The quantity of principles that are regarded as unquestionable determines how much a religion adheres to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is the thesis that some views in the worldview are unquestionable. All religions are fundamentalistic by definition, yet because there are degrees of fundamentalism, some are necessarily more fundamentalistic than others.
Religions themselves are not
fundamentalist, followers are
Religions are dangerous on the account that fundamentalism discourages critical thought. Fundamentalism also encourages people to believe that some of their views are unquestionable.
Chicken or egg - the lack of critical thought leads to fundamentalism.
For example, many Muslims believe that those who use Islam to justify violence are distorting the scripture. Is Islam blameless?
It's not many Muslims, it's most Islamic scholars. Again, how can a religion be assigned blame? Religions don't have agency, interpreters and followers do.
No, it is not. Islam has discouraged people from thinking critically inevitably placed them in a position where they are likely to interpret scripture in an undisciplined fashion, or simply put, interpret it however they please. Is Islam intrinsically more objectionable than other creeds?
The lack of critical thinking discouraged people from taking a more moderate approach to religion, regardless of type. How is one religion, particularly one whose main tenet is "There is no compulsion in religion" more objectionable than others? No other holy book stresses the importance of
reason, actually thinking carefully about issues as much as the Quran.
Possibly true, as after all Christians, Jews and Buddhists do not attempt to justify violence nearly as much as Muslims do. However, is this solely the fault of Islam? Possibly because this religion is unopposed by secular authority and the Muslims who commit violence face few intellectual challengers to their views.
I think some historical perspective is important here. The crusades were led by Christians.... In fact, Muslims who commit violence face a lot of intellectual challenges to their views. Please pay attention to the media that addresses an Islamic population -- these extremists are often seen as heretics and isolated minorities from within the larger Islamic communities. Western media presents the majorities rather poorly.
Christians, however, most prominently in the Western Europe and North America are forced to question their beliefs on a daily basis because they are forced to deal with a separation of a church and state. However, the same could be said with respect to Islam in Europe or in the United States. Notably, Islamic extremists are much more common in the Middle East and Africa than in Europe or the United States. Thus, there are different kinds of Islam and Christianity. Some forms of Islam are more rigid than others, and the same can be said with respect to Christianity.
We must be viewing North America and Western Europe from alternate universes? Separation of Church and State is only complete in countries where there is forced secularism such as Turkey. Every other country has different amounts of church and state influencing each other. In North America and Western Europe, religion has a strong influence on both public opinion towards government policy as well the positions taken by legislators themselves. Umm, Catholicism in Southern Europe? The separation of church and state is a fallacy even in the United States. Any time gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research...you name it is brought up both public and legislators look towards their religion for guidance. All religions look to influence all aspects of human life, Islam is not an exception.
Also let's not forget, historical perspective again -- the only theocratic state in the world is Iran. Yes it is based on Islam and led by a cleric. What explains the system we see there today? Well, a democratically elected leader was removed by Britain and the United States and replaced by a monarch who was eventually removed through the revolution which led to the theocracy. In the only country where a religious leader is the head of state, it wasn't religion that led to this outcome, it was external intervention.
When you compare the United States and Western Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, you are not just comparing majority Christian states with majority Islamic ones, you are comparing mainly authoritarian states with democracies. Let's keep that in mind. Democracies have different compulsions than authoritarian states, many of which have been influenced and kept stable by American support and/or oil. The U.S. supports Saudi Arabia and Egypt both of which are repressive states that quash opposition.
Authoritarian regimes allow for less questioning, of authority - religious or otherwise. Democracies allow for more diverse views to be expressed. We observe the consequences -- diverse religious views expressed in the Western states in the government itself while fewer diverse views are expressed in the governments we observe in the Middle East and Africa. There, the diversity that does exist in the public is not reflected in the government (see Egypt -- the government supports one type of Islam while the majority of citizens follow a completely different type). This is not a consequence of the religion but of the type of government - authoritarian.
Having said the above, Islam itself is not antithetical to democracy, why do we see it survive in Turkey (>90% Muslim)? Why did Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic state, by population have its second democratic election?
