"It seems to me that with or without religion good people will behave well
and bad people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things,
that takes religion." So says Steven Weinberg, Nobel physicist.
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While I agree that Weinberg's assertion is both too broad and too
restrictive, the basic truth seems obvious. Centuries of Christian Crusades
and Moslem Jihads underline the dangers of fundamentalist religions. Good
people can easily be convinced to commit violence in the name of a "higher
cause".
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Yet the basic problem is deeper: good people really do evil when they are
in a mental state of war. Substitute the word "war" for "religion" and
Weinberg's quote becomes 100% true. And when religions declare war, the
threshold of evil has been crossed.
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The most obvious example is fundamentalist Islam. Why do Moslem martyrs
believe they will be rewarded with 72 virgin women (or young boys, depending
on choice)? Because Mohammed was a warrior who needed to entice and recruit
young men to fight and conquer the known world. Women did not matter to
Mohammed because they were not warriors. Today it remains the duty of
fundamentalist Moslem men to convert or to conquer and kill all "infidels".
Non-believers are treated as dirt.
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Christian Fundamentalism is tempered by a civilization that was awakened by
the European Enlightenment Educated people no longer believe the literal
word of Moses (who was just as great a warrior and murderer as Mohammed). As
Robert Ingersoll noted, "Religion has not civilized man - man has civilized
religion." And yet fundamentalists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell
and Tim LaHaye still declare war on non-believers, seeking nothing less than
total world domination. Once again, non-believers are treated as dirt.
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Diagnosing the social disease of Fundamentalism is simple. The classic
symptoms are: (1) the individual is nothing but a slave to the "cause"; (2)
women are the property of men; and (3) non-believers must be conquered or
killed. In other words, men are slaves, women are dogs, and non-believers
are dirt. Examples that meet these criteria include Moslem and Christian
Fundamentalism, as well as Hitler's Nazi belief system of "Aryan"
superiority.
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Treatment and cure of the illness of Fundamentalism is difficult. If the
believers (e.g. Nazi's) become too aggressive, even pacifists must fight the
war for freedom. In World War II there was no other choice.
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But how can we treat the threats of religious Fundamentalism? Only one
cure is known: educating and empowering the women. There is a good reason
why most Islamic governments deny education to girls and why some areas of
Pakistan have female literacy rates of less than 2%. If a belief system is
to maintain control, it must control the minds of the children. The only
way to do this is to control the minds of the mothers.
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In the words of the great humanist Robert Ingersoll, "Woman above all
others is a teacher. She, above all, determines the character of children,
that is to say of men and women…There will never be a free generation of
great men until there has been a generation of free women - of free
mothers."
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If we were to spend our countless billions on education rather than on
bombs, who knows how wonderful the world might become?
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