Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

461.0. "On Fanaticism" by CSC32::J_CHRISTIE (Peace Reservist) Mon Jun 01 1992 21:32

	"One can encounter fanaticism in the framework of all monotheistic
religions - Christian, Jewish, Moslem - and extremism in any form revolts me.
I turn away from persons who declare that they know better than anyone else
the only true road to God.  If they try to coerce me to follow their road,
I fight them.  Whatever the fanatic's religion, I wish to be his adversary,
his opponent.

	Does that mean I want to debate with him?  My experience is that the
fanatic hides from true debate.  The concept of dialogue is alien to him.
He is afraid of pluralism and diversity, he abhors learning.  He knows how
to speak in monologues only, so debate is superfluous to him.

	Now, on the threshold of the 21st century, it is our responsibility
to combat the spreading cancer of fanaticism, which blocks the future of
our children and ourselves.  It must be constantly fought, because it leads
to dehumanizing, degrading and contagious hatred.  Hatred begets hatred.
That is why we must keep it from our doors, send it away, repel it, disarm
it - vanquish it before we even see the shadow of its shadow.

	How can we do this?  By celebrating, cherishing, defending the
liberty of others - of *all* others.  At stake is our cultural, ethical,
and moral future."

					- Elie Wiesel

	Wiesel, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, 1986, is currently
Professor of Humanities at Boston University.  A native of Transylvania,
he was captured by the Nazis at age 15 and imprisoned in the Auschwitz and
Buchenwald concentration camps, where nearly all of his family died.

	Wiesel is the author of some 30 books, including "Night" and "The
Jews of Silence."

Peace,
Richard

	"I would say that an idea becomes fanatical the moment it minimizes
or excludes all the ideas that confront or oppose it.  In religion, it is
dogmatism; in politics, totalitarianism.  The fanatic deforms and pollutes
reality.  He never sees things and people as they are; his hatred makes him
fabricate idols and images so ugly that he can become indignant about them.
In his eyes he, and only he, has the right to put his ideas into action,
which he will do at the first opportunity."

				- Elie Wiesel
				  recipient, Nobel Peace Prize, 1986

I've heard it said that a fanatic is a person who believes very strongly in 
something, but has forgotten *why* they believe in it.

Peace,

Jim

.2> I've heard it said that a fanatic is a person who believes very strongly in 
.2> something, but has forgotten *why* they believe in it.

    Sort of like the rancher who finds himself in the middle of the pasture
    with a rope and he can't remember if he found a rope or lost a horse?

    Bubba

	A man is on a boat.  He is not alone but acts as if he were.
One night, he begins to cut a hole under his seat.  His neighbors shriek:
"Have you gone mad?  Do you want to sink us all?"  Calmly he answers
them, "I don't understand what you want.  What I'm doing is none of
your business.  I paid my way and I'm only cutting under my own seat."

	What the fanatic will not accept, what you and I cannot forget,
is that all of us are in the same boat.

				- Elie Wiesel

				  A Midrashic story (of Rabbi Shimon bar
				  Yohai), retold through the great
				  Hasidic storyteller, Rabbi Nahman of
				  Bratslav.