Talk:Religious fanaticism

Untitled section
First, I told Loom91 on the AFD page that Catholics weren't the only religious fanatics and that there was no direct war between the Middle East and the West. Second, Loom91 reverted everyone else's changes, even keeping his spelling errors. Third, Loom91 took out many of the examples, even though they're obviously relevant to the subject, show the history of the subject, and broaden the definition of the concept. Further much of what he wrote is just a statement of what is obvious. Wikipedia is here to teach people things they don't already know. I suppose that I can keep the last paragraph, though, as I haven't heard that one before.--Primetime 18:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * This is a remotely automated Article to create ambiguation and prevent any references to Protestants/creationists/fundamentalists/apologists as religious fanatics.
 * Any edit/add you make gets reverted in minutes, same "Shafer"/"Steffen" no sense gets preserved.
 * Please, someone report this dihonest procedures. 177.236.13.17 (talk) 09:44, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Stop the revert war
Please evryone, WP:NPOV and good judgment demands that an article be written from a neutral point of view, especially in controversial cases like this one. We can not accuse specific religious groups of being fanatics or imply any such accusation. Also, WIkipedia states what is obvious very often. A person may not have ever heard the phrase Religious fanaticism (it's not a very common phrase unless you keep up with world news, which many people do not), in which case there is no such thing as obvious for him. Wikipedia must not exclude facts on the basis they are obvious, obvious is subjective. Please stop this revert war and start making constructive edits, you continue to revert this article to its POV state then you are risking being nominated for deletion again. Loom91 05:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think Primetime's version is more correct and overall more well written. I disagree with some of what Loom91 is trying to say, especially "In recent times there has been a cultural and sometimes direct war between western Christianity-dominated countries and Middle-East Islam dominated countries." I understand what you're trying to say here, but that doesn't seem like the way to say it. Some other points you make such as the religious mainstream opposing fanaticism sound great but sound like Original Research. Where are your sources?
 * I think that the specific examples that Primetime gives, however, could possibly be taken offensively and as such I think the article should not describe the groups as fanatics, but rather say that a specific group may consider them fanatic.. I'm getting this precedent from the Islamism article. ("Some Muslims find it troublesome that a word derived from "Islam" is applied to organizations they consider radical and extreme.")
 * But I'm not vain enough to think that my opinion is the only one that matters. Until a reasonable consensus is established, no more reverts should be made. Keppa 23:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * All right, I've attempted to rewrite the offending section and provide some references, though interwiki. Though this version is obviously open to dispute, please do not reinstate the previous inflammatory version accusing specific groups of being fanatics. We absolutely can not do that. Don't revert to that version, whatever you do. I also notice that while Primetime continues to revert edits, he has not seen fit to to take part in this discussion on the talk page. As for the last sentence on religious mainstreams not approving of fundamentalist tendencies, though that statement is currently unsourced I think all will agree it to be mostly truthful. After we have agreed that it is right, we can jointly try to seek out references. Loom91 07:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Once again, I don't think that the content about the conflict between the Middle East and the United States is applicable here, at least in its current form; for example, what clear connection (and I mean connection established within the article) does the Iraq war have with religious fanaticism? Claiming that the September 11 attacks were carried out by religious extremists would give it more relevance here. I'm abstaining from touching the article as I have little knowledge about this subject. Keppa 05:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. I also think much of the version proposed by Loom does not teach anyone anything, so it's almost useless without actual examples. However, in order to stop the edit warring, I will insert some non-controversial portions of that edition. I will also add qualifications to the examples, letting the reader know that the beliefs are not universal. Now the article is NPOV, I believe.--Primetime 05:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Haredi Jews stoning people on Shabbat
There have been some edits back and forth involving this sentence, and I went ahead and took it out altogether. My reasoning is, yes, it's true, it's possible to get hit with stones if driving in certain parts of Jerusalem during Shabbat, but it's not the work Relgious fanatics, rather the work of teenage orthodox hooligans. Nobody seriously considers that an emanation of religious extremism such as a 9/11 style suicide attack. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 18:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Religious fanaticism and utilitarianism
I just conducted a major rewrite on this section. It was very poorly written and very loose with facts. It is now reasonably consistent with most contemporary ideas about utilitarianism, at any rate.

"Alternatively, religious belief could help an individual to find their place in society or give to the whole society a philosophical ethos, as religious belief can sometimes help persons find meaning in their lives." - this sentence still worries me a little, as finding meaning does not necessarily lead to an increase in utility. However, I qualified it with the sentence which follows it, so I think it should hold.

