My interest in the topic was triggered none other by 9/11. A specific book that I purchased then was Mark Juergensmeyer’s “Terror in the Mind of God” (2000), for the reason that, in Juergensmeyer’s words:
This book is about religious terrorism. It is about public acts of violence … for which religion has provided the motivation, the justification, the organization, and the world view. … I do want to understand them and their world views well enough to know how they and their supporters can morally justify what they have done.With the rise of religious fundamentalism, terrorism, debate on Evolution vs. Creationism/ Intelligent Design, and closer to home is religious indoctrination in educational institution(s), I got Richard Dawkins’ “God Delusion” (2006) and Franz Magnis-Suseno’s “Menalar Tuhan” (2006). These books were one way or another also triggered by similar vein of inquiry as Juergenmeyer’s.
Mark Juergensmeyer, “Terror in the Mind of God”, 2000: 7, my emphasis.
My own stand in this debate is: How much does religion really matter? Or do moral and humanism that matter more? This diagram explains my take:
One can have zero to maximum amount of religious belief, but we’ll get fundamentalists when one’s belief in relation to the wider context of moral/ humanism is in the low range (the grey area in diagram).
2 comments:
well religious ppl always seem to disown fellow religionists whenever they do something bad.
Example: "altho terrorist X says he did this crime in God's name, he's clearly not Catholic/Muslim etc".
but i kind of side with dawkins when he points out that credulity is an asset in most religions, and therefore the credulous ppl they attract are more likely to not question dubious orders quite as much...
I know some devout people who are not credulous. Perhaps those who are are more likely to become fundamentalists :)
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