Talk:heretic

Hi I just noticed an omission in the basic definition - 'Someone who disobeys or disbelieves fundamental tenets of a religion they claim to belong to.'

This is my suggested correction - 'Someone who disobeys or disbelieves fundamental tenets of a religion or belief system they claim to belong to.'

One can be a heretic in many fields - 'history', 'politics', 'science', even 'car repair' yet these are not religions. I'm not a common user of the dictionary so I didn't want to make the correction without an account. - Robert Lucien Howe --86.133.42.126 08:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

original meaning
Heretic did not originally mean one who was Heterodox, nor one who violated a tenet of their faith or even believed contrary to the faith they professed. For instance, in the Acts of the Apostles, the High Priest Caiaphas was of the sect (hairesis) of the Sadducees Acts 5:17. The Pharisees also were called a sect (haireseos) Acts 15:5; also Paul was called the ringleader of the sect (haireseos) of the Nazarenes Acts 24:5.

There was a somewhat equally large following among the Pharisees and Sadducees, and so neither of them could be argued as the more Orthodox group. Simply because some of the early Christians, such as the Nazarenes, Evionites, Arians, etc. were called heretics, doesnt mean they were necessarily heterodox, or those who broke with the norm. History is written by the conquerors, and in this case, we only know of these sects via the writing of their opponents, those who eventually won the Orthodoxy. Jakob Liam Metz

Precision of definition?
The current definition leads me to believe heretic means basically the same thing as hypocrite. Is this right? I admit I'm not totally up on the definitions, nor have I checked with a paper dictionary, but if that's not right then the definition here should be refined.

Caleb Wakeman 24.58.56.153 00:16, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Note the important qualification "in the opinion of others". A heretic sincerely believes that his beliefs are true beliefs of the religion he holds himself to be part of. DCDuring TALK 00:35, 1 June 2013 (UTC)