#fanaticism

You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#delusion #extremism #fanaticism #fanatics #guerrilla-decontextualism

The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skits, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list -- yes, even the short skirts and the dancing -- are worth dying for? The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them. How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#fanaticism #freedom #fundamentalism #human-rights #terrorism

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#because #celibate #clergy #especially #fanaticism

I give no shit to what extent they believe in superstitions and fanaticism. But I will fight till death, if their fallacious belief hurts any individual. ↗

— M.F. Moonzajer

#believe #fanaticism #superstitions #death

There are many different rivers that lead into despair: there's poverty; there's political repression; there's gender apartheid - there's a sense of culture loss; there's religious fanaticism. ↗

— Lawrence Wright

#culture #despair #different #fanaticism #gender

From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#extremism #fanaticism #god #inhumanity #justification

The closer a man approaches tragedy the more intense is his concentration of emotion upon the fixed point of his commitment, which is to say the closer he approaches what in life we call fanaticism. ↗

— Arthur Miller

#call #closer #commitment #concentration #emotion

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. ↗

— Reinhold Niebuhr

#claim #ends #fanaticism #god #our

What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after. ↗

— Wendell Phillips

#creed #fanaticism #fashionable #multiplication #table

In morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil. ↗

— Anna Jameson

#begins #either #ends #evil #fanaticism