How dangerous are religious extremist and did they create this hateful climate we live in today ?

Question

Religious fundamentalists are united by fear. Whether they are Christian, Muslim, or Jew, fear is the common denominator. They fear change, modernization and loss of influence. They fear that the young will abandon the churches, mosques and synagogues for physical and material gratification. They fear the influence of mass media and its ability to subvert the young with song, dance, fashion, alcohol, drugs, sex and freedom. They especially fear education if it undermines the teachings of their religion. They fear a future they can’t control, or even comprehend.

Perhaps it’s not surprising to realize that it is fear that also connects the myriad of nationalist, separatist and independence movements who also engage in political violence. Although experts, academics and analysts hypothesize about a multitude of causal effects that lead to violence and terrorism, fear is the underlying.

Answer 1

I agree completely. Religion will be driving force behind the obliteration of civilization.The whole "end of days" thing is a scary thing is believed by far too many. You only need a few religious "believers" who think they will be fulfilling God's word making that very thing come true. The term "God fearing" always seems strange. But it will be God and fear that will hurry us toward our demise.

Answer 2

In the end, global economic trends are far more dangerous than religious extremism and terrorism, but of course our government makes sure we don't think that way. They keep us focused on how "dangerous" these groups of people are. 3,000 people dying on 9/11 was definitely a lot, but looking at it another way, that's one-one hundred thousandth of our population. How much did that affect the way we all live? Compared to say, a major economic depression? An energy crisis? Widespread job obsolescence and runaway globalization?

Young people tend to be liberal because young adulthood is the height of individual independence. Liberals tend to embrace the things that would really force some change out of our disturbing patterns. They don't fear this change because they're young enough to adapt to it. Why do people become more conservative when they get older? Because they're smarter? Or because they actually are more dependent on the resources they've accumulated so that they can keep their belongings and feed their children?

I see a lot of politically conservative people who, just like liberal people, agree that we're on a bad path, but the messed up thing is that they're convinced that the cause of these bad paths are "immorality," "liberalism," and "terrorism."

Answer 3

You are correct. Being religious should be a state of mind and not mixed with politics. The two should be completely separate. The brainwashing technical aspects and ideology teached practiced by several religious leaders have created the climate of terror we are living in today. And this is in the name of God. Also remember that all religions, what ever one it is have been created by men, to control men. The Bible was written and re-written by men. The Q'ran was written and re-written by men and the Torah was also hand made. Religion was created to satisfy the spirituality of mankind. Look at religious sectes. They are great exemples of charismatic religious leaders brainwashing some people in great needs of self-spirituality into believing that their relition is the ONLY one that will give them HEAVEN. There followers cannot assume their own spirituality without receiving directives. I don't say that all religions are bad but most of them are based on FEAR. Think about it and you might see my point of view.

Answer 4

Islam has little to do with fear--except the fear it works to create in the minds of the infidel!
The Quran preaches the forced subjugation of the world to Allah and to Islam. Anyone who resists is to be killed and their property confiscated. It's really just about that simple. Unfortunately neither our government nor the media have the guts to tell the American people the facts about this phoney religion and the sub-humans who practice it. The "religion of peace" nonsense spouted by everyone from CNN to George Bush does a tremendous disservice to American citizens who should be warned and educated about the danger we face. Instead we are deliberately misled, while Islam is actually given a preferential status over Christianity in schools and government facilities across the country. It is a ludicrous result of stupidity, political correctness and "dhimmitude" which will eventually catch up to us.

Answer 5

Frank Zappa got it in 1981...26 YEARS AGO

Dumb all over
(Zappa)
From the album You are what you is, 1981


Whoever we are
Wherever we're from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behavior is dumb
And if our chances
Expect to improve
It's gonna take a lot more
Than tryin' to remove
The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face
Of the planet altogether

They call it THE EARTH
Which is a dumb kinda name
But they named it right
'Cause we behave the same...
*We are dumb all over*
Dumb all over,
Yes we are
Dumb all over,
Near 'n far
Dumb all over,
Black 'n white
People, we is not wrapped tight

Nurds on the left
Nurds on the right
Religous fanatics
On the air every night
Sayin' the Bible
Tells the story
Makes the details
Sound real gory
'Bout what to do
If the geeks over there
Don't believe in the book
We got over here

You can't run a race
Without no feet
'N pretty soon
There won't be no street
For dummies to jog on
Or doggies to dog on
Religous fanatics
Can make it be all gone
(I mean it won't blow up
'N disappear
It'll just look ugly
For a thousand years...)

