What is the proper general term for someone who is bent on imposing their religious beliefs on those who do not share them? Like the Taliban, Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the Spanish Conquistadores, ...
@notroot@JorgeStolfi fundamentalists care about the root of their beliefs, to avoid as much as possible straying from the one true belief, they are not necessarily interrested in converting others to their belief, and if they are, they might be peaceful about it.
@tshirtman@JorgeStolfi It depends on the religion. If that religion is either Christianity or Islam, then it does necessarily involve converting others... all the more so if the believer is a Fundie.
In particular, it's only really those 2 religions that have an explicit edict to go out and convert... to proselytize or dawah. The more Fundie the believer, the more important it will be to fulfill that edict.
It's the "Religions of the Book" that can have Fundies. That's not many -- basically just the 3 Abrahamic religions. Of those 3, only one -- Judaism -- does not instruct its followers to seek converts.
So, since the OP topic is conversion, it's really about these 2 religions. Or cults, who also often seek converts.
Maybe "Fundamentalist" is too broad a term. I think there's not a particular term for what the OP is asking, and that "Fundie Christian" or "Fundie Muslim" is about as close as we're gonna get without coining a new term.
What I am referring to is /not/ attempts to convert or proselitize. The people in question may accept nominally the idea of religious freedom and the fact that many others do not share their religious beliefs and cannot be converted; but want to impose some of those beliefs on everybody, anyway. Like banning abortion, divorce, or women education; mandating prayer in schools, etc.
@JorgeStolfi@tshirtman Ahh... "Theocrats" maybe? Definitely some overlap with the Fundies, there, but theocrats want a religious government, or to use government power to impose their religious views on everyone else.
I think the Hindu Nationalists would fall under this umbrella. So would Jewish Fundies (ie, Ultra-Orthodox) in Israel, for example mandating gender separation in public transportation, etc.
@louisrcouture@JorgeStolfi terrorism is a modus operandi, a way to achieve a result, it doesn’t depend on the specific result you want, some terrorists are religious, but not all, in history there have been political terrorists of various ideas, nationalists, anarchists, communists, etc, that were not necessarily religious.
Terrorism is using terror to achieve an objective, usually by random and spectacular acts of violences, or the threat of them that make as many people as possible afraid.
@JorgeStolfi i think we usually abuse "fundamentalists <denomination>" or "radical <denomination>" for that, but i think "theocrats" would be more proper. Though we usually qualify something as "theocratic" but i’ve never seen a person being called a theocrat (heh, speller doesn’t even recognize the word).
@alcinoe@JorgeStolfi I wonder if it’s too specific for the request, although the examples mostly fit with the idea of a state (or quasi state), using laws to impose these ideas, I guess people using blunt force or other forms of coercion, wouldn’t necessary fit the word ?
Equivalents of "proselyte" are also tempting (including "jihadist"), but proselytism doesn’t necessarily imply coercion, legal or otherwise, so i think it’s worse.
"Theocrat" indeed seems to be used with that meaning too. But I understand that it has a more extreme meaning: a theocrat wants the government to be exercised by priests, or officially submitted to some church. Or is a member of such a government.
The Taliban and the Revolutionary Guard in Iran are theocratic. But the Catholics who made divorce illegal in some Catholic-majority countries are not generally "theocrats" - they don't want gov by priests or the Church.
@alcinoe@JorgeStolfi these are just fascist, some of them are also theocrats, as it is very compatible, but they care more about imposing power on others for their benefit than about religion.
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