On another note, the original text tried to argue that according to utilitarianism, the fanaticism of a religious believer is continuous with how beneficial or detrimental their actions are to utility. I haven't ever heard this argued, and the source wasn't cited. Judging by the level of care put into the previous write-up, it is quite possible that the author pulled this out of their ass. However, I haven't any evidence to the contrary, so I left it in. Good luck with your revert war! Stringman5 06:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a good article
The article starts out with something like a definition: "Within the spectrum of adherence to a particular belief system, religious fanaticism is the most extreme form of religious fundamentalism."

Somebody has then inserted an apologetic and defensive section called the "Overview": "When adherents to a religion get involved in a pattern of violently and potentially deadly opposition to anyone they do not agree with, they are sometimes branded as Religious fanatics by their detractors, although they may object that their actions are completely sound." I'm not sure why this qualifies as an "overview". It seems to be designed to dilute the position of the opening paragraph.

Then comes a section called the "Definition", which says: "Determining who are religious fanatics is naturally a very controversial issue. It is notable that followers of a religion, and not the religion itself are the target of accusations of religious fanaticism. The whole issue is controversial due to the very nature of the allegation. Frequently the norms of the society are greatly diluted versions from those of the religion in the area. Therefore an individual who is obedient to his religion is often seen as a fanatic."

This is even more apologetic! The only saving grace is a brief statement tacked on at the end (with a "citation needed" note) that "Of course it is also possible that the individual is going beyond the norms of the religion."

Then there is a section on "Religious fanaticism and utilitarianism", the longest section in the whole article, followed by a "List of accused", "See also", and "References" (one reference).

The article hardly seems encyclopaedic and is dominated by protestations that religious fanatics are not really religious fanatics, perhaps inserted by people who feel themselves vulnerable to the charge.

Really, can't we do better than this?

Bathrobe 07:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * To put it bluntly: This is not a serious article, it is simply gibberish without any sources and references. The article should be deleted. Someone translated the text into German today and it was listed for deletion quite fast. --EvaK (talk) 03:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Everything involving religion is gibberish without any sources and references. --Willeywhale (talk) 19:06, 24 March January 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope, it may be gibberish but it often has plenty of sources and references. BananaFiend (talk) 12:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with that this should be deleted as is, but it does have potential - I think that the chances of it ending up non-POV is miniscule due to strong feelings on either side BananaFiend (talk) 12:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Avoiding deletion
This page has been nominated for deletion, and at least one user feels it can be saved, I'll help out in any way I can, here are the problems I see with it:


 * As pointed out by another user (more eloquent than me), "fanatic" is by often considered a pejorative term, characterised by excessive and unquestioning enthusiasm. In that case, even the title of this page could be inflammatory.
 * This page should deal only with excessive enthusiasm carried out by people who believe fully in a religion in the cause of the religion.
 * It will be difficult to balance the religions, with many people feeling some religions are overrepresented.
 * Who will define "excessive"? For a born-again-christian knowing that unless they convert you, you will burn forever in hell, a high degree of enthusiasm for the cause will seem the least they can do.

BananaFiend (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * A web search has so far mostly been not that useful. I did get one thing that might be useful as a source, but it's difficult to work through (I've only read half of it so far).  Google Scholar gets a ton of hits, but I can't fully access them; I'll be able to search a better database early next week.  But at the very least I'm gonna' try to get rid of that whole ton of POV stuff right now.
 * I'm not sure that we really want all that much detail on the various religions themselves here. Given how much there is for each (from what I've seen on my Gsearches so far), they might all need their own articles (assuming sourcing isn't an issue).  --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 18:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've gone and commented out the section on utilitarianism. It really reads like undue coverage of something not that important.  Combined with the lack of refs therein, and...  Not good.  Some of the content itself might be useful, but we don't need it showing up in the article without sources at the very least.  I'll have a password to search the database I mentioned above later today, so we'll see what I can turn up.  --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 14:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * When does the time-limit on the afd run out? I've moved a citation needed to cover the entire paragraph relating to societal norms, it's a paragraph that reasons without citation, so looks very like original research to me, I might delete it if there are no more comments. BananaFiend (talk) 14:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's supposed to close in the next day or two. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 14:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Atheism
On another note, defining atheism as a religion, or stating that it could be defined under religion and religious is highly controversial (as pointed out by the editor in the article - it's a matter of some debate). To add it to this article is stretching NPOV. If it's a notable incident, by all means put it in wikipedia - or link to another page that has that information (I suspect the persecution of religious people in Russia is described somewhere).

