Linking Terror to Fundamentalism? How about the entire religious thought process?
Fundamental by definition means the primary basis of something. In respect to religion, it means the primary basis of the belief system. Without the fundamentals, there is no basis to have the religion at all, so in essence all people of devout religious faith are fundamentalists. That is to say, that if someone believes differently than they do, even if it is to worship the same deity, they are wrong. They are condemned to hell, and according to scripture, they must die.
Modern changes to religion cherry picks the scriptures to bring out only the morally acceptable verses. We see this every time that a Caliph, Imam, Ayatollah, Mawlana Mullah, Mujtahid, Muezzin, Sahib, Pope, Archdiocese, Bishop, Deacon, Priest, Preacher, Pastor, Rabbi, and Bible Thumper speaks when referencing the bible, they will only discuss the good parts of the book, and not talk to much on the bad, unless they are devout, very faithful, and do not care about being politically correct. Then they would just be shunned as extremists, and isolated further.
But you will find that even though publicly they will claim religious tolerance, their base belief absolutely requires the opposite. Close analysis of each of these religions would show any person who has the time to search, that the concept of religious tolerance can only truly be made by the Agnostic or Atheist, making the thoughts of religious tolerance a contradiction in words to any religious belief system, and completely incompatible with logic.
Each of the major monotheistic religions has an axe to grind with one another. Each one of them preach intolerance. For example:
The Nation of Islam has a scriptural book that primarily condemns those who do not believe as the nation of Islam to hell, death, or even worse. 483 entries specifically curse, condemn, and shape the attitude of the Muslim worshiper into a hateful fury toward the Jewish, and Christian religions.
The Christian religion has 542 entries in the old and new testaments that condemns to hell, death, or severe torture. This shapes the attitudes of Christians into hateful furies against any religion but their own.
The Mormon religion which uses the Bible as well, has a book called the book of Mormon. In this scriptural document, there are 170 entries that attack the Jewish, and believers of other faiths in the same manner. Intentionally isolating the religion from others.
The Jewish religion references the Tora. The old testament. It has 397 entries in it that preach intolerance in the same manner as the rest.
These scriptures are specifically engineered to separate people into the categories of Us and Them. It also clearly maps the two out as good and evil. The Good Vs Evil genre of these books is clear, the reader is good, and they are evil.
The reward for good according to each the religions except Judaism (Jewish) is entrance into eternal paradise. The Koran promises 70 virgin women, and all except Judaism promise eternal peace, prosperity, and eternal life. The punishment for all others is wailing and gnashing of teeth, fire and brimstone, and an eternity in hell.
Pretty extreme eh? Not only the evil doers, but the completely innocent, and generally good people as well. This pretty much shows how each religion is guilty of intolerance, but we have another loop.
Instruction in each religion is shown for the followers to recruit all of those they can to “Save” them by having them join their respective congregations. Now we are talking about a power struggle. A cat fight that tries to dominate the world by brainwashing people into believing their dogma over their previous.
Religious brainwashing has caused some of the most heinous acts in man kinds’s history, from the crusades, the inquisitions, the renaissance wars, the Salem witch trials, the Ku Klux Klan, and so on. It wasn’t until the last century that true religious tolerance became visible to the naked eye as a possibility. Despite World War II’s Hitler, a Christian using his religion as a reason to commit genocide. Milosevich, a Serbian leader that tried to kill Albanians in Kosovo, and Hussien who killed millions of ethnic Kurds in Iraq.
and yet today the root cause of these evils still reside in the eager hands of the world’s religions. The Islamic extremist Osama Bin Laden calls for Jihad on America, Kills thousands of people with aircraft into buildings.
Is there any wonder why the world is going to hell in a hand basket? It has been shown that there is a direct tie between religious people in religiously dominate countries, and immoral behavior. The United States being at the top of the list.
The time for religious intolerance is gone, hence the time for religion in its core forms must be gone as well. The survival of humanity is dependent on the final departure of these dogmas, and adoption of a new religion of humanity.
But I do not believe we will see this day with the nut jobs like pat robertson, George bush, and the other religious right tards having power in any form.