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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mike18xx (talk | contribs) at 22:14, 29 January 2006 (Take it up over at the Wiki entry of "kafir", which states it is, Farhansher. Oh, and you're an idiot too! (Isn't insulting each other in summaries just pantsloads of fun?)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

An "infidel" is an unbeliever concerning central tenets of a religion, often used in a pejorative sense to describe those who explicitly deny them (especially regarding asserted aspects of the religion's deity). More generally, an infidel is one who doubts or rejects a particular (usually heirarchical) doctrine, system, or principle.

• In Christianity, "infidel" is an archaism now supplanted variously by "atheist", "agnostic", "heathen" or "pagan"; the word survives in English as a general term, and as a common translation of the Islamic "kafir".
• In Islam, an Arabic term romanized as "kafir" is used for non-Muslims.

Other terms arising from the same concept, but seldom rendered to "infidel" in English:

• In Hinduism, "nastik" describes one who does not recognize the authority of the Vedas, and "mleccha", someone who does not follow the Hindu way of living.
• In Judaism, "Goyim" and "Gentile" denote non-Jews and non-Israelites, respectively.

(See Infidel (computer game) for the 1983 computer text adventure from Infocom.)

• Disambiguation pages