No, most fundamentalists don't want to kill people over a teddy bear's name
Leonard Pitts was working up a fine moral outrage in his column today about the Muhammad teddy bear story in Sudan ...
... until he tried to make a larger point -- at the expense of "fundamentalists" of all faiths.
"Islam is not the problem," Pitts wrote. "Fundamentalism, however, is. And that, as we should know from our own experience, is a mindset that is not confined to one faith.
"To the contrary, every faith has them, these rigid doctrinaires who would sacrifice their very humanity for the fool's gold of theological purity, these people so eager to live the literal law of their holy books that they miss the point of those holy books, shedding compassion, kindness and plain common sense along the way."
I think Pitts is flat-out wrong. Fundamentalism was not the problem in the Sudan incident. Blame it instead on extremism, ideological totalitarianism or hostile intolerance.
People can be Moslem fundamentalists -- believers of the fundamentals of Islam -- and want nothing to do with killing a teacher for naming a teddy bear Muhammad.
As for fundamentalists of other faiths, since when in modern times are they convicting, jailing and threatening to kill people who "insult" their religion? Southern Bapists might kick you out of their convention, but that's a far cry from "stone the infidel."
Nor, in my view, do Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus or even Moslems necessarily shed compassion, kindness and common sense, as Pitts alleges, simply by trying to live by the fundamentals of their faith.
What happened in Sudan was outrageous. So is trying to associate it with the views of religious people elsewhere.
Comments (4)
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As for fundamentalists of other faiths, since when in modern times are they convicting, jailing and threatening to kill people who "insult" their religion? Southern Bapists might kick you out of their convention, but that's a far cry from "stone the infidel."* Brother Pitts
I wonder if Brother Pitts would turn his back to Coy Privatte if he knew Coy had tons of rocks in his hands?
Posted on December 6, 2007 12:32 PM
Doug, you're spitting into the wind of politically correct moral equivalence. In order to critique the mindset behind this incident, Pitts is forced to equate it with something else, lest anyone get the idea that he's not multicultural enough.
Posted on December 6, 2007 1:15 PM
I could almost anticipate the line that the world would be better off if we could just get rid of the religious nuts of all brands.
Posted on December 6, 2007 1:39 PM
"I could almost anticipate the line that the world would be better off if we could just get rid of the religious nuts of all brands."
That's what the Catholics said about Martin Luther...:)
Posted on December 6, 2007 10:17 PM