Enlightened Chains, pg. 15
need be in direct conflict - unless one or the other oversteps its bounds. Mendelssohn in particular was so defensive of this possibility that he laid the groundwork for an entire new interpretation of Judaism.
While it is certainly understandable that many of the Enlightenment writers attacked whatever controls the Church placed over the society in which they lived, it is also true that those attacks have created a backlash against their ideas. Throughout large portions of the world, including the United States, organized religions find a common foe in the Enlightenment. One way to define religious fundamentalism is to simply say that it is against the idea of the Enlightenment that man can create his own path in the world. Although there are vast differences in the specifics of Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism, both find common cause in re-exerting the power of the Church over all aspects of society.
Both have created their own types of terrorism, which the Enlightenment writers would have abhorred. A suicide bomber in Palestine/Israel is not fundamentally (pardon the pun) different from a Christian “activist” that sends a bomb to an abortion clinic. In fact, the only difference between Timothy McVeigh and the hijackers of 9-11 is that McVeigh made sure that he survived his act of terror. Both groups (as McVeigh did not work alone) saw the US government as being inherently evil and were motivated by twisted religious themes.
Both sides, as well, pick out specific passages from their Holy Scriptures in order to justify actions that go against the broadest tenets of their own faith. Huntington is wrong - it isn’t civilizations that are clashing, it is a civilizing society being attacked by a barbarizing society. The Islamic countries, for the most part, have simply been better
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While it is certainly understandable that many of the Enlightenment writers attacked whatever controls the Church placed over the society in which they lived, it is also true that those attacks have created a backlash against their ideas. Throughout large portions of the world, including the United States, organized religions find a common foe in the Enlightenment. One way to define religious fundamentalism is to simply say that it is against the idea of the Enlightenment that man can create his own path in the world. Although there are vast differences in the specifics of Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism, both find common cause in re-exerting the power of the Church over all aspects of society.
Both have created their own types of terrorism, which the Enlightenment writers would have abhorred. A suicide bomber in Palestine/Israel is not fundamentally (pardon the pun) different from a Christian “activist” that sends a bomb to an abortion clinic. In fact, the only difference between Timothy McVeigh and the hijackers of 9-11 is that McVeigh made sure that he survived his act of terror. Both groups (as McVeigh did not work alone) saw the US government as being inherently evil and were motivated by twisted religious themes.
Both sides, as well, pick out specific passages from their Holy Scriptures in order to justify actions that go against the broadest tenets of their own faith. Huntington is wrong - it isn’t civilizations that are clashing, it is a civilizing society being attacked by a barbarizing society. The Islamic countries, for the most part, have simply been better
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© 2004 by Xpatriated Texan
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