I understand the point you're making about different types of Islam and Christianity but it's not really borne by the empirical evidence. Several terrorists that emerged in the attacks in Britain and in South Asia were actually British citizens, indoctrinated in extremist religious organizations in yes, Western Europe, not Middle East or Africa. Wahabbism, the type of Islam connected to extremism (with little support from the majority) originated in and is still funded by groups in Saudi Arabia, a prominent Western ally and a repressive monarchy. Your later point about relative poverty in these communities and one you didn't make about political exclusion would be more compelling explanations for the rise of these extremist religious groups in Britain, for example.
As a result, can we conclude that Islam is intrinsically more rigid than Christianity? That is unclear. In order to answer this question we would need to know of a one way correct way to interpret both holy books. At this point, such a feat cannot be accomplished. Language and culture in which both of these holy books were written have changed drastically and we lack much of the important information to construct the proper interpretation of both works. Moreover, even if we did, both works are high on figurative, poetical and ambiguous content which makes constructing a plausible interpretation of either of these books an onerous task.
In addition, there is so much additional diversity of views within Islam -- Shi'a interpretations, for example, are quite different from Sunni interpretations. Shi' ites believe that the Quran can be continued to be interpreted over time (iran) whereas Sunnis tend to believe that interpretations from the 10th century should apply today. In both communities, there are prominent reformists who push for more progressive interpretations.
On the one hand, we see that religion, and Islam most prominently, can produce kind and peace loving people, yet on the other, fanatics who are willing to kill thousands in favor of their beliefs. Is religion to be blamed for this?
Whether the Crusades, centuries before or the fundamentalists using Islam or Hinduism or Christianity today -- religion does not produce anything. Leaders, religious and secular co-opt and twist the religion for strategic purposes. This is not isolated to any one religion.
Certainly because this is a result of people believing that their views are incontrovertible. This, however, is not the entirety of the problem. If someone merely believes that their views are indisputably true, he or she will not have the sufficient motivation to kill thousands. After all, a very high degree of aggression is necessary in order for people to behave in such an ignominious manner. Is religion solely responsible for the problem? Certainly not, as there is a variety of reasons why people became intensely aggressive, poverty or oppression are clear-cut examples of such reasons. Does religion contribute to the problem? It certainly does on the account that it discourages people from being open-minded and compels them to believe that they are right only because a sacred text or a divine authority insists that they are.
I completely agree with you that religion is an issue on which people are unwilling to be open-minded or question their views. Is this really an isolated problem with Islam? Stop a regular Baptist in the south eastern part of the United States or central parts of Canada and ask them how questionable their beliefs are...really, people who wanted evolution taken out of textbooks. Yeah, that's how much people question their beliefs regularly here.
In addition to Islam, Stalinistic violence is an example of religion entailing violence...Stalinism was arguably as legalistic as many groups of contemporary extremist Islam. It is therefore unsurprising that these were the religions guilty of the most violence in the world.
Again, how far back are you going to go to support this view? The Crusades led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Although religion is not the sole cause of violence, and in many violent acts is not the cause of violence, it is certainly striking that the majority of violent acts today are committed for a religious cause. For this reason, it is important to eradicate religion from contemporary education. All that separates religion from philosophy is the last principle, or the incontrovertibility axiom, which is the proposition that some views must be accepted as unquestionable. If this principle is to be eliminated, the religious influence in the contemporary society will decline significantly.
The majority of violence is conducted over resources and could be attached to language (Sri Lanka)/religion/ethnicity. Removing religion just removes one cleavage - one source of difference. To remove all sources of conflict, we'll have to remove all cleavages, all differences. At that point, we'll all look the same. No diversity at all.
This is to be accomplished by restructuring the program of education where critical thinking is emphasized more and no effort is made to convince the children that any view is unquestionable. Slowly, a society will emerge where people will not have a need to believe in things that are unsupported by arguments but merely feel pleasant to believe in. When that is accomplished, there simply will not be any further need for religion.
Yes! When can we apply this widely in the Southern United States and Europe? I'm up for it!
One additional point:
Those adults, especially from third-world countries that are dominated by religious thought have not developed their critical thinking skills.
Extremist Islam originated in Saudi Ariabia - no third world country. It's one of the richest in the world since the oil boom. Also, it's a small point but no one really uses the term third world any more. It's a remnant of the cold war era.