Fundamentalists And Freedom example essay topic

426 words
Fundamentalists and Stasis. Fundamentalists can be rule-bound. Yes, they worship a single, male God who makes the rules. Yes, those rules do involve a certain amount of social control and self-control not particularly in favor in today's world. Yes, fundamentalists are sometimes more interested in control than in understanding.

And lastly, yes, fundamentalists are in some senses "anti-magic". Fundamentalists and Freedom. Now let us take a second look. Fundamentalists follow the rules -- but whose rules? Not those of human society. They follow their own rules, or rather, God's rules (as they see them).

Fundamentalists often fear that "big government" is taking away their freedom. Most often, this is freedom of religion; other times, however, it may be their freedom to keep and make use of the money they earn and the possessions they buy; their freedom to speak out in the public arena; and yes, their freedom to bear arms. A fundamentalist who opposes the United Nations may be acting partly out of national pride, but he likely also fears losing his freedoms and those of his country to an international government too distant to understand his needs. In truth, a fair number of fundamentalists are closet anarchists who would prefer no government but God. Fundamentalists make no secret of the fact that they do not believe in any other. And some of them are leery of allowing religious freedom to people who follow other religions.

This can be scary, obviously, to the neo-pagans and others out there. However, few if any fundamentalists want to start the witch-fires burning. Whatever their faults, many tend to honestly believe that the "gods" of other religions are actually demons in disguise, and that those demons live for nothing but to enslave and kill -- body, mind and soul. While this may not ease the fears of the local Verbena (or real-life pagans), players and storytellers should remember that a good fun die does not hate followers of other religions -- she pities them and wants to free them. Do fundamentalists really oppose understanding the world around them? Not usually.

There are individual exceptions, but typically this is the result of a misunderstanding between them and science. Prior to the 1800's, their precursors supported science and were supported by it. Many of them even believed in life on other planets (which might or might not be fallen); some were willing to tolerate evolutionary ideas.