What is the root cause of religious fanaticism ?

Question

is it religion itself ?

or our mind ? or cultural background ?

Answer 1

Religion is a set of ethics designed to maintain the harmony of the society. It's not our identity. However we mistake religion for our identity. That is the root cause of fanatism. We fail to identify ourselves and others as human beings. This identity crisis induces ignorance of our duties towards mankind and expectations of respect towards ones own religion.

All the best...

:-)

Answer 2

I would say the root cause is when fallible human thinking takes a doctrine, no matter what the religion, and dogmatizes it. Every religion I have ever studied is replete with numerous examples of adherents who became true believers (reference Eric Hoffer's book "The True Believer" an excellent read on this topic), ascended to high religious or political power, and, having corrupted the doctrine with their personal brand of perverse dogma, ended up causing the deaths of many. Basically, alot of people confuse "religion" with faith: the two are not interchangeable. Religion is merely the outward ceremony and observance of an inward belief, trust, and commitment to whatever deity is worshipped. But when you throw our minds and cultural background into the mix as you so rightly suggested, the outcome can be deadly. In these strange times of "tolerance" and "acceptance" of everything, I wonder how much blood has been spilled because of the deadly mix of fanaticism, tolerance, and acceptance. It would seem to me the link between the three occurs when some refuse to tolerate and accept some religious or political ideaology that they become the victims of whatever garden-variety fanaticism is stirred up in the mind of the fanatic. I once read that in America there are over 1200 different belief systems being practiced and that a surprising number of violent crimes are committed in the name of any one of them. That said, I have a much greater appreciation of God's complaint against Israel when He said in the Book of Isaiah that they had more false gods than they had towns. Anyway, yours is a good question and I enjoyed offering my insight.

Answer 3

Neither. It is the influence of society. A part of society that feels threatened by another part eg. Indian Hindus uniting 'cos they feel the government is too Muslim wooing - a la Shiv Sena/VHP/BJP - or Muslims in the West uniting to stave off Christianity. Whenever any religion is the reason to build a bond or a parallel social structure, that is when the seeds of fanaticism are sown.

This then feeds on illiteracy, militant clerics/political leaders, poverty, and the illusion that your security depends on the security of the parallel society that you have created - which must be protected at ALL costs. That protection at ALL costs of a society formed on the basis of religion is fanaticism.

However, all fanaticism is not violent. Fanaticism is strong belief. The strongest fanatics go beyond all religions and they are Indian cricket fanatics. Some burn effigies, others damage players' properties, but most (which are generally unreported) just curse and get on with their lives.

Answer 4

It is the same as any other fanaticism such as sports teams, political groups, etc. You have your true mental nut jobs (think Waco) out there composing some of the fanatics. You also have those people who in the context of group dynamics tend to go to far (think 10 guys, no shirts, lots of beer, and winter). These could be protester types or the worship junkees. You have those who have had a very traumatic experience that shook them to the core and makes them extremely passionate for their cause (think MADD). They may have an element of something mental from the trauma but nothing clinical. Importantly though these types probably make up under 5% of the actual religious people but these are the ones that make the headlines and give the other 95% a negative rap.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Fanatacism comes from the arrogant and irrational belief that one's own religion contains all of the Truth and other religions contain only falsehoods. This belief takes root when a person reads their religion's scriptures as history rather than as myth. They come to believe that the symbols by which they are meant to be enlightened are facts rather than sign posts pointing to some eternal truth. Fanatics believe that since they are in posession of the Truth that they are special -- God's chosen and that all others are God's unchosen. They miss or ignore the commonalities between their faith and other people's faith and see only the differences and of course to be different is to be Wrong.

Answer 7

It's the people! People can be crazy just being themselves. Sometimes they over do things because thats the way they are, and they just happen to be promoting a certain religion or something.

For example:
If a person kills 5 people, some of society would just blow him off as a bad man. But if he killed 5 people (for the same reason), AND he just happened to be a priest, people would assume the whole religion is off it's rocker. Blame the individual, not the masses.

Answer 8

Absolutely cultural background

Answer 9

Ignorance

Answer 10

The root cause of any Fanaticism is Fanatics. It is a mental problem.