Talk:Magic and religion

message: I have removed the following:
:In no case can either Wicca, or NeoPaganism be correctly identified with Satanism, which owes its structure and memes primarily to inversions of monotheistic texts.
as it is entirely POV in regards to Satanism. ArtsyF3ck
I remnoved the following sentence from the article:
:Examples of the suppression of magical belief and practice range from the eradication of neighboring polytheistic tribes by the early Hebrews
There are three reasons that I removed this: (A) the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) does not state that practioners of magic must be exterminated, anywhere. It does say that certain pagan tribes, which it described as heinously immoral, should be wiped out....but...  (B) Although the Tanakh starts out by saying that the Israelites waged a war which wipied out certain pagan tribes, the later books of this same Bible admit that these tribes never were wiped out.  According to the Bible, the extermination never occured. (C) Modern historical studies deny that the Israelites came into the land of Canaan as a large army and wiped out all these tribes.  So the claim has no support. RK
:Although the Tanakh starts out by saying that the Israelites waged a war which wipied out certain pagan tribes, the later books of this same Bible admit that these tribes never were wiped out.  According to the Bible, the extermination never occured.  What you seem to be saying is that according to the Bible, the extermination both did and did not occur.  That is, the larger work "the Tanakh" includes both claims.  Is there any reason to prefer your interpretation (that the "earlier" parts of the Bible assert exterminations which did not happen, and "later" ones correct this) over the obvious contrary (that "earlier" parts of the Bible correctly describe exterminations which "later" authors wished to deny ever happened)?  --FOo
::The Torah (first five books of the Bible) uses rhetorical devices such as exagerration on many subjects, not just on this one. For example, consider the obvious exageration that some 600,000 adult males (implying a total population of about 2 million Israelites) left Egypt and entered the land of Canaan. We know now that this massive exodus could not have happened; the population of Canaan at this time was about 50,000, and didn't greatly increase during this time. (A smaller exodus, however, certainly could have taken place, and I believe did take place.)  Most historians now agree that the Hebrew Bible is not very good history, and probably was never intended for this purpose (i.e. serious history as we know it today) to begin with. RK 
::Your suggestion that later authors wish to deny certain facts is incorrect. Later biblical authors just reported something a bit more accurate.  When you live among the pagan tribes of Canaan, it is hard to claim that they don't exist, because they were all wiped out!  We cannot make historical claims based on a few sentences in the Torah (i.e. that the Israelites exterminated certain native pagan tribes of Canaan) and ignore the rest of the Bible (which admits that the extermination didn't occur), and ignore the other archaelogical evidence. Check out the Anchor Bible commentary (Doubleday), or any other critical historical studies of these books; they will blow your mind. By the way, this is not to say that everything in the Bible is false, either. See The Bible and history for more on this topic. RK
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"However this view is an ethnocentric one". This statement is totally POV.
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I was very pleased to see the redirect to Magic (paranormal) removed, and I don't have any strong objections to the modifications that are now being made to Magic (religion), at least not at this time.  Rather, I just did a cut and paste of a previous version of this article that seemed to capture the essence of what the Magic (religion) article was before the redirect was established to Magic (paranormal).  However, I must say that magical beliefs and practices are part and parcel of monotheistic religions, notwithstanding the fact that monotheism often associates magical practices with "evildoers."  On this note, any extended discussion of black magic in the context of monotheism should probably be moved to the article on Witchcraft. -- NetEsq 17:35 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)
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More kudos!  Renaming the article from Magic (religion) to Magic and religion put this article into its proper context, i.e., the anthropology of religion. -- NetEsq 01:00 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
The section called Related religious practices is a bit flaky, especially in the phony analysis of how "ritual" differs.  "Related" according to whom? certainly not religious people.  Mkmcconn 05:20, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: This article reads like an essay.  Heck, even if sources were found, this entire article should have "in the minds of some modern pagans" or the like prefacing it.  Now, don't get me wrong, normally beliefs, correct or false, are worthy of being reported on- hence all the fun articles on Norse mythology and certain modern religions of dubious legitimacy.  But some very strong statements are simply asserted here as fact.  The assumption seems to be that there's "true" magic, and then evil religion stamping it out (so too were shamans and adepts devolved into priests and a priestly caste.).  Plus, apparently monotheism is locked into some kind of intractable battle with magic (maaaaaybe you can say that about Abrahamic religions, but "monotheism" is way too wide a net).
I tried to talk about magic in the context of all religions, not merely paganism as the old article was.  Sadly, I don't know so much about many Eastern religions; if anyone can put in more details on Buddhism and Shinto and the like, that'd be great. SnowFire 18:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Rewrite 

