Fundamentalism, Theocracy, and Imposing Your Beliefs on Others

My religious right dittohead brother-in-law (good gods, he cites the Family Research Council as a primary, credible source - what a joke!) chastises "liberals" for whining about Christian theocrats, but not about Muslim theocrats, in Christianity, Theocracy, and Reason. Apparently he hasn't been reading the "liberal" sources I have. He's a nice enough guy, but damned naieve. He can't seem to see past his own sense of holy bliss and hearing the "word" of God enough to walk in someone else's shoes.

Then again, this is the polarized individual who listed in his "Overrated Things":

Political moderates. Most are liberals who don’t want to admit it. Grownups think things through and take principled positions.

Sorry, Stan, but grownups don't see things in terms of binary options, but as a continuum. It's little kids, those who think like them, and computers that see things as black or white, yes or no, good or bad, one or zero. While your religion may encourage that particular self deception, the real world doesn't work that way.

But back to the original subject: theocracy, and those who advocate imposing religious ethics and practices on those who may or may not believe.

In this country, the theocrats making the most headway are the anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-patient-trust refuseniks. I wrote a rant in my LiveJournal about Ethics, Religion, and Doing Your Job that spells out my opinion of those people. If they get away with this pushing of personal religion on the unsuspecting public, it will be due to their dominionist lapdogs in the statehouse and congress. Yet these same people would scream bloody murder if a vegan cashier refused to ring up their hamburger purchases, and would insist the person be fired for not doing their damned job!.

But these whackos are only the public tip of the iceberg. There is the whole Dominionist concept, beloved to fundamentalists who want a Christian theocracy in the US. Similar is the Christian Reconstructionism sewer, dominated by the nutjob Gary North. There are milder forms, of course, but all have the same agenda: impose "Christian" (but WWJreallyD?) law and codes of conduct on all citizens, regardless of their beliefs.

Then we have Islamism, also called Islamic fundamentalism. They want to either destroy the West, or bring it under sharia and dhimmitude. They also want to bring their own primary nations under theocratic rule, and make life uncomfortable for religious minorities. Iran has already done so. Iraq and Afghanistan are tending that way - with sectarian spats on top of it all. They often have conversion away from the dominant religion as a heresy and punishable by death.

Then we have places like China, whose state religion is the absence of religion (atheist state, or State Atheism). I find this to be just as much of a fundamentalist outlook as the others. They've lightened up a little bit since the 70's, but still regard any strong religious grouping to be a challenge to the state, and require atheism to be a member of the Party (which is required of people in government)

So what do these fundamentalists all have in common? Simple: they desire to legally, or by the use of extra- or quasi-legal violence, enforce their narrow interpretation of religious values on all citizens, regardless of the individual's personal beliefs. You can hold any religion, some of them say, but only as long as you observe the strictures and laws of our dominant religion. If you try to exercise your own beliefs and principles, or even try to share your differing opinions, you will suffer legal and/or social sanctions. This is common to all of the above:

fundamentalist Christian (I have seen serious websites advocating the death penalty for homosexuality, adultery and abortion),

fundamentalist Moslem (they have the death penalty for homosexuality and adultery), and

fundamentalist State Atheism (look what they did to Falun Gong and all of the viciousness in Tibet.)

So yes, this liberal-leaning moderate complains about fundamentalist theocrats of all varieties. They all suck. They all are a threat to freedom of conscience, freedom of choice, and personal rights. Just because the fundamentalist Muslims are "bad" over there doesn't mean that sane people can ignore the shenanigans happening right here.

Seriously, a vegan fanatic shouldn't be a butcher or a steak house cook, and an anti-reproductive-choice fanatic shouldn't be a pharmacist or an EMT. It's real simple: stay out of professions that might compromise your "morals", or suck it up and do your job. And for the sake of all that you hold holy, quit trying to be someone else's concience! It's not your place, it's not your right!