Hi Laz,
Originally posted by lazs2
seagoon... perhaps I should have said that all fundamentalist religions are dangerous TO ME... And even then... only if they have power over me.
What I mean is that every one that I have seen has rules that I may or may not want to live by... rules that are only a problem if they have power over me or the government that has power over me.
For instance... if a religion believes that there should be no sex between any man and woman not married....
That is fine and they are free to believe that so far as I am concerened. The problem comes when they have the power of law. When my freedom is in jepordy for something that I feel is none of the states business.
I understand what you are saying, but as you probably realize, almost all fundamentalist religions (with the exception of Islam) are voluntary associations that do not advocate the violent establishment of a worldwide theocratic government under a single ruler.
You still view fundamentalists, however, as a threat, because when their members are elected they will seek to enact laws that reflect their own beliefs, not yours, and will seek to bind your behavior by them.
What you are actually saying is that you fear people whom you don't agree with about social issues having legislative power, and in that all I can say is welcome to the world. We all dislike being told to what to do by people with whom we think are wrong about what they believe. That's why capitalists dislike having socialists in power, and vice versa. But while it is one thing to oppose the worldwide violent imposition of a totalitarian ideology like Islam (or Fascism, or Communism) it is another thing entirely to say that people who don't believe what you believe are all "dangerous" and presumably should be kept out of power even if they are legally elected. For instance, I disagree about almost
everything with Barney Frank, however I would never in a million years seek to prevent the voters of Massachusetts from having the ability to elect him as their representative.
I would argue that it makes more sense to simply oppose all forms of totalitarianism than fundamentalism per se, that at least you can get many non-Islamic fundamentalists (including myself) to agree on. We may not like the results of Democracy in action, but I would argue that in order to prevent the unmitigated evils of totalitarian rule, its something that we have to live with. So I'll have to live with the Barney Franks and you'll have to live with the Sam Brownbacks, but neither of us can exist in the world Ahmadinejad is seeking to create.
- SEAGOON
