Apostaty

Is Apostaty a sin in most religions and if so why is it consider a sin?

Because you're rejecting the One True Faith (tm) and therefore you're a heretic. Next question.

Unless you've got oaths to the Gods or the community that you've got to fulfill, leaving paganism is 100% kosher.

If you do have'em and quit anyway, the problem ain't apostasy: That's acceptable in itself. The problem is oath-breaking, which shows a lack of honor.

edited 29th Aug '11 2:28:05 PM by SavageHeathen

Seems like someone has just finished reading The God Delusion (I noticed because so have I, and the central themes are still fresh in memory). In that, it's somewhat bad etiquette to start three topics about more or less the same issue, without really giving any of them any starting thesis.

edited 29th Aug '11 2:31:16 PM by JethroQWalrustitty

Says the one who can't understand why people get upset over cheating in romantic relationships.

If this is in the US, there is freedom of religion. "Apostasy" is meaningless here. In a religiously-run state, I... wouldn't advise publicly claiming to be a religion not tolerated there, unless you had enough support to initiate an overthrow. It doesn't really matter in the US, though, so I don't really have a way of answering the question other than "who the fuck cares?"

Apostasy has nothing to do with the civil law. It's purely religious, and therefore Freedom of Religion has ipswitch to do with it.

edited 29th Aug '11 2:40:00 PM by Madrugada

Well, I would be surprised if religions didn't consider it a sin. But, functionally-speaking, it doesn't matter anyway, in a state where freedom of religion is the law. What are they going to do, strike you from the church list and go "neener neener neener" at you? Big fucking deal.

To be on topic a bit, I can't say I'mm that educated in all world religions, but the two biggest ones, Christianity and Islam, are opposed to apostasy, to varying degrees between and within eachother. My knowledge of hinduism and atheism is limited, but there are few core teachings to the religion anyway, I don't think they're that dogmatic. Hinduism, in essance, is more like Judaism in that the religion is the people are the religion. The Chinese traditions (Tao and Counfuscious) are philosophy with deities and demons sprinkled on by regional variety. The buddhism is clear on the subject, no harm no foul. If you don't want to follow buddha, you never chose the path and have nothing to give up, and that is not a crime. Sikhism is similarly lax, being a very flexible religion. Judaism on the other hand, is quite strict. The people are the religion. For the most part, even atheist jews still consider themsellves culturally jewish.

Inclined to go with the "betrayal" thing. People prefer static characters in their real life for the most part. Unless they view it as something "bad".

What I find interesting is the Apostaty is basically the universal gray sin.

Many people confuse apostasy with heresy and schism. One thing that religion has given us is the vocabulary to describe exactly in what way a person is displeasing God/the Gods/the Church.

Apostasy, in religion, is formal renunciation of that religion's beliefs. An individual declares that he or she is no longer a member of that church or sect.

Now, within modern Christianity, many Protestant denominations wouldn't consider you an apostate if you switched from, say, Methodism to Lutheranism. As far as they are concerned, all Christians are part of the same body. There are of course several different views on this.

A heretic on the other hand is one who claims to be a member of a particular religion while at the same time rejecting some of that religion's dogmas. For example, a Catholic who rejects the supremacy of the Pope in matters of doctrine would be a heretic. A Baptist who denies the Pope's supremacy is not a heretic.

Apostasy is a sin because it is a corruption of piety. A member of a religion has a duty to observe that religion's doctrine. Denunciation of your church's doctrine is therefore a sin because it reject that religion's revealed truths.

@warrior: Except not. Buddhism, one of the major religions, doesn't have a problem with it. The religion (in most interpretations) has very few restrictions towards laypeople, and even devout believers. The cultures where buddhism lives can be liberal or conservative, anf they may interpret buddhist teachings differently, but there's no rule against not following the teachings, or disbelieving in Buddha (who most of the time isn't considered a deity).

That, and in China, people kinda interchangably believe in taoism and confuscious based on their age and status in life, and most deities are just traditional mythology and animism.

This is not a nitpick. Those cover a significant protionf of the world's religious population.

Or he could be a schismatic, which means that while he agrees with the idea of Patriarchs/Pope or similar, and holds that they are authoritative, don't recognize the present claimant as legitimate, de jure or defacto.

There have been many different kinds of religions throughout human history. These days, most people are only familiar with a single kind of religion, a single shape out of the many vastly different shapes that religion can have.

Actually, they easily meet every criteria for religion. They're just tend to be practiced a lot differently than "western" religions.

Edit:Also, regional deities and demons come from Chinese folk religion, Toaism has a Pantheon of gods and goddess. Confucianism is a bit lighter on the metaphysical stuff except for the "Mandate of Heaven" that gets used ad nauseam throughout scripture.

It's more that both are ingrained into Chinese culture so by living in Chinese society one is more practicing them "simultaneously". Most of the Animistic deities probably come from the folk religion, where's Taoist deities would be like the Jade Emperor or Queen mother of the West

edited 30th Aug '11 11:22:25 PM by Justice4243

Apostaty is just an excuse to subjugate people from your group by giving them negative labels, its just bullshit.

edited 31st Aug '11 7:18:36 AM by vanthebaron

The reason I said this was because in many religion when you leave the true faith the faith that you left would consider that action a bad thing or a black thing.

However most that leave one faith usually joins another unless they join the freethinkers club. So when they convert to the new faith the new faith would see them as new members that left a false faith. So the people of the new faith would see it as a white thing so combine black and white you'll get gray and that's why it's a gray sin.

Also it will tricky in monotheistic-abrahamic religions for instance in Islam if a muslim converts to christianity or judaism. They'll go to hell when they die I can understand why they would say that about christianity cause the trinity is so close to idolatary. However I don't understand how judaism fits into that mold.

edited 2nd Sep '11 12:49:51 PM by warrior93

Apparently it’s not necessarily a Hell worthy sin in Islam, or at least, it’s really up to God.

http://kashifshahzada.com/2010/11/20/why-the-death-penalty-is-un-islamic/ (Do a search for Apostasy, it’ll show up)

However, despite not having any great Qur’an reasoning’s for punishing Apostasy , one of the Sunni Hadith’s declare death as the penalty, as does one of the Shia ones.

Though, this doesn’t mean every Muslim is ok with that way of thinking.

edited 3rd Sep '11 1:11:23 PM by Justice4243

Apostasy on wikipedia. in Islam is it's own article. Islam and Apostasy is a better article from WikiIslam.

Is wikiislam an atheist or christian site?

neither.

It isn't and are you sure?

Persecution of ex-Muslims show how much this happens despite the threats of negative consequences. Reifq Barry is one example where there was a threat of persecution.

edited 3rd Sep '11 12:20:14 PM by secretist

An article that explains the historical reasoning’s for a bit of scripture?

DO WANT!

edited 3rd Sep '11 1:13:37 PM by Justice4243