Road to Reality

Friday, November 04, 2005

Definition of a Fundamentalist

Fundamentalism, like Secularism ,is talked about glibly. Let alone very senior politicians ,even highly enlightened press reporters get stumped when they are requested to define FUNDAMENTALISM .It is therefore, important to first know who is a fundamentalist, and what are his traits.
1)That HIS religion is the ONLY religion through which any human soul can achieve salvation.
2)That his faith is governed by some set tenets written in a book on the basis of which that religion was founded and not one word of the text of his basic scripture can afford any change whatsoever. That no one except the authorized authority of his religion has any right to interpret the provisions of his scripture and once any interpretation has been given it is final and not open to any questioning or nay challenge.
3)That any person of his own faith or any other faith dares to question, challenge or seeks to provide an alternate interpretation ,the top authorities of his religion possess a divine right to provide punish such individual including award8ng of death penalty.
4)That the entire edifice of his faith can get threatened by anyone inflicting the slightest insult to his holy book or to its contents or to his place of worship and his entire community must rise as a body to avenge it.
5)That he has a religious obligation to despise and denigrate any and every other religious faith and hence a religious duty to articulate accordingly, specially while seeking to convert others to his faith.
6)That he has a divine right granted to him by his religion to expand the number of his followers of his faith by converting the followers if other faith.
7)That by increasing the number of followers, he stands glorified in the eyes of his religion irrespective of whether such conversion us done by deceit ,by offering material temptations ,by exploiting their hapless plight., threats of force or by actually resorting to violence.
8)That he has a Divine right sanctified by his religion to desecrate and destroy the religious scriptures of other faiths.
9)That he has a Divine right to destroy the worship places of other religious faiths and by so doing he stands glorified in the eyes of his Lord God .
10)That the religious authorities of his religion have an undisputed right to lay down any code of personal conduct extending even to what should and should not be worn by the men and women belonging to that religion and further that there is a divine right to award punishments to all deviants to the extent the authorities deem fit.
By the above definition:
NO HINDU CAN EVER BECOME A FUNDAMENTALIST.

8 Comments:

  • Saumitra,
    I completely agree wid you though from your previous blogs I also realize that we don't necessasirily need to show the weakness of light in others to make our own light appear stronger.One life time is not even sufficient to lead and live a perfect Hindu life..In fact just knwoing what Hindu means may take an entire one..so lets focus on ourselves and glow and let our glow anihiliate the darkness,if any around.
    And more so the vedas do say the presence of evils as a must rather than wishing-them-not-to-be to constantly keep reminding us of the good.
    And don't we should worry abt the enadngerement of the longevity.Something that has lasted for ages together will last till eternity..what say??

    By Blogger Sachin Keswani, At 6:30 AM  

  • Yes Hinduism in Sanatana Dharma. It can never perish as it is Eternal. But this can not be the argument for us to shrug our responsibilities.

    We cannot say that because Sanatana Dharma will never persih so we will never do anything for it.

    In this dharma-adharma sangharsh we will have to raise our hands in favour of dharma,

    And thats why we are trying to do.

    I hope you understand./

    By Blogger Saumitra Sen, At 1:03 AM  

  • Beautifully put. I couldn't agree more.

    By Blogger Kai Wren, At 10:55 AM  

  • Incidentally, from a political standpoint, we are looking at a confrontation of two major, organized and well funded religions.
    While I'm dead against organized hinduism, aka Hindutva, I feel that we need to do something to ensure that 1 billion secular Indians aren't caught between a rock and a hard place.

    By Blogger Kai Wren, At 10:58 AM  

  • Whoa, waitaminit, I didn't see that last bit there. Are you implying that being anti-christian or muslim or whatever is dharmic and some way of fighting against adharma?

    By Blogger Kai Wren, At 11:16 AM  

  • I am not saying where to be anti-Christian or anti-Muslim.

    I am against ideologies, not individuals.

    Communism was and is evil. It ended in soviet union in1991,but did we kill Russians for ending communism?

    No, definitely no! what happened there is that the individuals who were following communism abandoned it.

    This is what I imply here. Arabs were peaceful until they became Muslim. Before the advent of Islam we do not know of any Arab conquest. Greeks and Romans did not go to proselytize others until they became Christian. It was their subsequent religions, (better said, political ideologies) which instilled violence, rigidity, intolerance and imperialism in them.

    The problem is in organized religion, and all the three Semitic religions are organized. I oppose the monotheistic, exclusivist, imperialist, proselytizing ideologies.

    I hope you get it. Please feel free to convey what you think of it.

    By Blogger Saumitra Sen, At 8:06 AM  

  • "Greeks and Romans did not go to proselytize others until they became Christian."

    What!!! You obviously do not know history!! The Greek empire existed before Christ was even born and they spread their Greek religion and ideals all over the Mediterranean, even Egypt and Rome. Rome borrowed a lot of ideas from the Greeks and spread Roman ideals around, again before Jesus Christ was even born. First the Greeks, then the Romans conquered Palestine, BEFORE Jesus was even born. So get your history straight. By the way, what about the Babylonian Empire? They were not Muslim. What about the Mongols? Not Muslim in the beginning.

    That is why I hate Marxism. It is a belief based on hate. It uses lies and propaganda fed on by the weak and poor who want free things rather than work. You want to believe religion is evil so you change history to fit your philosophy.

    I fear Marxism more than religion. Evil men have used this philosophy to encourage the masses only to abandon their promises of bread and chicken in every kitchen once they gain power. Chavez of Venezuela is the most recent to trick the poor masses this way. I could continue the list if you want.

    By Blogger Amber , At 10:58 AM  

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