I'm right, you're wrong!

Fundamentally all religions are shite. I'm right and the rest of the world is wrong. So there.

It's just laziness. When you adopt a fundamentalist approach you basically don't have to think any more. Lots of people are really uncomfortable thinking. It's hard work. Much easier if someone else does it all for you.

Oh NO! It's just an opinion? I thought it was set in stone.

It has to be an opinion, you spelled shit wrong. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

Agree mainly with Bruce. Thinking, being reasonable, being prepared to adjust your beliefs - it all takes effort. It also makes you feel weak. While you dither between possibilities of truth, you feel like someone who is easily confused and doesn't know much. For some people, it's far more important that they feel strong and don't have to waste time rethinking. I think a fundamentalist is someone who doesn't see possibilities for truth in anything anyone else says unless they already agree with him - all they look for is the best retort. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Nice one, Alan! As someone who frequently changes his mind on anything and everything, this is a question which has rattled around in my brain for much of my adult life... i.e. am I a “weak” person for not having (or having few) strong beliefs? In moments of glass-is-half-full-ness, I proudly, albeit somewhat precariously, stand upon the Fence of Doubt and declare my anti-fundamentalist nature. The rest of the time, however, my particular section of said fence seems very lonely and conspicuous and I have to fight against the urge to fling myself to one side or t’other, in a bid to fit in with one or more of the groups on either side who are clambering for my attention. It is easier to not think and to say “I believe this” or “I believe that,” but in truth, although I have leanings, I don’t fundamentally know what I believe about anything. Fundamentalism is about Faith (religious or otherwise), and there is comfort in Faith, but Faith does not necessarily equate with Truth or Integrity. Faith is a nice, big, soft Cushion of Acceptance and Knowing-One’s-Place-in-the-World, but unfortunately it is a cushion [ *** metaphor-stretching-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness alert *** ] whose stitching can be all too easily picked apart. I fear I may have become possessed by the spirit of Spartacard... out, demon, out! That’s better. Where was I? Oh yes... Fundamentalism: it’s a bugger. ~PEPS~ “Underlay is overrated."

Jack - agreed...yep - i believe you are right. There is nothing wrong with believing, except it tends to focus one in collecting evidence to support ones belief, too easily disregarding the contrary. So it is a construction, which is so linked with identity, one which does not hold so easily unless one believes others are wrong. Egotistical? Arrogance…I feel that if people really separated knowing and believing a little more clearly, things would be better all round - we all know what is right and wrong, what should be done, at a different listening level. Real faith is more about doubt than knowing, listening to it, searching - and yes, this makes one feel unsure - a quality(i think perhaps still especially for men?) which is not acceptable, seen as weak. It’s the only place real faith comes from though, and that quality that makes one feel stronger, is not strength itself. It is the place we all often write from, isn't it? an internal discussion with doubt on various levels, trying to find some faith, some fleeting knowing, recognised? How are we a little evangelical then, when we put out something for others to read? Connecting, being understood, agreed with, is a good feeling, but claiming perfection/righteousness and (sometimes violently) rejecting/attacking a perceived rejection, disagreement, crit, opinion, whatever, is extreme behaviour- grandiose, and happens a lot on writing sites, on the forum and in discussion of work. Is that how we are wired - fundamentally - egotistical maniacs that must come to blows? Seems that way a lot of the time to me. Sniping. Then there is the reality of being really attacked, by words or bombs, and how we are called to react under these circumstances. If there is time, we should carefully assess our emotions/beliefs/actions - this is at the heart of theology/philosophy, and should be the heart of diplomacy (pfff), but often those who consider themselves the most righteously…religious, or diplomatic, have stopped listening, and its all about positioning, re-affirmation. Most screaming fundamentalists probably need a hug - but if they're endlessly ranting or wearing semtex - i want to stop listening too, put them on the naughty step, run down to Utopia and hang out with the free thinkers before we are blown up or bored to death, and this will make me a cowardly wishywashy weakling on the fence to many. While agreeing to disagree, with your ‘self or with others, isn’t easy, or weak; how we act as a result is what defines us – there are times of no doubt, life threatening times, when I know I will kill to defend – but its a very tricky business, played out in appalling ways all over the place, sadly, sometimes over trivia - oh bugga – I’ve gone and made myself glum! Oh well :D Hope is also a very tricky business – believing religious (and other) doctrine can take care of that - it is hopelessness that people are defending themselves against a lot of the time. *on the fence with Peps, looking for a cushion, smokes, apologises for waffling*

Woh, Littleditty, that's one heckuva paragraph! Generally in agreeance, though... Welcome to my fence :-) ~PEPS~ “Underlay is overrated."

Being firm in a belief doesn't make a belief correct or incorrect, but I would agree that strong individuals have strong belief in common. What irritates me is when people can't/won't/aren't able to form a belief of their own free will, but instead rely on others beliefs with blind obedience. The inability to think and judge for ones self. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

I wouldn’t normally do this sort of thing, but I think the following section, from pp421-3 of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, although not summing up precisely what I believe, is in the spirit of my position on the fence… ‘I,’ she told him, ‘can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.’ ‘Really?’ ‘I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in Drive-In Movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian Shaman. I believe that Mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble-bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and overseas everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriend and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no-one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.’ She stopped, out of breath. Shadow almost took his hands off the wheel to applaud… ~PEPS~ “Underlay is overrated."

:-) ~PEPS~ “Underlay is overrated."

made me laugh when pope said that muslims are violent. What did the muslims do in protest? Burned an effigy of the pope and shot a nun in the back. Good GOIN GUYS!! Kinda reinforces what popey said really DUNNIT!! There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

bwuddy national service, bwuddy hard day's work, bwuddy lithium's what they need.. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

I noticed a placard which read... "Pope go to Hell" ... yes, there does seem to something of an unrecognised irony in this. ~PEPS~ [ insert pithy and poignant quote ]