Don’t take the fundamentalist by his horns.
I read this in a Massage Therapy forum, the opinion of a lady. In her post she talks about how it is always so pointless to argue opinions with religious fundamentalists who go by their way only. Snippets galore:
people involved with high-control groups often don't have any morals of their own. What they have are rules. When they break the rules, they feel defeated, they think they are weak, bad and condemned. Most importantly, they feel "influenced." "The Devil made me do it," is not just the punchline to a stand-up comedy routine, they really believe they have been influenced by evil forces. They believe this so entirely, that the idea does not even seem strange to them.
On the other hand, when anything goes well in their lives, they can't take credit for that either. It must be a "blessing" from God, rather than their own hard work, ability or serendipity.
They often feel isolated. They are the "only ones" serving God, they are the "only ones" who understand. At the same time, they revel in their isolation, they wear it as a badge of honor. They see their difference as evidence of being on the right path, criticism is viewed as "persecution"–further evidence of truth and right.
What all of this means, is that people who have all of their rules set for them, may never develop their own moral compass.
The ideas of persecution, being under attack, being influenced by evil, being the only ones, having the absolute truth, having a mainline to God… sound so totally irrational to most people, but are completely logical to this type of Christian.
Taken to its extreme, this difference in thinking creates not only extremists, but even more frightening in its implications, it creates people who are unable to formulate their own boundaries. Without rules, they are lost, adrift.
I'll openly say this here: I'm terrified of rules not because of the rules themselves, because when I read the rules I know they're good for me. Yet I'm terrified because I cannot trust the people who enforce the rules.
And we all know that there are A LOT OF PEOPLE just eager to 'enforce' rules in this place.
So kacau-lah. Will discuss the context in a bit. Wait for that one.
August 9th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
haha…some of the rules are good…but not for us.
August 9th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
Interesting…but who is a fundamentalist? and how does one define fundamentaliasm? To a certain degree or extent, we subscribe to some form of fundamentalism, since we still hold certain things to be true, and more likely than not refer to some metaphysical, transcendental or social reference point as the basis/foundation for certain beliefs and values. The only difference is that different groups of people hold to different fundamentals…and we end up almost in a kind of stalemate, where truth by its definition goes by either ‘truth’ or ‘not-truth’, hence rejecting other ‘non-truths’….unless, one goes by the co-existence of many truths, or a relativistic truth which then contradicts the ‘truth’ definition - a bit of a paradoxical conundrum. [Apologies for this rambling bit]
August 10th, 2006 at 5:37 am
This is not accurate. I am not sure if the author was making that statement exclusively for Christians, but as Muslims we don’t consider “The Devil” to be the only root cause for whatever devilish things we might commit. We have “evil impulses” within us and whenever we commit a crime we take the full responsibilty of it on our own shoulders.
This attitude makes us humble and modest, while it makes others arrogant, boastful and haughty. He might act modest before others but he feels boastful inside him nonetheless. Only a person who truly believes that all his achievements are due to God’s kindness can become a genuinely humble person. Then again may be according to your moral compass “what’s the point of that?”.
Well, when one bases his life on PRINCIPLE, 99 percent of his decisions are already made. However, we do make 1% of the decisions according to our own moral compass. Yes, we do have it. In fact, everyone has his own moral compass, its only a matter of recognising and exercising it. People who are strictly religious are often afraid that the direction according to their own moral compass may not lead them to the “right path” after all. Most importantly this talk of morality is pretty much funny when ones moral is nothing but set of experience and perception of right and wrong one gathers from the community and society around one. It’s funny because he thinks of himself as a “free thinker” having his own “moral compass” when his thoughts and morals are drawn, defined and bounded by the society he grew up in.
August 10th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Problem starts when these people try to enforce the 99% of their PRINCIPLE onto others and settle for the 1% for themselves.
I’d say you live on 100% of your OWN PRINCIPLE and keep it 100% to yourself.