Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Fear in Fundamentalism

I find most fundamentalists of any religion to be frightening. It's not that I really am afraid of their edicts and warnings, but rather I find their ideology frightening, because they truly believe they know what is best for everyone, and they seem to believe it is their life calling to force it on the rest of us. Many of us believe quite strongly in our faith of choice. I believe devoutly in Scripture and I am pretty literal in my interpretation, but . . . I do not believe I should force anyone to believe as I do, and I absolutely do not believe in any way, shape or form, that religious beliefs should be politically implemented. I believe the Bible, the entire Bible, so I am neither Christian nor Jew. What I do understand about politics from Scripture, however is; elected democracies and theocratic republics do not have license to use G~D's punishments to implement their laws in the name of their god. Therefore, war is no more divinely inspired than when Rome ran rampant. Capital punishment is simply murder when the laws are regulated by man. Actually, Holy Scripture makes no reference to a prison system, other than those belonging to Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. But nothing for the people of G~D to be incarcerating combatants. I can't comment on the Koran, because I don't live by it, but if the Muslim leaders are promising virgins and other lustful rewards for jihad, then that just doesn't sound much like holy edicts. That sounds like self-focused fundamentalism. I spent an hour of my life listening to an evangelical fundamentalist rant about needing conservative judges and all this American immorality, and the fundamentalist Muslims. First, I thought to myself, this person has the same description of America as the Jihadists. I kept that thought to myself and asked them if they would like to have to live with my interpretation of Scripture? They said absolutely not, but of course, didn't see the correlation with what they were proposing, politically. Unfortunately, there is no point to be made with fundamentalists of any religion. It is their way or we are all simply wrong, and require correction.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. New Testament

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