Bronze-level articleApostasy

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Apostasy is a term generally employed to describe the formal renunciation of one's religion — especially if the motive is deemed unworthy by one's co-religionists. Apostasy is almost universally condemned as far worse than simply being an unbeliever, as one has had the One True Way and abandoned it. In some Islamic states, apostasy is a capital offense.

Apostasy should not be confused with heresy, which is essentially keeping with the same religion, but altering the interpretation of it rather than flat out abandoning it or turning to a different faith; nor with schism, which is a rejection of the power of the established authorities of a religion, without necessarily disagreeing with them on matters of belief.

The term can also be loosely applied to any belief system, including political beliefs.

Contents

[edit] Countries where apostasy is illegal

  • Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty)
  • Iran – illegal (death penalty)
  • Malaysia – illegal (for ethnic Malays) in 5 of 13 states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)
  • Mauritania – illegal (death penalty)
  • Nigeria – illegal in 12 of 37 states (death penalty)
  • Pakistan – illegal (death penalty since 2007)
  • Qatar – illegal (death penalty)
  • Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty)
  • Somalia – illegal (death penalty)
  • Sudan – illegal (death penalty)
  • Syria – possibly illegal
  • United Arab Emirates – illegal (death penalty)
  • Yemen – illegal (death penalty)
  • The United St...nah, we're kidding. For now.


[edit] New religious movements and cults

Adherents are usually free to leave new religious movements or cults, in part because they do not have the power to prevent this.

Some scholars, like the prominent American religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, while acknowledging the diversity in new religious movements and their adherents, make sweeping negative generalizations about the reliability of the testimonies of people who leave new religious movements and criticize them.[1] This false generalization is probably due to their experiences and observations during the great American cult wars during the 1970s and 1980s.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. For example: "Ex-members, even those with righteous complaints, tend to reconstruct their experiences — ambiguous situations at worst — into totally negative encounters. They tend to demonize the leaders and turn the members into zombielike followers. Harmless comments are recast into sinister threats, group jargon into conspirational fantasies." in Finding Enlightenment : Ramtha's School of Ancient Wisdom (1998), ISBN 1-885223-61-7, Beyond Words Publishing, p. 164

[edit] External links

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