Religious offenses are actions that are considered to violate religious sensibilities and arouse negative emotions in people with strong religious beliefs. Traditionally, there are three unique types of acts that are considered to be religious offenses:
- Heresy (wrong choice) means questioning or doubting dogmatic established beliefs.
- Blasphemy (evil-speaking) is the act of insulting or showing contempt for a religious deity.
- Apostasy (revolt or renunciation) implies the abandonment of a prescribed religious duty (i.e. disloyalty, sedition or defection)
Individuals in any given religious community may be sensitive to different things in different measures, particularly in relation to topics such as sexuality, infancy, society, and warfare. Religious offense can be caused deliberately or motivated by religious intolerance, especially between specific religious beliefs regarding "sacred truth". However, every religion is essentially a set of beliefs conveyed from generation to generation which are, by religious definition, held to be immutable truths by that religion's believers or followers. Anything that tends to weaken or break that chain of authoritative continuity is likely to be deemed offensive and, in some jurisdictions, severely punishable.
