Talk:Demonization

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Needs description of religious demonization, particularly Hebrews and Christians denouncing pagan deities.

Got that added now. This is just a start though. We need more people working on this article.

[edit] Demonizing the demonizers

Real good article, but the tone seems to demonize the demonizers!! I would start out by saying that all human beings have both good and evil characteristics, while demons are just evil. Also, the need to demonize is shown in warfare where you must make your enemy evil in order to happily kill him.

[edit] Arguably?

"Arguably, Jews have historically been the subject of demonization more than any other group." Arguably? This is clearly an editorial comment and has no citation. While many in western cultures may see evidence of this, I'm sure that muslims would feel that they have been the result of demonization as well. In addition, the number of Jews that died in the Nazi holocaust is dwarfed by the systematic persecution, marginalization, and slaughter of indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africa. The Nazi holocaust is also dwarfed by the actions of the Japanese during WWII where tens of millions of Asians were killed.

The author of these comments seems to have a bias that is firmly rooted in western culture. Vargob 12:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Part of the horror of the Holocaust was the specific targeting of an "ethnic" group for extinction. The Japanese Empire's killings were not calculated to destroy any particular group, but rather simply to establish their total control over the conquered people(s); not the same thing. --Orange Mike 15:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Buddha and Vishnu

"for instance, some strains of Hinduism considered the Buddha an incarnation of Vishnu sent to deceive people."

Undoing this statement due to uncited POV.Nambo (talk) 11:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The proper response to this is to demand a citation, not to remove the material entirely. I will restore it with a "cite needed" tag. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

No you are completely wrong here. See what Jimbo himself has stated

"I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons[1]."

Anyways, a fringe view should not be given undue weight in the article. Hinduism != polytheism, and a view that is uncommon should not be given credence over the established view, of a large section worshipping the Buddha as an avatar.Bakaman 17:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore I dont actually see the real link to the surrounding text of the "other religions" section. It seems out of place, and not really meeting the standards of "demonization". Buddha was an indian man, who became an Indian deity. He is not foreign at all.Bakaman 17:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how stating that there was a belief that the Buddha had taught incorrect doctrine necessary is relevant to demonization. Relata refero (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)