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/eti_63.pdf] User:Jayjg 03:33, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC) == Article needs help == I can't even see the TOC because the opening overview has become as long as the article its self and scrolled the TOC off the screen. The first paragraph should be about 3 or 4 sentences that defines what it is and a high level broad overview with no details. The rest of it needs to be integrated into the article body. User:Stbalbach 20:55, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC) :We'll be here to pick up any pieces that get dropped in the process. I've moved down the section on the extension of "heresy" using some material from the discussion above (rendered more NPOV) It helped a little... User:Wetman 21:31, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::Excellent, User:Stbalbach. What a simple solution. User:Wetman 01:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::More moves to beef up parts of the body and free up space in the start. Wetman hope I understood your thoughts correctly in the recently added paragraph want to clarify.User:Stbalbach 22:31, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Etymology == *[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=heresy&searchmode=none heresy] "an opinion of private men different from that of the catholick and orthodox church" [Johnson], c.1225, from O.Fr. heresie, from L. hæresis, "school of thought, philosophical sect," used by Christian writers for "unorthodox sect or doctrine," from Gk. hairesis "a taking or choosing," from haireisthai "take, seize," middle voice of hairein "to choose," of unknown origin. The Gk. word was used in N.T. in ref. to the Sadducees, Pharisees, and even the Christians, as sects of Judaism, but in Eng. bibles it is usually translated sect. Meaning "religious belief opposed to the orthodox doctrines of the Church" evolved in L.L. in the Dark Ages. Heretic (c.1330) is ult. from Gk. hairetikos "able to choose," the verbal adj. of hairein User:Adraeus 04:18, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) == Oxford English Dictionary v3 entry: "heresy" == [http://www.metavirus.net/docs/OED3_Atheism.html OED3_Atheism.html] - saved directly from the OED v3 software. User:Adraeus 09:56, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) :What a convoluted, ungainly and awkward way of putting it. Exactly what we need, obtuse 19th century language instead of clear and concise post-modern original 21st century prose from Wikipedians. I particularly like how quoting the OED v3 source makes it authoritative, as if the reader could not look it up in a more modern dictionary, relegating Wikipedia to only being authoritative to 1921 and earlier like some kind of dusty tomb with little value other than antiquarian. User:Stbalbach 14:43, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::19th century? Read the Oxford English Dictionary article. The OED v3 software was released in 2002 with 2002 updates. That's hardly 19th century. User:Adraeus 23:23, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) == request for justification == ''"Heretics do not define their beliefs as heretical; instead, heretics view opposing orthodoxy as heretical."'' Please justify this claim that all heretics are unaware of their heresy. Moreover, if this claim is true then "orthodoxy" is a misnomer for simply different opinions. Note this statement's logic: #Heretics view orthodoxy as heretical and are unaware of their heresy. #Orthodoxists view heresy as heretical and are unware of their heresy. #Thus, heresy and orthodoxy are both heretical and orthodox. Clearly, the phrase that explains this logic is "what is to one is not to another." Shouldn't such "original research" be avoided? User:Adraeus 11:11, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :I think the way it was phrased originally flowed better, the word "indeed" has more life and puts more emphesis than the word "instead" and the use of a ";" in a sentence breaks up the flow and train of thought and is more stark. It is a point of style not content. User:Stbalbach 16:40, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::The addition of a semicolon is a matter of grammar. "Therefore" should never be left alone. "; therefore," is proper. User:Adraeus 22:36, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Heresy's existence depends upon a system of dogma. In the absence of dogma, all is simply personal opinion. So I have returned the edit ''a dogmatic authoritative system'' to ''an authoritative system of dogma.'' The system concerned here is a system of dogma, not other areas of systematic church organization. Revising this to incorporate your criticism: A better antithesis in the quote above would be ''"Heretics do not define their own beliefs as heretical; in fact, minorities in matters of dogma may even hold the majority in error, thus heretical. in other words, movements which have been called ''heretical'' that is to say, ''incorrect'' may make the very same charge against the mainstream church."'' Any further objections to this evolving disambiguation? --User:Wetman 20:45, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Sounds good; however, "indeed" seems to more POVish than "instead" since, like Stbalbach said, "indeed" is an intensifier. "Indeed" is also used as an expression of surprise, skepticism and irony. Further complicating matters is the definition of "indeed" as "in truth." Whose truth? Your truth? My truth? Roman Catholic truth? "Truth" is too flimsy a word. "Instead" fits better. I continue to maintain my objection to "heretics do not define their beliefs as heretical" for there exist many heretics who know what they do is contrary to the status quo. For instance, many businesses are founded with a unique competitive advantage which is sometimes the opposite of what is. Think Microsoft Windows versus Redhat Linux. I don't think the claim that (all) heretics are unaware of their "contrariness" is valid. It seems to be a generalization. User:Adraeus 22:42, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :The remark about Robert Bakker's ''Dinosaur Heresies'' title makes this point, that for rhetorical effect, a revisionist may describe himself as a "heretic." Edit the passage in the article, though, to make it strong enough to suit you. --User:Wetman 23:38, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) I do not think that the discussed sentence means, "Heretics don't think they are weird or different from the mainstream." Rather, I think what is meant is, "The movements which have been called ''heretical'' -- that is to say, ''incorrect'' -- make the very same charge against the mainstream church." One implication of this is that, in the ancient church, both "heretics" and "orthodox" believed religious truth to be singular and absolute, rather than multiple and relative as many people believe today. Thus, in order to believe a "heresy" one must at the same time believe that the "orthodox" position is incorrect in both facts and morals -- that the mainstream church believes something false and is being led astray by its leaders. --User:Fubar Obfusco 23:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) Yes. But isn't this implicit in the ''"an authoritative system of dogma"'' part? Make the point more strongly if you want. --User:Wetman 23:38, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) == Categorisation == From Wikipedia:Categorization: :An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, for example Microsoft Office is in Category:Microsoft software, so should not also be in Category:Software. Accordingly, this article should not be in :Category:Religion if it is also in :Category:Religious law. —User:Ashley Y 03:14, 2005 May 15 (UTC) :I apologize for describing your removal as vandalism. I thought you removed :Category:Religious law again. User:Adraeus 05:43, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Heresy
Category for heresy and related subjects Religious philosophy and doctrine Catholic theology and doctrine
Heresy
Isn't this category rather POV? According to it, certain religious movents are really heresies and only the Catholic church has the right to define a heresy. Also, word "heresy" looks really ugly in the bottom of the aricle. You can't have any explanation there for the category wording. -User:Hapsiainen 22:07, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
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HA | HB | HC | HD | HE | HF | HG | HI | HJ | HK | HL | HM | HN | HO | HP | HR | HS | HT | HU | HW | HX | HY | HZ |Words begining with Heresy:
Heresy
Heresy
Heresy
Heresy
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