message: I don't see what was gained by having lots of tiny paragraphs; the intent of the original grouping was to trace "standard" sacrifice through history, then trace human sacrifice and attitudes.  That's lost by making each stand alone.
Anyway, I worked in the comments on Asatru and the like, but I left one comment out:
:In Nigeria human sacrifice with the belief of good fortune and wealth is return is a form of common black magick.
First off, the grammar is off here, as this sentence doesn't entirely make sense (I assume you mean "returned", but even then, it isn't well-written).  Secondly, this is a really strong claim- human sacrifice is common?  If this is true, then at least link to another Wikipedia article on it, even if you can't source it.  Strong claims require sources.
(By the way, I do have some sources on the cite request for the moloch, but sadly, the moloch article has suffered some linkrot.  I'll see if I can dig up the names of the historians who commented that, but really, it's not exactly a leap if you accept the moloch theory in the first place, which is the disputed part.)  SnowFire 16:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I might be missing something, but how does "Magic and religion" imply that there is such a thing as a "magic religion"? Fuzzypeg☻ 06:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  83.141.103.162's edit. 

message: Much of this article reads like an essay.  There is a good deal of valuable information so I have refrained from tagging with the Essay-like banner but the tone needs to be formalized and make less use of weasel-word constructions.
The last section "Magic and the Abrahamic Religions" negates its own purpose by drawing special attention to these three religions for their supposedly noteworthy rejections of witchcraft, then closes by saying that their attitude is neither remarkable nor uncommon in comparison to other religions.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reaster (talk • contribs) 04:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, somewhat essayish. I instead used . The article is biased towards a modern sociological agnostic or atheistic view onto religion and magic, but abrahamite religions have their own view on what constitute magic, much more like using supernatural evil demons to achieve an alleged good, while the abrahamite "righteous" restrict themselves to repel supernatural evil demons. Kind of. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 14:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style and Content 

message: I removed much of the 'information' from that section as nonsourced, and mostly inaccurate.  However, there certainly is information that could be added reflecting the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam's relationship with Magic and magical practices.  See Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition: Hermetic mysticism spread into Islam, and is responsible in large part for the Muslim relationship with certain magical rituals.  Judaism is against magic per se, but many Kabbalistic texts (see Raziel HaMalach) seem to be spellbooks of a sort.  Obviously, Augustine's anti-hermetic position seems to have carried the day in the Catholic Church - but not entirely. There is a good deal of subtlety to the Catholic history vis a vis Magic and mysticism. I will try to return to this. But any help will be appreciated. --Kabir Talat (talk) 16:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abrahamic Religion and Magic 

message: Substituted at 22:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Well this article needs a lot of work doing to it. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the older talk threads above here, so thanks to anyone contributing in the past. I think it needs a much greater focus on the supposed functional differences between magic and religion in broad terms, which I am willing to start building into this and to also include a load more references to current archaeological and anthropological publications discussing these. It also needs a lot more work on semantics discussing what we even mean, at a very fundamental level, when we use the words 'magic' and 'religion' and the vagaries of this discussion. Any and all references/resources that build into these two main topics to supplement my own would be welcome. Zakhx150 (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: New work proposals

