Talk:Ethnic religion

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kwats37.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Article progress

I recognize that this article is barely even at "Start class" stage. This is still no reason for blanking such basic material as we have. --dab (𒁳) 15:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You know full well that the edit you link to is merely a reversal of your own giant revert. Reverting to an old version of the article is not helping. The article is much shorter now, but not because it has "deteriorated". We've removed a lot of uncited stuff, leaving only verifiable information. What's left has been arranged in a logical, encyclopedic form. If you would like to add to the current article, go right ahead. But please stop undoing other people's work. --Alynna (talk) 12:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there a citation for the statement that one usage is synonymous with ethnoreligious group? Discussion there suggests a lack of definition. Peter jackson (talk) 11:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tagged that with "citation needed". --Alynna (talk) 12:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I consider this vandalism.[1] Some valid material has been added, but at the price of unacceptable ideological distortion.

The claim that

"Many scholars reject the term "ethnic religion", pointing out that all religious practices, no matter their philosophical origin, are ethnic and culturally bound in nature"

is beyond the pale. The sources given for this are

Timothy Fitzgerald. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2000.

Craig R. Prentiss. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity. New York: NYU Press, 2003. ISBN 081476701X

Tomoko Masuzawa. The Invention of World Religions, or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN 0226509885

I would prefer one source over three, but instead with a page number and an actual quote. Do these authors explicitly "reject the term ethnic religion"? Otherwise their inclusion as "reference" is fraudulent. Obviously all religion is "culturally bound", religion being part of culture in the first place, and the rhetoric juxtaposition of "ethnic and culturally bound" is among the cheapest tricks in the book (allowing you to cite authors that say "religion is culturally bound" as a "reference" for the statement that "all religion is ethnic and culturally bound").

For example, the only match for "ethnic religion" I get from Prentiss (2003) is this, "Judaism is not an ethnic religion". Far from rejecting the term, the author says that he does not want to include Judaism in its scope. Citing this author in support of "Many scholars reject the term 'ethnic religion'" is disingenious to say the least. I want a secondary source that explicitly admits that "many scholars", or a "significant number" of experts, are unhappy with the term. Maybe, just maybe, it has occurred to you that not all culture is ethnic? Or perhaps we want to redirect ethnicity to culture?

I am not willing to tolerate this kind of tactics, as it destroys all possibility to WP:AGF from the outset. --dab (𒁳) 16:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Removal of VAST amounts of conent by Omo Obatalá

Omo Obatalá deleted much (IMO highly-explicative content onEthnic religion. I am reversing or reverting those edits that because I see no reason (but possibly a religious agenda) in his removing that. MaynardClark (talk) 22:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

What highly-explicative content did I remove? You reverted my edit where I included Judaism as one of the mainstream religions that absorbed certain traditional religions of the nearby region.

Also, I would like to point out that:

1. there is no religious agenda;
2. I am male. Omo Obatalá ^(talk) 22:50, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Editorial declarations that some religion is NOT an ethnic religion

I'm concerned here that someone could delete or add or move around some content (valuable content) which s/he thinks isn't culturally bounded (hosted) by an ethnic population (when scholarship and agreement among scholars is otherwise/different. One example is Omo Obatalá's recent deletion of Judaism (as an 'ethnic religions'), where it has long been understood, even by Jews, as being 'their own religion' (which makes it fit the definition developed by the article). There could be political reasons for doing so, perhaps even the safety of the Jews themselves, but even St. Paul's description noun 'Ioudaismos' (translated at 'the Jews' religion' in the King James Version), a topic of much commentary and controversy, ought not to be overlooked. Please see the Wikipedia article on Ioudaios.

That article begins: Ioudaios (wikt:Ιουδαίος)^[a] is the Greek ethnonym in classical and biblical literature commonly translated in English as "Jew" or "Judean". In its various contexts, the word has also been translated as "Judahites", "people of the region of Judah/Judea" and "leaders of Judea".

The choice of translation is the subject of frequent scholarly debate, given its central importance to passages in the Bible (both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament) as well as other writers such as Josephus and Philo. Translation as "Jews" is seen to infer connotations as to the religious beliefs of the people, whereas translation as "Judeans" infers an identity primarily defined by the territory of Judea.

