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June 19, 2006
Different kinds of "fundamentalists"
Jeremiah pointed me to this excellent article, which starts off by listing famous Jews of Britain, and segues into carefully distinguishing between the attitudes of Jewish and Muslim (at least in its current agresssive version) minority communities toward the host state, in this case Britain.
I have long been trying to explain this to people who say religion is the cause of all conflicts or that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be resolved if not for the "fundamentalists" (read "settlers"; usually people who make this argument don't denounce Muslim fundamentalism that fervently).
First of all, you have only to count off the gruesome totalitarianisms of the 20th century to know that people can treat each other very badly in huge numbers without being Bible literalists. Second, you can't lump all religiously observant people together, because all creeds are different in significant ways. The determining factor is not that you are devout, or live in a homogeous community that doesn't mingle with outsiders, or even that you think your holy text was written personally by God, but what values your religion teaches and what its goals are. (As Moore points out, the Jewish position was codified in the Talmud centuries ago, and is based on Jewish values much older than that.)
Many devout and insular religious communities (for example the Amish) have no desire to take over the world or blow up innocent civilians or kill their apostates, they just want to be left alone. They pay taxes, sometimes they vote, sometimes they volunteer or make products valued by their neighbors, and they appreciate their citizenship. Any nation which values individual rights will not be endangered by making room for such a group.
Every observant minority is now tarred with the same brush as bullying and manipulative extremist Muslims. But Charles Moore knows enough about Judaism to make a needed distinction. This is one of those URLs to email to the right people and save to support your own debates.
And don't forget to read the comments.
Judith | 06/19/06 at 12:31 AM | Categories: - Comparative Religion
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