Perhaps I should have opened a discussion before undoing as I did. In that case, consider it opened, if there is no response, I will remove it and link to a page containing the relevant information under a heading "atheistic fanaticism"

BananaFiend (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

True, it is controversial. A better separation would be "Theistic Fanatacism" and "Atheistic Fanaticism". Atheism is a broad term encompassing many types of nontheism, just as religion covers many different types of, well religions. Buddhism is considered a religion that does not facilitate the belief in a god or supernatural, but it is described as a religion. Therefore a Buddhist can be an atheist, but also be religious. Because of this, religious fanaticism carried out by atheists can exist.

A law stating there shall be no religion is still a law on religion, and thus a religious law. This does not make a state religious, however. What would make it religious would be a distinction against all other religions. Since the actions of the Soviet Union were carried out ritualistically upon a group of comrades where the only distinction was their embracing of religion, the acts themselves became religious in nature. The acts are similarly defined as fanatic in religious states. However, much of this classification is based upon the broad definitions of the words religious and religion themselves. In any case, the two are definitely related if they are not the same.

(75.162.231.88 (talk) 00:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC))


 * interesting stuff! "thus a religious law" is a dangerous statement in this context, the law is not religious, it deals with religion. A law on animals is not animalistic. The acts are not religious in nature, they simply deal with religion. If they were ritualistic (I don't know enough about them) then they were ritualistic, if they were carried out by atheists (not in the sense of buddhism, which the russian atheism wasn't) then they were not religious, but political, racial, discriminatory or downright evil, but not religious. If they were picking on homosexuals, these were not homosexual acts.


 * BTW thanks for the comments on buddhism, I have never thought of it like that before, so therefore religious acts can be carried out by atheists. However, the example was atheists in the sense of rejecting the supernatural at all. BananaFiend (talk) 19:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've removed the atheism section - this should be reformatted and put in a better section. BananaFiend (talk) 20:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Delete this article immediately!
We are not fanatics! We just love the savior!Jesus is the one true Savior (talk) 00:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC) -Not to mention it being unencyclopedic —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesus is the one true Savior (talk • contribs) 00:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a reasonable article, and it does cover all flavours of fanaticism. Plus, it was nominated for deletion two months ago, and consensus was to keep it. I doubt much has changed since then. —C.Fred (talk) 00:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Impact
I think that we need to see some other opinions. --Vojvodaeist 17:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Save this article
Oh dear God, could someone please save this article? It looks like shit and reads like an op-ed. I say delete the whole damn thing and start over from scratch. It's a shame that such an important subject should have such a terrible article. Rewrite it now, or you shall taste my wrath.

63.245.144.68 (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, while it contains Islam, there's no mention on Sikh Terrorism or Hindu fundamentalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by Satanoid (talk • contribs) 20:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

This article is maintained and persistently preserved by a fanatical christian: he redirects the definition to Catholics and Muslims, avoiding groups like creationist, kkk and christian terrorists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.155.220.97 (talk) 18:56, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Tagged the article
I agree with everyones' comments above. I have removed the section Conclusions as it could have been a paragraph in a 12th grader's essay. I have tagged the article as reading like an essay; I don't have time to work on this article and if I did I wouldn't know where to start. Hopefully someone can work on this. Ltwin (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Quality
I typically hesitate to condemn the quality of articles for which I can offer no concrete solutions, but I urge anyone with something to contribute in this area to do so--this article is well below the minimum standards of quality that I've seen elsewhere on this site.

I am not a religious expert, nor do I have time to do the research, but my general feeling when reading this article is that it spends way too much time on a single source and a single group (namely Christians), while failing to give a more global and comprehensive view of the concept of fanaticism. Fanaticism exists in all of the world's religions, without exception, and has probably existed within every society and during every time period of recorded human history. Reading this article would leave you with the distinct impression that this is primarily a Western problem, however, and more specifically, a Christian problem. Simply mentioning at the end of the article the fact that other religions can exhibit fanaticism is probably not enough--it looks as though the author(s) mean this to be only a casual observation, with the emphasis still strongly against Christianity.