message: The main problem with this article is that it is asserting a particular point of view, that magic and religion are not really distinct. Most of the comments then exacerbate this problem, by asserting a contrary POV, that there is a distinct difference between religion and magic. This question of the relationship between religion and magic is an old one, for example:
Relation between Magic and Religion
Crawford H. Toy
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol. 20 (1899), pp. 327-331
Published by: American Oriental Society
In which the author states:
"Three views of the relation between religion and magic have been and are widely held: that magic is a degraded form of religion; that it is the parent of religion; and that the two are independent, mutually unrelated systems."
My suggestion is that the article focus on the literature which explores the relationship between religion and magic, instead of trying to argue what that relationship is. The sections should explore the question as treated by various disciplines and religious traditions (and any other approaches which have considered the question). This could be: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy, to suggest some approaches.
Right now the article is really an argument, answered by counterarguments in the Talk section.Detrespiedras (talk) 22:20, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV problem 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: At present, this article is in a pretty rough state. It is very patchy, very slanted, and just generally shabby. Very few editors have worked on it in the last few years. The Magic (paranormal) article is in better shape. I would like to propose that we therefore merge this article into "Magic (paranormal)". One objection that might be raised is that the two articles contain different information and different focuses: "Magic and religion" looks at the relationship between these two different categories, while "Magic (paranormal)" just looks at magic as a category. Such an understanding would however be misplaced, rooted in a lack of familiarity with the more recent academic literature in the study of magic. As it developed in early Western society, the very category of "magic" was just a junkyard for activities that Christian authorities didn't think fitted into their category of (true, Christian) "religion". Thus, they were practicing "religion" while others—whether Jews, Muslims, pagans, or even other Christian sects—were practicing "magic". The concept of "magic" has thus always existed in opposition to "religion" (and later to "science") and the "Magic (paranormal)" article discusses this relationship between the two categories in depth. For this reason, the very purpose of this "Magic and religion" article is purely to duplicate information already included in "Magic (paranormal)". It is therefore utterly superfluous. 
Having looked at the Wikipedia:Proposed merger page, I concluded that this proposal was probably a "Category Two", one that warranted a discussion at the Talk Page but might not be controversial enough for a full-on formal discussion. For that reason I am posting this message here, and will ping editors who have edited this article of its Talk Page in recent months to see if they had any input (User:Editor2020; User:Imaginatorium; User:Detrespiedras). If there is no obvious opposition then I shall go ahead with the merger. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:43, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Belated, but I disagree with this, and disagree with some of your removals (not all though, good job removing some of the cruft that's piled up).  It's the same reason as in the move review.  The "academic" approach that sees the two as the same is not the same as what 90% of popular culture sees it as.  It's two related but separate topics, and the more academicy magic is really religion in disguise and vice versa approach belongs in a separate article than the vanilla impression of Magic that involves, like, Harry Potter and street psychics and nothing to do with religion.  SnowFire (talk) 06:04, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger with [[Magic (paranormal)]] 

message: A discussion is taking place as to whether the article :Superstitions in Muslim societies is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Superstitions in Muslim societies until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Bookku (talk) 05:26, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nomination of [[:Superstitions in Muslim societies]] for deletion 

message: The term magico-religious was just redirected to this page with 85 inbound links. There does not appear to be any reference to this topic. - Darker Dreams (talk) 02:54, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Of the links for "magico-religious" the section on History_of_magic#Emotionalist approach appears to have some cited information on the origins and a definition of the term. At the least some concepts to follow up on looking for citations. - Darker Dreams (talk) 08:16, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magico-Religious 

message: @Skyerise, @Darker Dreams: Howdy. Tacky idea time. What do you think about a list of magic gods here? There are magic gods. As in gods of magic. :Category:Magic gods. Haven't studied all the cat members for appropriateness/relevance. Thinking ones with magic as their main thing. —Alalch E. 19:32, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure listing gods of magic here would be a good idea. Maybe adding the magic gods category to the "see also" links, possibly a section discussing the idea of magic within religion with individuals like Odin and the Morrigan called out as examples, but I think just a list would overwhelm the article and the various aspects it should cover. - Darker Dreams (talk) 20:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: We've got "Magic and Abrahamic religion", okay, sure, but what about the non-Abrahamic religions, such as polytheistic ones, some of which conspicuously involve literal magic gods? At least a chunky section for the other religions. This is pro-Abrahamic bias! —Alalch E. 22:34, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm more worried about the Abrahamic lore scattered unlabeled through other sections like "the names of God." I do think magic and religion from other religions/cultures needs brought in, I'm not sure what the best avenue for that is. I also think there needs to be a more developed historical/anthropological conversation on the western magic/ superstition/ religion/ rationalism construct. - Darker Dreams (talk) 23:22, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magic godzzz