Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or with an obsessive enthusiasm. The fanatic displays very strict standards and little tolerance for contrary ideas or opinions.
Religious fanaticism is uncritical zeal or with an obsessive enthusiasm related to one's own, or one's group's, devotion to a religion
It is said that Jesus of Nazareth is best known as a preacher of nonviolence, forgiveness, and love of one's neighbor - The start of Christian fanatic rule came after the Roman Emperor Constantine promulgated an Edict declaring it as accepted. But those who came after him did something else and after that you have had as many opinions as there are people to talk.
The Crusades were very much holy wars waged to maintain Christianity's theological and social control. On their way to conquering the Holy Land from the Muslims by force of arms, due to a lack of understanding of the other - who also believed it to be Sacred Land for them. - This is a common fault of all who are born of men and women, they tend to speak before they learn to think.
Extremism within Islam goes back to the 7th century from their essentially political position, some teachers of the faith developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and ShiĘża Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed them worthy of death.
In this case too, for 300 years people knew about Mohammed only through the spoken word, but he had died and when his grand son, had felt that rulers in Mecca had strayed away from his path, he at Karbala, was murdered and till this day the Shi'a are having Muharram. There is definetly a divergence of attitudes between the two Sects, and to this day, it is a bone of contention. But among the followers there are many with pure intentions and others half baked in the knowdge of their faith, act more as humans and less as guided by the Prophet.
Essentially therefore it is not the flaw of the Religion, but the ones that practice it. It is the dichotomy of human nature to give in to human instincts and forget the teaching of the one whom they follow. And the rest too judge one another from the actions of the followers, who are basically imperfect, and transfer their obsrvations, to the Faith they are bound to.
Now we have in front of us the HIndu fanaticm, for everyone to see. How can one blame the religion of the HIndus, for the practice of some of them. This nation has adhered to embracing all cultures without prejudice, for 5 millenia and that is why it looks like a Garden of Flowers. There have been many streams of this high approach and we have the Mahaviras, Buddha, Guru Nanak, and others, who had shown the way. The Saintly Tukaram and Eknath of Marashtra, if one reads their writings, a Christian who has been familiar with their saints, will not distinguish any differnce.
My daughter in law from Arya Samaj, married my son but my eyes opened when I heard the ritual spoken in English. The indissolubity of marriage is even held by them, and the whole ceremony is a bautiful one. How can any one grudge it, without understanding it. God is the same but being invisible man is not able to understand Him and sees what he wants to see and acts on his or hers personal observations which may not be true from God's point of view, but since HE is Omniscient, he does not act in haste like we humans do, and waits for the right time, to teach us, which may be a flash in our mind and we see it in a differnt light and after a few years, may find all agree with that.. That is why, we should not jump to conclusions, with the first flash that comes to our mind, and in most cases it is futile.
In this present turmoil, we see the same, and blame the PM, but he has to walk a tight rope not to distabilze what he has started and it is but fair we give him a chance. We can never know and may be he too being human may make errors of jugement now, but change for the better in future which I might not live to see, but many of you will. I have the hope that any thing is possible in this fluid world of human activity.
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