"God is great." This phrase sounds very uplifting and motivating to a lot of people. It would to myself under the majority of circumstances. However, the quote is a translation of an arabic phrase that the hijackers of four planes on September 11th, 2001 shouted to intimidate and subdue passengers. I need not remind anyone what happened after that, but I must point out that the parties responsible ultimately were motivated by their faith in God. While Christianity has come a long way since the days of the Inquisition, I am convinced that there are factions within it who would bring back the exact same fanaticism that brought about the horrors of the church's resistance to the early Renaissance, as well as the horrors seen today under similar extremists who corrupt Islam.
Fundamentalist Christians in the United States are waging an active hate campaign against other religions. Right now their emphasis is on Islam, because of the recent terrorist attacks. Even as our president overtly states that the U.S. has no objections to the majority of Muslims, factions within the Republican political party are pressuring to promote Fundamentalist Christian values, including the concept of "spiritual warfare." They and other Fundamentalist Christians believe that they are involved in some metaphysical war over souls, and that all other religions collectively are the work of their diabolical enemy. They have declared this war themselves; they have taken the role of the aggressor. I have seen some of their literature attacking Islam in its entirity, accusing the entire religion of the Muslims as destructive and war-waging, a blatent hypocracy that the Fundementalists themselves fail to see.
Similarly, they have attacked my own religion of Wicca. Wicca is a peaceful nature-based religion that seeks to adapt to modern times many of the ancient faiths of early humanity. Its central thesis states to "do as you will, but harm none," and though the religion is highly varied in form and interpretation, nearly all practicioners agree on a principle of threefold return of karma, an overriding motivation for peace. But, because of our Pagan symbols and images, Fundamentalist Christians have chosen to identify us with Satan worship and have actively published a sizable volume of propaganda to reinforce this erroneous association among the lay public. Educated people who research the origins of our mystical symbols know that we have no particular vested religious interest in the devil or in other symbols specific to Judeo-Christianity. However, this same propaganda has created a popular notion that has forced the practice of Wicca underground, causing membership of this religion to be treated by the general public as tantamount to cult membership. Fundamentalists have pressured to have Wiccans stripped of employment, child custody, and basic civil rights.
Fundamentalism seeks to destroy competing beliefs. Fundamentalist Christians believe that all other religions of the world are attempts by Satan at deceiving humanity. This belief is pervasive and resistant to logic or reason; all attempts at reconceiliation have met with failure. Similarly, Fundamentalist Muslims have claimed the mantra that "there is no God but Allah," proclaiming all other religions as false. They have declared a "holy war" against Western Civilization, whom they have similarly chosen to brand as the manifestation of Satan. Their fanatic devotion has motivated a series of terrorist campaigns culminating in the September 11th attacks on the United States, as well as an ongoing series of suicide bombings and other brutal crimes in Israel. In each case, the religion is motivating the person to remove by force other beliefs.
Fundamentalism also seeks to reproduce itself in others; and, in so doing, it behaves like a virus. In the realm of cytomolecular biology, a virus is a particle designed to replicate itself at the expense of a host cell. A virus introduces its DNA or RNA into a target cell; this genetic instruction set overrides the cell's inherant self-maintaining DNA and causes the cell instead to create new viruses. In the realm of human consciousness, Fundamentalism in essence does the same thing. A Fundamentalist Christian believes his or her overriding purpose in life is to "save souls," and that all other goals in life are trivial by comparison. That person is therefore motivated to convince others to adopt the same belief, complete with the self-replicating notion that the belief must be passed on. The analogy is more than superficial; there are other similarities between viruses and Fundamentalism besides this replication process. In biology, some viruses are highly aggressive, while others are latent, lying dormant the majority of the time. Similarly, there are aggressive and passive interpretations of Fundamentalist literature and perspectives, resulting in highly destructive extremists as well as those who are simply intrusive. In biology, incomplete fragments of viruses serve as "interferon," giving cells resistance to receiving and following a fully working viral instruction set. Similarly, in the realm of Fundamentalism, adoption of more moderate Christian or Muslim beliefs with strong conviction serves as a buffer against being convinced to adopt the Fundamentalists' notions.
