| An infidel (literally "unfaithful") is a person accused of disbelief in the central tenets one's own religion, such as members of another religion, or the irreligious.Infidel is an ecclesiastical term in Christianity around which the Church developed a body of theology that deals with the concept of infidelity, which makes a clear differentiation between those who were baptized and followed the teachings of the Church versus those who are outside the faith. The term infidel was used by Christians to describe those perceived as the enemies of Christianity.
After the ancient world, the concept of otherness, an exclusionary notion of the outside by societies with more or less coherent cultural boundaries, became associated with the development of the monotheistic and prophetic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (cf. pagan).In modern literature, the term infidel includes in its scope atheists, polytheists, animists, heathens and pagans.A willingness to identify other religious people as infidels corresponds to preference for orthodoxy over pluralism. |