I should note that at least this article doesn't go in the opposite direction--attacking only Islam--which is an easy trap to fall into given the tenuous relationship between Islamic Fundamentalism and the Western world in recent history. More often than not, in today's media, the word fanaticism has become almost synonomous with Muslim culture. Nevertheless, it's surprising to me that more time is not spent in this area, especially considering the considerable political, military and financial resources expended on these issues in the previous few decades.

Other things that might fit nicely into this article, in terms of external linking, might include:

- Religion versus medicine. Several cases of refusual of medical treatment of either children or consenting adults have appeared over the years, some quite recently. Can this be called fanaticism?

- Historical splits within a religion. Religious adherents, whenever sufficiently fanatic about their beliefs, have split from their mainstream counterparts (sometimes with great bloodshed). Are there historical accounts that could be considered fanaticism?

- Religion versus politics. A slippery slope for many discussion, to be sure, but given today's climate the question of fanaticism influencing politics is a very real one.

This is not, by the way, a call for others to do original research here, and hypothesizing about fanaticism can certainly send us down that road. I'm confident the sources are out there to talk more broadly about this subject though, but it will require individuals to keep an eye out for the information. I think that the proper use of this article, in my humble opinion, is to instruct on not only what things might be considered fanaticism, but how such behavior and philosophy has affected our world. --Bdmccray (talk) 23:20, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * 10 years later, and this article is still of terrible quality. It's not about religious fanaticism.  It's a few cut and pastes of examples that particular editors think fit under the label of religious fanatacism. --PluniaZ (talk) 23:14, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Islam and violence
In the 'Islam' section of the 'Popular Examples of Religious Fanaticism' part, "Further information: Islamism" should be changed to "See also: Islam and violence" for the sake of neutrality. --Spmoura (talk) 14:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

NPOV tag
User:Bdmccray makes some good points (above) regarding an earlier version of this article. Although the article still comes across to me as somewhat non-neutral (for example, do fanatics really twist what their opponents say, or do they merely not listen to their opponents?) if you disagree then feel free to just take the tag off... Thanks. Bwrs (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Myself, I'd like to know who this 'Lloyd Steffen' guy is and why he gets quoted as an authority on the subject, the top half of the article is basically his opinions.
 * Ion Zone (talk) 16:37, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks like a reliable source at least, . Dougweller (talk) 17:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

merging Fundamentalism to here?
On the Fundamentalism page, it is suggested that Fundamentalism be merged with Religious fanaticism. I have seen little discussion of this idea on either page, which concerns me somewhat, as I think it should be discussed before being done. Personally, I don't see the two as being the same topic, though they are connected.Marikafragen (talk) 18:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Since Religious fanaticism seems like Fundamentalism taken to an extreme, I think the merge notice should be posted on Religious fanaticism to imply that it should be merged INTO Fundamentalism, not the other way around. Personally I don't think "merge" is really the right word, maybe something more like "inject". Irrelevant though... Damian Pound (talk) 16:53, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Lloyd Steffen
I reinstated his material, which was deleted by. The act appeared to be simple vandalism. I have notified the IP of this thread.Pectoretalk 04:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Shafer and Steffen, stop selfpromoting using this topic. Apologetic christian fundamentalists

How does this article define 'Fanaticism'?
This article is terribly written, how do you even define 'fanaticism' here? I read about the inquisition, Constantine I and the crusades... + Osama Bin Laden thrown in as a footnote to make people think this wasn't written by a 2-bit scoundrel of a liberal humanist. - Somehow this equates to 'fanaticism' and yet never even attempting to broach the topic, what is 'religious fanaticism'? How does this answer that question?! Who is the 'Steffen' on the first line? Who is this 'Shafer' on the sixth line of the second title?

Why is there a blatant, (and ignorant), attack on Christianity reckoned here, yet a one line reckoning of Osama Bin Laden's Islam, followed by seven times that length of western humanists and infidels apologizing for the same? If we're having some dispassioned Wikipedia examination of a history of 'religious fanaticism' then why are Buddhists who burn themselves alive in the street not mentioned? WHy not hindu self-flagellants, or Confucian and Chinese pagans who used to bury wives alive with their husband when he died, or the Chinese royal court all jump off cliffs when the emperor died, or Japanese committing hari-kari for one reason or another, or beheading American POWs for insulting the Emperor, or indian hindus who used to force men's wives onto the funeral pyre?

Where are the explanations and differing views? This is nothing more than a pathetic and snide attack on Christian faith, without vaguely understanding what that is.

