Heresy

Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. By extension, opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative."

Contemporary heresy

Today, heresy can be without a religious context as the holding of ideas that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge. Religion is not a necessary component of the term's definition. http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=heresy For example, Charles Darwin of natural selection fame was considered a heretic of his day. Other people considered heretics were Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, and many others. The revisionist paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, who published his findings as The Dinosaur Heresies, jokingly treated the mainstream view of dinosaurs as the dogma of a religion.

Related Topics:
Charles Darwin - Natural selection - Isaac Newton - Albert Einstein - Leonardo da Vinci - Copernicus - Paleontologist - Robert T. Bakker - Dogma

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The term heresy is also used as an ideological pigeonhole for contemporary writers because by definition heresy depends on contrasts with an established orthodoxy. For example, the tongue-in-cheek contemporary usage of heresy, such as to categorize a "Wall Street heresy" or a "Republican heresy", are metaphors which invariably retain a subtext that links orthodoxies in geology or biology or any other field to the dogmas of religion (although religion may not necessarily appear as an explicit component). Heresy, in these expanded metaphoric senses, is intended to allude to both the difference between the person's views and the mainstream, and the boldness of such a person in propounding these views, despite their unpopularity or even forceful opposition.

Related Topics:
Pigeonhole - Orthodoxy - Metaphor

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