This thread is to discuss Massimo Pigliucci's JUne 2003 Rationally Speaking column entitled It's the fundamentalism, stupid!

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N. 38, June 2003

It's the fundamentalism, stupid!

At the cost of oversimplifying an overly complex situation, I propose that the major threat to modern democracies is not terrorism per se, but ideological fundamentalism, particularly of a religious nature. Political fundamentalism has now essentially disappeared, at least for now, with Fidel Castro as one of the few pathetic remnants, destined to soon disappear naturally into oblivion, like all mortals.

No,the real problem is religious fundamentalism, and in particular the one rooted in the twin monotheistic branches of Christianity and Islam (with Judaism ranking as a distant third only because it is numerically much less represented worldwide). This is not, of course, because every (or even the majority) of fundamentalist Christians, Muslims and Jews are willing to blow themselves into pieces to achieve a political goal, or because they are all bent toward the destruction of everything and everyone that disagrees with them. Far from it. But the fact remains that fundamentalism of any sort, by definition a form of extremism and therefore ill-suited to live within a democratic and pluralistic society, easily breeds intolerance, self-righteousness, and even more extremes, of which the world has experienced the consequences all too clearly during the past few years.

Let us not make the mistake of dismissing the problem as simply a modern incarnation of the old (and certainly true) observation that political power exploits religious feelings, and that therefore the problem is with the greed for power and with people like Saddam Hussein (or George Bush) who want power and find it easy to manipulate the masses using religious appeals. There surely is part of that going on too, but George W. Bush, I think, really believes that God is on his side, and so do Tony Blair, Hussein, Bin Laden, and a host of other characters that are concurring in making a mess of the just-born 21st century.

The extremes to which Islamic fundamentalists (including Palestinians and their leader Arafat, currently as pathetic as, but much more dangerous than, Castro) can go in the name of their version of the universal truth are well known and need not be belabored here. But the New York Times has recently reported some comments by "mainstream" politicians in the US and Israel that should be chilling to the bone of every rational and truly compassionate human being. For example, Benyamin Elon, a minister with the current Israeli government, has been quoted as referring to cardinal principles of the Palestinian-Israeli accord such as the idea of land-for-piece as "cliches" to be overcome, and has essentially called for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. As an exponent of the latter as pointed out, can we imagine what would happen if somebody made the same casual suggestion about moving Jews out of their unhappy land?

On this side of the Atlantic things aren't much better. The extremes of the Christian right are now documented in books upon books, but a recent addition is a declaration by Gary Bauer, of American Values, who said (again quoted in the NYT) that conservative Christians must accept the Abrahamic Covenant as described in Genesis, by which God personally promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and that's that. Tom DeLay (the House majority leader) has been quoted in the same newspaper as referring to the West Bank using the biblical names of Judea and Samaria!

It is simply astounding that a species that has conquered space, split the atom, figured out the essentials of where it came from evolutionarily, and has invented democracy, is currently in the hands of a bunch of nut cases who still believe in the literal reading of a book written by ignoramuses several thousand years ago! How can we vote into office, support, and take seriously a political class that on the one hand uses computers and airplanes, but on the other firmly believes in the actual existence of heaven and hell, concepts obviously invented by primitive human beings who slaughtered each other with swords and arrows? How much longer are we going to leave the future of the world in the hands of deluded minds who are so sure of their own viewpoint that they constantly affirm God is on their side (on all of their sides, of course)?

I keep hearing of the existence of a "silent majority" of moderately religious people in Western democracies and even among Muslims and Jews, who apparently have a distaste for the outrages of the nut cases that run them. Where is this silent majority? Isn't it time to wake up and kick these guys out of office (or, if not elected, out of Mosques, Churches, and Synagogues)? The recent worldwide anti-war demonstrations may have been a signal that people are in fact waking up. But let's keep the alarm clock ringing loud, or Bush, Bin Laden & co. will plunge us all back into the Dark Ages, real soon. And we call them "dark" for reasons other than the fact that electricity hadn't been invented yet.

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Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 7/19/03 3:13 pm

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Gary Bauer, of American Values, who said (again quoted in the NYT) that conservative Christians must accept the Abrahamic Covenant as described in Genesis, by which God personally promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and that's that.

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Good for him. All this modernizing, apologizing, and sanitizing of religion hides how empty it really is. The Bible really does tell you to stone your kids if they talk back... if your morality tells you that's wrong, don't change the damned religion, ditch it.

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Tom DeLay (the House majority leader) has been quoted in the same newspaper as referring to the West Bank using the biblical names of Judea and Samaria!

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Good for him too. Someone educated enough to have a point of view.

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It is simply astounding that a species that has conquered space, split the atom, figured out the essentials of where it came from evolutionarily,

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we know a bit about our physical origin. We've only just scratched the surface of real knowledge of the deeper evolutionary source of "who we are", and that knowledge hasn't gotten very far from the labs yet. In my opinion, what hope there is, lies just here; as we learn more of the truth about our mental evolution, perhaps we can start to use that knowledge for Good. Probably not though.

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How much longer are we going to leave the future of the world in the hands of deluded minds who are so sure of their own viewpoint that they constantly affirm God is on their side (on all of their sides, of course)?

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For a long, long time. It's in our genes.

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And we call them "dark" for reasons other than the fact that electricity hadn't been invented yet.

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or nuclear winter, either. This round could be much worse.

