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Alternative to "schizoid" without the connotations of obsolete or pseudoscientific psychological theories

English Language & Usage Asked on June 4, 2021

I’m looking for a word to use to describe the idea that a certain religion is fundamentally not one religion but a conglomeration of two different things, i.e., that it fundamentally has never had a unified or coherent character. "Fractured" seems OK, but seems too weak, and seems to imply that there was something that was originally unified and coherent but then split apart. "Schizoid" seems closer to the meaning I want, e.g., in the King Crimson song "21st century schizoid man." However, it seems to be bound up with lots of obsolete, pseudoscientific, or pop-cultural ideas about mental illness.

Sample sentence:

Religion X is fundamentally schizoid in character, having begun its existence as an amalgam of different teachings that focused on different subjects of interest.

Is there a better word to express this idea, one that doesn’t have the undesired pseudoscientific connotations and doesn’t suggest a splitting of something that was originally a unified whole? Roget’s thesaurus has an entry for "schism," which seems to consist of a lot words for splitting something initially unified. A word like "amalgam" doesn’t seem quite like what I want, since, e.g., a dental amalgam functions really well at its job, and is a desirable thing. I’m happy with either a noun or an adjective.

2 Answers

There is a religion-specific term.

syncretism [noun] ...

the combination of different forms of belief or practice ...

syncretistic [adjective] ...

  • For centuries, Catholicism was Brazil’s official religion, but the Church tolerated a popular form of syncretism born when enslaved Africans disguised their deities as Christian saints. [Alex Cuadros, Harper's magazine, 2020]

[Merriam-Webster]

Correct answer by Edwin Ashworth on June 4, 2021

You can use "conflation" to describe what you mean. From this definition:

The process or result of fusing items into one entity; fusion; amalgamation.

This term also often has a negative connotation as indicated here:

Conflation is the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, opinions, etc., into one, often in error.

(emphasis mine)

So your sentence could be written as:

Religion X is fundamentally a conflation of different teachings that focused on different subjects of interest.

Answered by cigien on June 4, 2021

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