Is 'religious fanaticism' merely violently attacking and assaulting everybody who doesn't believe as you do? Is that the definition?

-Eli — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.30.23 (talk) 13:32, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Is not an atack to the christian faith, this article is wtitten by a fundamentalist/creationist/apologists to deflect the "religious fanatic", you can see it blames Chatolics and not protestants (fundamentalist/creationist/apologists). worst of all, this article is automated for undo/revert. Try adding any reference agains creationism and antiscience and this will be erased in 2 minutes. 177.236.13.17 (talk) 09:30, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Whitewashing of the abominable concept of jihad
Quote: "... markedly different from the peaceful message that jihad is meant to employ." This is the biggest bit of hogwash I have seen lately. Says who? Why do some people in the West insist on thinking that they understand the concept of jihad more than the jihadis themselves, who grew up with the term since childhood and know exactly what it means? The problem with jihadis is not their supposedly "distorted" interpretation of the concept of jihad, it's the Islamic concept of jihad itself. The "struggle" that is jihad is first and foremost to establish Islam as the dominant (and ideally, the only) religion on Earth, since Qur'an explicitly states that "The religion before Allah is Islam" (4:19). The Western do-gooders and disingenuous Islamic apologists try to hide behind vague Qur'anic references to "oppression" in order to deem that military jihad is only defensive. It's complete nonsense. For Muslims, "oppression" is both real oppression and the mere sovereignty of non-Muslims (especially so if they are polytheists). And that includes countries like France where numerous Muslim immigrants reside. The mere French state is "oppression" to them, which is why they don't integrate like non-Muslim immigrants do. The Qur'an contains numerous explicit calls to fight unbelievers without any mention of defense. And the historically undeniable fact is that the copious "jihads" which created the Islamic world as we know it today were completely unprovoked and aggressive in nature - against Egypt, Byzantium, Sassanian Iran, India, North African Berber kingdoms, Mediterranean islands. I am not going to change anything here, since it's futile anyway, but at least let the objective truth be stated. 81.218.33.195 (talk) 13:27, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Christian fanatism
Quote..."The start of Christian fanatic rule came with the Roman Emperor Constantine I as Catholicism. Ellens says, "When Christianity came to power in the empire of Constantine, it proceeded almost to viciously repress all non-Christians and all Christians who did not line up with official Orthodox ideology, policy, and practice". An example of Christians who didn't line up with Orthodox ideology is the Donatists, who "refused to accept repentant clergy who had formerly given way to apostasy when persecuted". Fanatic Christian activity, as Catholicism, continued into the Middle Ages with the Crusades."..unquote. Total nonsense. Whoever wrote this is trying to demonise Catholics by retrofitting history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.58.230.77 (talk) 13:10, 24 August 2018 (UTC)


 * the article is automated by som fundamenalist, deflecting to chatolics is an old trick from them, try adding some reference to Fundamentalists and creationists and this will be undo in less than 2 minutes. the same if you remove "Shafer" or "Steffen" . 177.236.13.17 (talk) 09:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Expansion on the topic
I've been poking around for a little while now looking for the pros and cons of religious fanaticism and was kinda surprised to find that this article, being about the same general topic, wouldn't have something already down. Obviously there would be a lot of hard points to put down though it wouldn't be impossible, especially as a lot of the good and bad things would be a pretty broad cover with a few unique to other religions.

I also noted that only Islam and Christianity have been covered, and none of the other religions (so far) I guess that could be because its far more difficult to find someone who has not got a bias towards a religion or atheism in general.

Whilst I don't have any immediate suggestions I would love to see some heavy expansion on the topic, things like the pros and cons, the different sects of religions or the different groups within a main religious body, and even a note of extremist or fanatical groups that are known historically for whatever reason. Food for thought overall but I think it would be nice to see.

--(Chaos)Jester (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)


 * It's unclear to me what positive aspects there would be to fanatism. There may be evolutionary reasons and it may serve some protectionist purposes.  On the other hand many examples exist of radical ideologies harming its own members (if not outsiders as well).  One could argue that some fanatic sects managed to improve human rights in some circumstances, perhaps.  The coverage is probably systemic bias: Abrahamic religions are the most known and documented in the west.  I agree that we could find sources about fanatism in other large world religions. — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:12, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Please remove article
Please don't defame ruling party of India 42.105.212.245 (talk) 11:09, 23 November 2022 (UTC)