You can't run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great
While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighboring state


TO ARMS! TO ARMS!
Hooray! That's great
Two legs ain't bad
Unless there's a crate
They ship the parts
To mama in
For souvenirs: two ears *(Get Down!)*
Not his, not hers, *(but what the hey?)*
The Good Book says:
*("It gotta be that way!")*
But their book says:
*"REVENGE THE CRUSADES...
With whips 'n chains
'N hand grenades..."*
TWO ARMS? TWO ARMS?
Have another and another
Our God says:
*"There ain't no other!"*
Our God says
*"It's all okay!"*
Our God says
*"This is the way!"*

It says in the book:
*"Burn 'n destroy...*
*'N repent, 'n redeem*
*'N revenge, 'n deploy*
*'N rumble thee forth*
*To the land of the unbelieving scum on
the other side*
*'Cause they don't go for what's in the
book*
*'N that makes 'em BAD*
*So verily we must choppeth them up*
*And stompeth them down*
*Or rent a nice French bomb*
*To poof them out of existance
*While leaving their real estate just where
we need it*
*To use again*
*For temples in which to praise
OUR GOD*
*("Cause he can really take care of
business!")*

And when his humble TV servant
With humble white hair
And humble glasses
And a nice brown suit
And maybe a blond wife who takes
phone calls
Tells us our God says
It's okay to do this stuff
Then we gotta do it,
'Cause if we don't do it,
We ain't gwine up to *hebbin!*
(Depending on which book you're using
at the time...Can't use theirs... it don't work
...it's all lies...Gotta use mine...)
Ain't that right?
That's what they say
Every night...
Every day...
Hey, we can't really be dumb
If we're just following *God's Orders*
Hey, let's get serious...
God knows what he's doin'
He wrote this book here
An' the book says:
*He made us all to be just like Him,"
so...
If we're dumb...
Then God is dumb...
*(An' maybe even a little ugly on the side)*

http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/lyrics/dumb_all.htm

add: this verse stands out

You can't run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great
While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighboring state

Answer 6

Religious extremists are only dangerous when they push back too hard. As they are doing. I agree that fear is a motivating factor, but I think you are being unnecessarily harsh here. The way to combat Fundamentalism is not to scorn it, but to understand it. Yes, it is a reaction to modernism. Yes, it is based in fear. But it is also based in the general acceptance of the scientific method as the only valid way to arrive at the "truth", which is *inappropriately applied* to religious insights. Religion (mythos) isn't *supposed* to be subject to the tests of scientific rationalism. And the modernist drive to re-cast religion in the light of "reason" (logos) has caused a lot of problems. For example - bible literalism is a fairly recent thing - it's a modernist attempt to change religious thought within Christianity *as a reaction to* our abandonment of the mystical and mythical. And the types of religious expression that garner the most scorn are those what came into being *precisely* because of the bleak inner landscape brought about through science and modernism in the last century; the working conditions of the factories, the application of science to killing vast numbers of people in WWI and WWII. Before modernism, religions that had prospered served, among other things, to help people adjust to essential limitations, to accept things as they were. The mythical, mystical and ritualistic had given people a sense of the transcendent value of the past, a way to see the (slower) changes in the world as something that fit in with a "grand plan", and so were not alien/frightening. But the changing world, the world that only looked forward, could not be served by that kind of religious thought. The Western world was breaking free of the previous limitations on development and discovery, and that affected everyone, including religious people. A new way of being religious had to be found. Two things arose from that need: Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism. The first was an attempt to apply the rules of proof that work so well in scientific rationalism to religion, and the second is a reactionary rejection of all rationalism. It's a bad idea. It would be far healthier, IMO, to reclaim the separation of mythic/mystic and scientific thought. Religious scriptures were not intended to be science textbooks. And the measuring devices of the scientific method are not applicable to religious insights. No one thinks that the point of the story of Echo and Narcissus ought to be utterly ignored because we know that nymphs never existed. And no one dismisses the insights into human behavior supplied by Aesop's Fables because we know, scientifically, that lions and mice don't actually talk to each other, or that wolves don't actually wear the skins of sheep in order to fool other sheep. Again, religious truths are not like the proofs of scientific rationalism, but more like the intuitive insights of poetry or music or art. Conflating the two only results in bad science and bad religion. But I don't think that it's going to go away, because a lot of people are threatened by modernism. There are people who, having accepted the scientific method as the only valid path to truth, feel that their most sacred values are being challenged, and who are motivated by fears, anxieties, and desires that are not unpredictable in the face of the modern (and largely secular) world. The "timeless truths" are now put under the microscope and found to be historically false or scientifically invalid. And so they push back, and try to reclaim the truths of their religious texts by insisting on the literal, material factuality of the stories in those texts. And they become more entrenched in their positions because *they have thrown away* the value of mystic/mythic thought and accepted scientific rationalism where it doesn't belong; where, in fact, it actually destroys the value of religion. Things don't develop in a vacuum. We never start with a "clean slate". What has gone before affects what happens now. Modernism was the midwife for the very kinds of religious developments that the modern scientific community expresses such contempt for. And, quite predictably, the more that fundamentalists are criticized, the more entrenched they become. Anyone who passed their high school science classes ought to be able to see it coming. After all, Newton said it a long time ago: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" And observation would tell us that the power of mythos is still very much alive, or people would not flock to movies like "Lord of the Rings". Ignoring that will not get you what you want.

Answer 7

ya, it would be great ,
no fear , prejudice, anger, jealousy,

we all live in peace, love, and all that!!!

but i couldnt handle this world if it was like that star trek episode where they all beem down to that planet of hippies and its like the whole crew was on a acid trip, play the sitar, feelin groovy, capn kirk gettin all the chicks(again)!!!

id have to go to the other side of the planet or pop a cap in his a**!!!

Answer 8

It's a very real danger in my opinion. Beware the home schooled generation.