A related translation debate refers to the terms ἰουδαίζω (verb), literally translated as Judaizing, and Ἰουδαισμός (noun), commonly translated as Judaism.

Omo Obatal describes himself as a specialist in 'the Yoruba/Lukumi culture' - "To research and preserve the traditions of the Yoruba/Lukumi culture through educational, social service and research programs." MaynardClark (talk) 22:52, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

One CAN believe in the revelatory content, and even the UNIQUE revelatory content, of what is termed here and by scholars to be an ethnic religion. But I'm referring not merely to the replacement of [Judaism]] in the article revision (IMO without scholarly merit), but (also) in Omo's wholesale deletion (without discussion on the talk page, which deletions I would not support). MaynardClark (talk) 22:56, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I will keep my response short and simple:

1) Was the content I removed regarding Judaism sourced and properly cited?

2) Is it not true that Judaism is now a mainstream religion with adherents of various and multiple ethnicities?

3) I am not the same person as this person; and I find it disturbing how you would link my Wikipedia registered username to someone's Twitter username; I ask kindly that you remove that. Omo Obatalá ^(talk) 23:00, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

References

Judaism

Judaism is an obvious ethnic religion to any Jew, either religious or secular. Jews consider themselves their own ethnic group, because they are. Daviddwd (talk) 06:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Ethnic religion

One wonders why the Animist ethnic religion of Pakistans Kalash people is not listed ? Is there a reason ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.252.242.217 (talk) 18:25, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Hinduism

@FactCheck105: Just because a religion has spread beyond the initial ethnic group does not mean it is not an ethnic religion per the definition used by some academics. For example, Judaism is an ethnic religion that spans various locations and ethnicities. More importantly, most sources that address the universal vs ethnic categorization list Hinduism as an ethnic religions, such as [2] and [3]. Besides the fact that you disagree, what sources say that this classification is wrong? --FyzixFighter (talk) 01:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@FyzixFighter and FactCheck105: Just a follow up as I see similar changes by 202.88.250.243 and 202.88.250.241. I think part of the challenge comes from Hinduism being a foreign construct that has been used and weaponized by certain individuals and groups to offer political and religious equivalence to what it means to be "Indian." Clearly, this is a disputed idea that Hinduism is an ethnic religion, as even discussed in Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 1998). But I think the additional challenge is the academic use of the term, which is not well nuanced in this article. This is also a problem for any other "ethnicity," be it Jews or Han Chinese or whatever else is listed on the page. A few proposed solutions:

1. Remove Hinduism from the list (which is selective, anyhow)
2. Remove the ethnic labels from the lists (as it highlights the above problem)
3. Merge Ethnic religion with Indigenous religion (see Discussion), because "ethnicity" is a problematic term in itself that is not properly dealt with here.

--Caorongjin (talk) 08:50, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean when you say ethnicity is a problematic term? TheFinalMigration (talk) 02:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@TheFinalMigration: as stated in the ethnic group page: "The nature of ethnicity is still debated by scholars. 'Primordialists' view ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since the distant past. Others view ethnic groups as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society."

—Caorongjin 💬 07:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Caorongjin: both of those defintions work on this page, in addition there is no real point to stop using very common words because of a dispute of nature. TheFinalMigration (talk) 22:38, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@TheFinalMigration: in this specific page, the problem as I have raised above is related to the list of ethnic religions around Hinduism. The edit warring is related to "Hinduism of the Indians," when "Indian" as a distinct people (not ethnicity) is highly contested and politicised; Indians encompass a multiplicity of ethnicities and associated castes, a large number of which reject association with Hinduism. —Caorongjin 💬 07:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Caorongjin: In that case you are entirely correct Hinduism is not an ethnic religion and Indian is not an ethnicity, they should not be characterized as such.TheFinalMigration (talk) 09:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

But the point is that, despite the dispute of Indian ethnicity, the term "ethnic religion" is used academically by scholars to describe Hinduism (which is why there is edit warring on the page). The granularity of "ethnicity" is different from that of "ethnic religion," the latter being primarily defined as NOT universal/proselytizing religions. This is why using "ethnic" as a descriptor for religion is problematic. —Caorongjin 💬 09:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Hindi page of ethnic religion.

Hindi page of ethnic religion. -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

References