Probably the Religion with the greatest number of fundamentalists in the world today is the Religion of Islam. And the tensions and conflicts between Islam fundamentalists and secularism is the conflict between Progressives and the Conservative and Pseudo-conservative aspects of its fundamentalist elements. The problems for many with religious fundamentalism is the intolerance toward secular society, the enforced inequality between men and women, draconian codes of punishment for prohibitions and an anti-democratic propensity stemming from the concept of the monotheistic deity as a single source of law to which there should be no separation of church and state. These strictures stem from the Pseudo-conservative aspects of fundamentalism. As stated above in the case of the suicide rule, the above listed intolerances and others like them are progressive ideals, impractical and not relevant in all individual situations and circumstances such eat or starve for some destitute person forced to steal gets caught and loses a hand. These prohibitive strictures as decrees standards, ritual, doctrine or creed are authorities to which the individual is to correspond absolutely. They represent intellectual and conceptual pure states and not necessarily the true nature of the human organism and all its various functions and proclivities or the real state of the natural world. The authority for human conduct is of an Authoritative character, meaning that it derives from a source outside and other than the individual. This source can be things like God, the bible, government, heroes, father and mother figures or any source which dictates the conduct of the individual. The individual accepts this authority as true and correct, based not necessarily upon empirical evidence, but by loyalty and devotion to the authority. This authority is progressed standards and models to which the individual is to correspond and conform, and to the extent that it is abstract, intellectual and artificial, there is the propensity to insensitivity, indifference and the absence of compassion as compared to the individual who has first hand experience as especially the suffering of other persons and entities.
HISTORICAL WARS (4 OF 5)
NEXT PAGE