Has anyone else read this article?

Chris

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,for there you have been, and there you will always want to be."  -- Leonardo da Vinci

Yeah...I read it. Can't get enough of MP....

I am going to play devils advocate here. I will be explicit in my intention of doing so, and that it is in the spirit of learning (my own learning that is ). And to clarify

You won't get much of a fire-down from me, as I actually agree with several of your points, whether or not they originate in a Devil's Advocacy. Pigliucci's statements seem to me to be too strong to have come from someone with a real in-depth understanding of the intricacy of the political conflicts he seems to think are entirely religiously motivated, or of the religious rhetoric used in justifying these conflicts. Since I myself am almost completely ignorant of any form of theology, this is just supposition. However, on this front, I tend to see religion as a symptom, rather than an illness. Peoples' inability to think rationally, more than any of their specific beliefs, are to blame for the failure of democracy evident in the United States today, just as they most likely are elsewhere.

Which came first? The fundamentalism or the dictatorship? Do people support a government because they believe in God, or do t

Here is what I gather about Jesus as viewed through the eyes of an American Christian nationalist:

Jesus will come to rule a socialist paradise where everyone's needs are provided for by government, which acts as a "Fathernanny state". He will rise to power in the aftermath of a global catastrophe His angels were largely responsible for, and will be taken seriously due to his ability to destroy a beastly ruler whose actions He had predicted for 1900 years and did nothing to prevent. He will rule with an iron rod, destroying not only the bodies of those who oppose him or are indifferent to him, but their souls as well in a great holocaust in the astral plane. He will destroy every last Muslim or Jew who does not convert. Freedom of religion will be abolished. Sexuality, literature and entertainment will be tightly controlled. He will be the most powerful emperor in the planet's history, with an all-seeing eye and an iron rod that can be resisted by no nation or coalition on earth. His global empire will survive a thousand years due to the meticulous genocides preceeding his rise to power. AND he loves us!




On a related note, help me out with this: Why is it Conservatively Correct to say "Homosexuals poison the community, God will crush America if it accepts gays like Sodom did" but not to say "Militarism and nationalist jingoism poisons the community, God will crush America if it practices unbridled military dominance and cuts corners in ethics"? Which is closer to reality?

Aren't we being judged for Hiroshima, for death squads in South America, for supporting tyrants and psychopaths in the Middle East and then disowning them when convenient? Our enemies see, remember and pass on all the information about our history that we keep sweeping away. How many times can you say "You liberals just want to put America down with all that death squad nonsense" before you can be judged actively and willfully ignorant? Is the temporary triumph of making a "liberal" feel like a rotten person worth the lack of real dialogue that reduces every debate to a partisan exercise in subliminal anchoring and crafted epithets?

Liberals were right about segregation and they were right about women's rights, and about the futility of Viet Nam. But the wisdom that comes from the Left (of course the REAL left is peaceful and sincere, as are REAL Christians) is discarded simply because "nonviolence gets you killed". What is forgotten by all sides is how Martin Luther King succeeded in death where many generals have failed in their deaths. Sometimes speaking the truth first, even if it gets you killed, is the path which brings down the walls of tyranny more quickly than organized or disorganized violence.

There is no reason why the real compassion and intuition of the "feminine" tribes (hippies, grandmothers, artists, intellectuals or anyone who got labeled a "wuss" in high school) cannot be useful in helping to guide our military and sacrificial systems. In fact, without women's input and that of intuitives and freethinkers, I think a system goes dangerously off course, instinctively tangling itself in the requirements of hte dominance game.

Politicians must appear confident, while making absolutely no mistakes. They rely on their interest groups for feedback, and then they project the most dominant-sounding self they can imagine, or that their marketing experts imagine. "Do I wear the earth tones?" "No, they'll think you're a wuss. You want to look businesslike, but folksy." Where is the room for real charisma or real leadership ability? You only have to look the part, not actually understand the complexities of today's political-social-media system. If you look lousy on television, you're out of the race. Abraham Lincoln would have lost if television were the dominant medium. He would have been "Lanky, stiff, and uncomfortable in his skin."

And the saddest thing: America really is a great nation. It just forgot how to be itself.

Okay, I'll chime in here:

I am a Christian and quite a fervent one. I am not, strictly speaking a fundamentalist, though I shall doubtless appear to be one from many of the POV's I've seen here.

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But the fact remains that fundamentalism of any sort, by definition a form of extremism and therefore ill-suited to live within a democratic and pluralistic society, easily breeds intolerance, self-righteousness, and even more extremes, of which the world has experienced the consequences all too clearly during the past few years.

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That's a pretty fundamentalist POV. And quite extreme. And intolerant. And, since he makes no appeal to any over-arching standard, the very essence of SELF-righteouness.

The fact of the matter is everyone is a fundamentalist about what he knows best. And an extremist, and intolerant. To be perfectly blunt, those words are being used rather stupidly, as though everyone agrees with the moral baggage he is subtlely and tacitly applying to them.

In fact, all those things need to be morally contextualized before we can say that they are bad, good, or somewhere in between.

I am very and happily intolerant of certain things. It is what I am or am not intolerant of that makes the moral case one way or the other.

Does it not occur to you ... that by purging all sacred images, references, and words from our public life, you are leaving us with nothing but a cold temple presided over by the Goddess of Reason

I moved this from the Rationally Speaking forum...thought it belonged here.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P