No difference between Christian and Muslim Fundamentalists.

hfallada wrote: »

I think the different between Muslim and Christian Fundamentalists is that Christian Fundamentalists will kill their own people eg Americans killing other Americans . . .

The overwhelming majority of victims of Islamist fundamentalist violence are themselves Muslims.

laurinjames wrote: »

What exactly is a fundamentalist these days, in any subject ?

Good question.

The word is a modern one; it dates only from the 1920s. (And, despite often being characterised as “medieval” or in similar terms, the phenomenon seems to be a distinctively modern one; it requires a modern mindset to be a fundamentalist.)

Originally it referred to a Christian movement or trend, involving insistence on certain selected tenets as being absolutely true, and treating that as a hallmark of orthodoxy. Note that these religious fundamentalists weren’t violent, and they weren’t necessarily oppressive, or even politicised. But within a generation, the term had extended beyond Christianity - people spoke of fundamentalist Islam or fundamentalist Hinduism and, initially, these references too carried no implications of violence. And by the 1960s it had transcended religion altogether, especially in US English. Webster’s Dictionary 1961 edition defines a “fundamentalist” as an extreme conservative, especially one who “attacks any deviation from certain doctrines and practices he considers essential (as to a religious, political, or educational system)”. “Fundamentalist” could also mean an advocate of a back-to-basics approach; in 1973 the Economist used the term to describe share analysts who “look at a company's product, balance sheet, record and management before deciding whether the stock market has put the right value on the shares”.

The association of fundamentalism with violence in the Western mind probably dates from the late 1970s/early 1980s, when the Iranian revolution was perceived to be (a) fundamentalist, and (b) violent. Western media, and particularly the US media, tended to assume that it was violent because it was fundamentalist; the possibility that the violence of the revolution might be a reaction to the western-led systematic oppression and exploitation of Iran for decades past was regarded as a fringe left position, especially after the Tehran embassy crisis occurred. And the simplistic linking of fundamentalism and violence continues to this day; it is comforting to think that the persistent sh1tstorm that is the Middle East is all down to their lust for religious purity and not at all to our lust for oil, and the wealth, power and prosperity it brings us.

I’d almost take the opposing view. It seems to me that if you’re sufficiently convinced of the truth of some idea to be prepared to kill people, and to risk death yourself, in reliance on that idea, you can reasonably be called a “fundamentalist” adherent of that particular idea. I just don’t see the sense in using that label if the idea is a religious notion, but not if it’s a secular notion.

And of course the truth us that it’s very often both. Back in post #23 we have a picture of a lass holding a rifle and a bible, and standing in front of an American flag. There’s three iconic symbols in that image; two are secular and the religious one is much the least prominent. This strikes me as an image of a woman whose faith is not in Jesus Christ or in the enlightenment values of the American republic, but in the gun. She looks to violence, the forcible exercise of power, to take and defend what she regards as hers, and so to give her the existential security she craves, and she makes both religious and secular claims in support of her faith. The scary element in this picture, obviously, is not the bible. I’m very happy to describe this as an image depicting a fundamentalist, but the notion that she’s only a fundamentalist because she’s holding a bible would strike me as just silly.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’d almost take the opposing view. It seems to me that if you’re sufficiently convinced of the truth of some idea to be prepared to kill people, and to risk death yourself, in reliance on that idea, you can reasonably be called a “fundamentalist” adherent of that particular idea. I just don’t see the sense in using that label if the idea is a religious notion, but not if it’s a secular notion.

And of course the truth us that it’s very often both. Back in post #23 we have a picture of a lass holding a rifle and a bible, and standing in front of an American flag. There’s three iconic symbols in that image; two are secular and the religious one is much the least prominent. This strikes me as an image of a woman whose faith is not in Jesus Christ or in the enlightenment values of the American republic, but in the gun. She looks to violence, the forcible exercise of power, to take and defend what she regards as hers, and so to give her the existential security she craves, and she makes both religious and secular claims in support of her faith. The scary element in this picture, obviously, is not the bible. I’m very happy to describe this as an image depicting a fundamentalist, but the notion that she’s only a fundamentalist because she’s holding a bible would strike me as just silly.

For the US. conservative right, america and the bible go together. They view the real america as a christian nation. (regardless of what the governenment says) The bible and the flag are not seperate, they are the same.

The state of american culture is actually pretty worrying. Jingoism on the scale seen in parts of america is almost indistinguishable from the kinds of nationalism seen in fascist spain, germany, italy etc... All it takes is the wrong confluence of events and we could see a breakup of the union into democratic, and theocratic/fascistic states

Akrasia wrote: »

For the US. conservative right, america and the bible go together. They view the real america as a christian nation. (regardless of what the governenment says) The bible and the flag are not seperate, they are the same.

I have to point out that there were plenty of atheist and secular conservatives supporting the Bushista invasion of Iraq, for example. Are you suggesting that they weren't fundamentalist because they weren't religious, or that their fundamentalism was somehow of a different and less damaging quality? Because, you know, the lethality of the bombs they dropped did not depend on whether the principle evoked by those who dropped them were religious or non-religious.

People who put their faith in power, wealth and violence may claim a religious motivation for doing so, but they may equally claim a non-religions motive for doing so, and historical examples abound. You can have Stalinists organising nationwide famines who invoke largely secular ideals to justify what they do, Islamist suicide bombers who invoke largely religious ideals, or Americans dropping atom bombs on undefended civilian targets and then oing on to spend spending billions of dollars to acquire the capacity to destroy all life on the planet who invoke a combination of religions and secular ideals for doing so. I'll take some persuading that those who cite religious principles to justify their violence are less harmful, less threatening or less "fundamentalist" than those who cite non-religious principles.

fisgon wrote: »

Absolutely disagree, and that's the point that you are missing.

A Holy Book may not literally kill people, but they have been used for all kinds of barbarity and insanity throughout history. IS are motivated by sections of their holy book to murder people, and American Christians are also motivated by their book to try drag human knowledge and education back to the dark ages.

Oh, nonsense.

If if we accept for the purposes of argument your rather one-dimensional view of the role of religion in history, what you ‘re essentially saying is that a bible is worrying, because bibles lead people to pick up assault rifles. But in the same breath you say that you are more worried by the bible in this picture than by the assault rifle because, apparently, the risk that someone might resort to assault rifles is a greater threat than someone actually resorting to an assault rifle. That’s like saying that driving cars is a bigger problem than crashing them, that owning electrical appliances is worse than electrocuting yourself with them, and that drinking a beer is a bigger problem than dying of alcoholic poisoning.

Alternatives to religion are never going to get much traction unless they are at least minimally rational. This doesn’t even come close.