Another excellent article on Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong.

[non sociopath skin]

Another excellent article on Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong.

As organised religion becomes more and more of a threat to world peace, we really need people like her to unpick the delusions, obsessions and paranoia of the Fundies, both Islamic and "Christian".

She also did a brilliant piece on "Creationism" in the New Scientist a couple of weeks back, which unfortunately is Subscribers Only.

The Skin.

Unholy strictures
It is wrong - and dangerous - to believe literal truth can be found in religious texts
Karen Armstrong
Thursday August 11, 2005
Guardian

Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment.

This is ironic, because the concept of scripture has become problematic in the modern period. The Scopes trial of 1925, when Christian fundamentalists in the United States tried to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools, and the more recent affair of The Satanic Verses, both reveal deep-rooted anxiety about the nature of revelation and the integrity of sacred texts. People talk confidently about scripture, but it is not clear that even the most ardent religious practitioners really know what it is.

Protestant fundamentalists, for example, claim that they read the Bible in the same way as the early Christians, but their belief that it is literally true in every detail is a recent innovation, formulated for the first time in the late 19th century. Before the modern period, Jews, Christians and Muslims all relished highly allegorical interpretations of scripture. The word of God was infinite and could not be tied down to a single interpretation. Preoccupation with literal truth is a product of the scientific revolution, when reason achieved such spectacular results that mythology was no longer regarded as a valid path to knowledge.

Rest at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1546558,00.html

[DELUSIONAL]

1. reading religious texts -- hearing the same words

I hadn't thought of how hearing the words in sermons as opposed to reading and memorizing the words has influenced various fundamentalists sects.

Yet I do remember ministers chanting something about how the word as WRITTEN by the "saints" hasn't changed -- "not a dot nor a tittle (?)" -- I really doubt that these ministers understood the difference between allegory/stories and factual history. Everything in the bible was literal. When I questioned various parts of the bible -- they would chant -- "don't think, believe" (b.s.).

I was never cut out to be a fundamentalist.

What I do know it that there is a whole body of research about intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity --

extrinsic religiosity is the type we see from bushie and his followers -- they wear their "religion" like clothes -- they are probably unfamiliar with the beatitudes.

intrinsic religiousity -- perhaps the nonviolent type we see in people who follow and believe the Golden Rule -- or who have internalized the beatitudes . . .

[non sociopath skin]

2. I find it interesting that in her writing on religion ...

... Armstrong stresses the historical meditative and symbolic elements of religion, while claiming that Fundementalist text-tennis is a distortion brought about by the inappropriate use of "Scientific" methodology.

In other words, she does not seek to deny the spiritual, only the way in which its texts are being mis-used and abused.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

3. Fundamentalists are not even true to their own methodology

I do not know many who literally obey the commands of their religious texts. For example, how many Bible thumpers do you know who have followed the teachings of Jesus to sell all their possessions and to give the proceeds to the poor (Matthew 19:16-30). In practise they like to pick and choose the meaning of the word of God as much as any non believer. Very few humans are saints and most of those who pose as moral judges of their neighbours are hypocrites as Jesus well knew.

[sweetheart]

4. very eloquent; not so applicable to buddhism

In buddhism, one could say that there are no "beliefs" and no holy
scriptures. That is to say, that finding that all living beings have
an awakened nature that is mostly undiscovered seems obvious.

But that aside, meditation is "not thought"... clearly something that
a religous text is in conflict with, yet as the core value of buddhism,
then its a bit hard to pin down in that respect.

So to be a fundamentalist buddhist is often to miss the leaves for the
trees; in that life becomes about practice and "trying" to live by the
way of some lost dead buddha. But what if there was no "trying". What
if the original nature of humankind was already awakeness itself,
covered by a bank of clouds they call knowledge. And for all this knowledge,
humankind mass murders its own children every generation proving that
for all the religion, the human race is more degenerate than a pack of dogs.