Thursday, September 20, 2012

They shall take up serpents

I was chatting with Junior about how fundamentalists of all stripes have more in common with one another than they do with the more moderate elements within their own creeds.

Put a fundamentalist Christian, Jew, and Muslim in a room together, and they'll come out united in their beliefs about certain certainties and swinging at the backsliders across the religious terrain.

Gay marriage? Universal agreement.

Abortion? Universal agreement.

The death penalty? Universal agreement.

You could almost make an argument that insofar as there exists a "clash of civilizations", that clash is between the fundamentalists and the moderates across the board, rather than between Christians and Muslims or Jews and Muslims or Christians and Jews.

There is even discord among fundamentalists within the same religious stream. For example, the gospel of Mark has a pretty clear directive that the followers of Jesus should be picking up poisonous snakes just to prove that they are true believers. Yet, with the exception of small pockets of literalists confined mainly to the  hillbilly belt of the Appalachias, the overwhelming majority of your gay-hating race-baiting fundy crowd takes a pass on that one.

As one strays from fundamentalism there are other similarities among the great religions, or the "people of the word".

For example, all of the big three religions have strict prohibitions against the charging of interest on borrowed money, yet I've never met a Christian or a Jew who has a problem going against this principle. The Muslims just have more creative ways of getting around it.

Maybe this would be a good time to take a step back and tally up how much we have in common with our "enemies".

The things we have in common far outweigh the things that keep us apart.

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