Talk:Political religion/Archive 1

message: I was surprised to read some of the things in this article: that it occurs only in dictatorships, that it disallows dissent, that in all cases it is atheistic, etc.  I would have thought that the phrase refers to ritual expressions of patriotism of the sort practiced in all countries, such as singing the national anthem at public gatherings, displaying the flag on patriotic holidays, retelling exaggerated, one-sided, and oversimplified mythologized tales of great leaders or great battles in the past, and in the USA, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, presidential inauguration ceremonies, and the like.  Since you use the term civic religion only to refer to dogmatic forms practiced only in dictatorships, what name would you use instead of civic religion to refer to the sort of thing I thought was meant? Michael Hardy 02:01, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly would be that extreme POV? While it is true that definitions of that term dont seem to exist yet (see my post in Talk:Civic religion), the term itself exists and is used, and thus can and should be defined. In other words, this article seems to give an interesting explanation - and a name - for a situation that does exist in reality. We must therefore discuss and (hopefully)agree on two things:
* is the situation presented and explained in this article true - i.e. do such things really occur in reality?
* is the term civic religion the right term for this?
--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:42, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: I think this would solve our problems: a short (few words at best) definiotion for civic and civil religions, allowing us to compare them. After we agree on those short definitions we can expand the article with examples and illustrations and stuff, but first we must find a short definition that nobody can accuse of being POVed in any way. Another solution - following the discussion on civil, perhaps it can be merged with cult of personality? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:47, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Looks good for me - is short and easy to understand. Let's see if others have anything to add though? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:16, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: I thought "civic religion" was something other than what is described here.

message: This is a good article, even if it needs a lot more work, but it still bugs me that two articles that are so different from each other have names so similar that people are likely to forget which is which.  I think civil religion is a very fitting name for that article, so this one ought to be changed.  This one seems to be about just one kind of civil religion.  A crude suggestion would be to call this one extremist civil religion.  But there must be a better word than "extremist".  So my tentative position is: figure out what word that should be, and move this article there.   Michael Hardy 02:12, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Titles of two articles

message: Is somebody intending to provide a succinct definition of the term "civic religion" within this article? As it stands the article is currently little more than a list of facts about some aspects of totalitarian governments, with no central thesis. Also, I can't see the necessity for the numerous references to christianity.--Gene_poole 06:03, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification required

message: There are some serious aspects of this article that need to be worked on, at least partly reflecting its originally overly Christian viewpoint, but it seems to me the first order of business is renaming.  The current name is clearly an accident of misunderstanding, and there is no real difference between the words civil religion and civic religion as ordinarily defined.  But there is a real difference between North Korean Juche and French Marianneism.  I've made some searches through google and the academic literature, and can't find a standard terminology under which to explain the religious aspect of something like Juche.  So, unless someone else can find an accepted term (and I hope that they can), we'll have to come up with something ourselves.  
I've suggested Statist religion, just because it is simple and as unambigous as I could think of.  Other suggestions were remaining at Civic religion or merging with Civil religion(my objections to these two stated above), Adoration of the state, Sovereignty cult, State cult, or Extremist civil religion.  Other suggestions welcome.
Why don't we vote on naming and have it done with?  
I'll start (subject to change on better suggestion or arguement):
*Statist religion --Pharos 16:08, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Renaming Vote

message: There is apparently some confusion between Fascism and Atheism in the current version of the article.  Most civic religions aren't atheist at all. 19:11, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atheism or Fascism?