Talk:Hellenistic religion

message: Someone keeps re-editing 'magic' back into the text. Its highly inappropriate: Theurgy was not considered magic and is more precicely translated as 'Liturgy', Oracles were sacred and religious, not magical and superstitious. Magic was condemned by the religious and civic authorities. The use of the term magic in the case of Hellenistic religion is a result of sloppy application and poor research.
I've returned the text as per the discussion below.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.197 (talk) 12:09, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Theurgy was practiced widely, and these too, were a continuation from earlier times.
Theurgy entered into the Hellenistic religion rather late, and seems to have been limited only to those within Neoplatonism. Even then, additional research shows that is was highly debated and controversial among Neoplatonic philosophers. (see Neoplatonism by R.T. Wallis) The statement really should be removed. --151.201.146.212 (talk) 16:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the heads-up. The word "theurgy" was added by User:62.25.109.197 on the 15 July. He/she replaced the much more reasonable "superstition and magic." Singinglemon (talk) 17:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was also wondering, the article seems to want to imply there was a (almost universal) Hellenistic religion, rather than a variety of distinct religions that were Hellenistic, and pretty much independent of the Hellenic religion. The Roman religion became Hellenistic, but was very different than the actual Hellenic religion. Greco-Buddhism was a merging of the Hellenic and Buddhist religions, and even more different than the Roman was to the Hellenic religion. The article starts out with the line that there are "various systems of beliefs and practices", but then goes on to talk about those individual religions monolithically. --151.201.146.212 (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're quite right, this page is limited in scope as it currently stands - the textbooks cited tend to describe what was going on in Greece itself rather than further afield - and they only cover the pre-Roman era. If you want to added in some more referenced sections on the topics you mentioned, then you're more than welcome, this article needs it. Singinglemon (talk) 19:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad you agree. Unfortunately, I have walked down the road of putting a lot of time and effort into editing a poorly written article before. After taking the time to verifying sources, making corrections, deletions, rewrites, and attempting to create an encyclopedic article with a NPOV, I then had the whole article reverted to the original and article guarded by a group who believed in protecting the romanticized notions and false representations. I'm glad the theurgy statement was corrected, but I'm sure once certain groups find out the correction was made it will become a turf battle. I'm impressed there are people who take Wikipedia seriously. I just don't have the patience, fortitude, or time to fight. --151.201.146.212 (talk) 11:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

text: "Superstition and magic" has its own problems, as the pair is largely a value judgment, not just a description.  I think the page on Superstition is an example of the problems in imagining these words to be neutral descriptors. ABS (talk) 18:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theurgy? 

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