Fundamentalism is Against Democracy

Articles in this week's US News and World Report ("Confronting the Threat", Zuckerman, 8/1/05) and the Christian Science Monitor ("Why Jihadists target the West", LaFranchi, 7/28/05) examine the nature of terrorism and the factors that motivate young, mostly prosperous Muslims to blow up themselves and others. Though complex and multi-faceted, one of the main components of suicide bombing is an absolute belief that the action will be rewarded in paradise. Regardless of the broader goals of angry clerics or fanatics like Bin Laden, absolute faith is a tool they use to achieve those goals. When we discovered that the terrorists who brought down the Twin Towers expected to receive seventy virgins in paradise--and let's be clear, they wanted to have sex with and be catered to by a harem of seventy virgins for the rest of eternity--we naturally gasp and think, "that's crazy!" And it is. Fundamentalism is crazy. But not just Islamic fundamentalism, which happens to be increasingly focused on jihad, violence and murder in the name of Allah. ALL fundamentalism is crazy. And in America, fundamentalism is disturbingly on the rise.

It is one thing to live in the spirit of Jesus, or in accordance with the Ten Commandments, or to believe in the wisdom of certain rituals or traditions. But to take the extra step, to place absolute faith in a book or a person or a myth, defies common sense. Which is to say, it is nonsense. To completely embrace the irrational, the nonsensical, the unprovable and the unknowable, is by definition crazy. Believing in "seventy virgins in paradise" is no more or less crazy than believing in The Rapture, which has become an obsession among a large number of our fellow countrymen. If this scares you, it should. Literal religion--fundamentalism--is an abdication of reason and common sense.

Some of our leaders would have us believe that our country is only made up of Godless Secularists and "People of Faith," a coded phrase describing fundamentalists. Using "People of Faith" like a bludgeon, they forget that a large, invisible middle ground exists between those two groups, occupied by people with a spiritual life but without absolute belief, people who haven't abdicated reason or common sense to a book or a self-proclaimed holy man. They may have strongly, deeply held beliefs, but their beliefs aren't absolute. In other words, they hold out the possibility that their beliefs might be wrong. And this possibility squares with the fact that many of our most empassioned questions have no clear answers. Much of life is mysterious and beyond our ability to comprehend. As such, spirituality is a form of humility, while fundamentalism, claiming absolute knowledge of the truth, is supremely arrogant. In the case of Muslim fundamentalism, it is also dangerously arrogant. If the 911 terrorists decided that their "seventy virgins" theory might be wrong, they would have stayed at home.

But in America, Christian fundamentalism is also becoming dangerous. When states decide that pharmacists are no longer required to dispense contraception, they create a medical hazard. When states and other institutions spread lies about the effectiveness of contraception, they increase the general suffering. When environmental issues are trivialized because "the plants and animals were put here by God for our use," our long-term prosperity is diminished. When science is demonized, as in the case of evolution, ignorance flourishes. How long will it be before Christian fanatics try to outlaw pre-marital sex? If you think I'm exaggerating or being flip, you're sadly mistaken.

The large and growing number of Christian fundamentalists have an extreme and restrictive agenda. It is not enough for them to behave according to their beliefs. They must also force those beliefs on the rest of us, which they think "their faith" calls them to do. So when we hear about Muslim fanatics trampling the rights of women and supporting suicide bombers, all in the name of Allah, and we feel duly sickened and outraged, we shouldn't forget the fundamentalists in our own country who are absolutely certain of their righteousness. Like Muslim fanatics, their "faith" is blind, intolerant and arrogant, and has a tyrannical urge.

In any form, at its core, fundamentalism is an enemy of liberty and against democracy.