The need for Fundamentalism to reproduce itself and to remove competing religions has time and again robbed humanity of irreplacable cultural relics and lore. A significant portion of history has been lost and can never be replaced. Fundamentalists have destroyed whole civilizations in an effort to eliminate their religions. Other aspects of history have been so heavily distorted that we will never know the truth about some ancient people. In Afghanistan, where Fundamentalist Islam recently had government power under the Taliban regime--the same regime that forced women into a slave class forbidden from basic education, human rights, and from even being seen in public--countless priceless relics of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism were destroyed at the hands of the Ministry for the Establishment of Virtue and the Elimination of Vice. Similarly in medieval Europe, countless Pagan relics were destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church. This destructive tendancy is still evident today, as Fundamentalist churches host demonstrations destroying copies of the trading card game Magic: the Gathering and books from the Harry Potter series, both portraying a fictional use of magic in a manner not sanctioned by their belief system. The United States may not have the same oppression that Afghanistan faced under government-sanctioned Fundamentalist rule, but disturbingly, Fundamentalist Christians such as Pat Buchanan have infiltrated the Republican Party here, undermining their political claims of government non-interferance with private citizens' affairs and interjecting it with religiously motivated opposition to womens' rights, end-of-life issues, and even choices regarding one's sexual partner.
Fundamentalism spreads itself through emotional appeals and unscrupulous tactics rather than by reason, and targets primarily the young and uneducated, as they have the lowest resistance to conversion efforts. In fact, Fundamentalist Chrsitian teachings follow the same principles as brainwashing. Brainwashing is a domination technique employed by less scrupulous governments and individuals to gain control over people, by eroding away at the ego and destroying free will, replacing it with a belief structure that renders one succeptable to commands. The ego is first destroyed by repeatedly and forcefully informing the subject of one's guilt for some exaggerated or imaginary crime, and of one's overall inferiority. Fundamentalist Christians routinely teach this lesson to new converts through the doctrine of Original Sin, holding the person responsible for the mythical crimes that took place in the Garden of Eden, and repeatedly reiterating to the person how he or she is reprehensible and imperfect in the eyes of God, and worthy only of damnation. Brainwashing techniques require offering the person at the point of a broken will a single exit--one must identify with a heroic lead figure who will deliver that person back to grace. In the case of Fundamentalism, that heroic figure is Jesus Christ. The actual history of Jesus and whatever sort of lessons or intent he had in mind are essentially irrelevant to Fundamentalism today. They have created an image of Christ that is immutable and irrefutable, even by rational biblical scholars willing to question Fundamentalist dogma. It is this imaginary Christ, not the actual historical person, who is put forward as one's "salvation" from an otherwise infinitely horrific damnation. The images of Hell are particularly frightening to young children, who have little experience and skill with skepticism or logic, who will most readily convert through these brainwashing techniques. What is most reprehensible about the Fundamentalists within Christianity is that they are well aware of this fact, and that they choose to act on it with full intention even though they themselves are likely motivated by their own indoctrination. They feel it is better to rob people of free will than to allow them to choose to go to Hell.
The spread of viral philosophies is a threat to more peaceful ones. The trend that more aggressive philosophies win and gain ground creates a selective evolutionary advantage that perpetuates war and hostility. The role that Fundamentalism has played in human history for motivating war and destruction is well documented, and has repeatedly worked against human life and vitality on tribal, national, and even global levels. The solution is obvious; the followers of more peaceful philosophies must make an active stand against the spread of their aggressive competition. It is not sufficient to believe passively; Fundamentalists believe in active recruitment, and will seed the notions of war and destruction into others. Our duty must be to warn others of the truth of what they represent. We must innoculate them beforehand with the wisdom of objectivity and education. People aware of human history and of the opportunities to believe in other possibilities will be less likely to adopt the notion that there is a God who mandates participation in "spiritual warfare." The uneducated by comparison readily adopt Fundamentalism, which plays to the emotions through its fear tactics. There is little we can do at this point to protect children from Fundemantalism, even as they choose to extract children from my religion and the principle of "harm none." But through awareness and education, more people become aware of the problem and less vulnerable towards buying into Fundamentalist rhetoric. With knowledge and education, people have a better chance of seeing the hypocratic ironies shared between the radical terrorists who corrupt Islam and the fanatics in the United States who pervert similarly Christianity. Awareness of the problem is paramount towards ending the problem. Resisting Fundamentalism is worthwhile, because doing so brings us closer to ending future wars, persecution, violations of fundamental human rights, and loss of irreplacable history.