[Skybird]

Christianity and fundamentalism, and the church as a third faction settled somewhere between these two. Christianity, depending on the Christ and his teachings, as covered by definition in the four gosples in the new testament, probably best interpreted by the tradition of the so-called Christian mystic. Fundamentalism then being founded on - what? Old testament? Psalms? Letters? Probably. the bible is of that structure, an ancient and archaic teaching (OT), and then Christ who said he did not came to obey the old teachings, but to fulfill prophecies. Later, afetr the gospels, the ursurpation of authority by Paul, but that is another story. The formulation Jesus choosed is extremely important, for it indicates what he wants to express: fulfillment, instead of carrying on with the old tradition. that means an end to something, because it got fulfilled, something new therefore is started: Christ's teachings that new thing was. By ending the old dogma of the old God, he was a thread to the privileges of the pharisees depending on the old teachings to found their earthly power and influence, thus they tried to get rid of him.

Now, show me a comparable kind of structure in the Quran. By language analysis some suras can be attributed to Muhammads time in Mekka, and other Suras that seem to have their origin in his time in medina (none of them has been written by himself, btw, for he could neither read nor write). But you have no formal structure, no division of the Quran into several parts or sections, In fact the quran is only one complete section, without further supplementations, adn the closer to the end you come, the more ocnfused an impresison the (increasingly shorter) Suras give, until you think they are just hasty notes written down in haste on a piece of paper, as a reminder for later. Islam also claims it has been given as a complete whole, and did not emerge over a time period, it did not develope, was not adjusted, supplemented, or anything like this (different to what the churches today admit about the way the bible was formed). there is no such thing like Old testament (eye for an eye and so on), and four gospels ending that kind of thinking in the Quran. Quran compares not to the bible, it only compares to the oldest parts of the bible. The archaic, unforgiving ones. So, if in Christianity these old parts of the bible are "fundamentalistic", and Islam'S pendant in scripture only holds a comparable fundamentalistic content to this part of the bible, but has no pendant to the other ones, nothing like a reformating "four gospels", how could Islam produce anything that is not Islamic-fundamentalistic? In fact it never has, those heretics, often bright thinkers, that tried to point at the limits of the quran and wanted a free testing and questioning of Islam's scriptures - by that had left the ground of true Islam that in the overwhelming majority of cases they were imprisoned or murdered. the only way of Islam to defend itself agaisnt questions and doubts about why it is how it is - is by wiping out these questions, for it has no answers that would stand a reasonable testing.

It is sometimes said that all religions are hostile against reason and logic, for they cannot cope with these. That is not true of

a.) Buddha, who even ordered and demanded for reasonably analysis instead of believing, and logic (he is said to even have outhought greek philosophers of his time that seeked him for dispute, and they later amditted their defeat and some gave up their former philosophical tradition and studied buddhist psychology instead); and

b.) i have no problem to see reason and logic in Jesus' teachings as well, I can approach them the same way approach Buddhist psychology: one only needs to understand that the verbal symbols he uses must no longer be decyphered in the archaic way older parts of the bible had been encoded in, means: Jesus taught a new conception of what God is, and that has nothing in common with the God of the old testament, but is more metaphoric, and not to be taken literally (one of the problems with Chriszian and islamic fundamentalists as well: word-for-word interpretation, thinking in absolute literal ways: the archaic religion before Jesus' appearance has been, and all of Islam still is like that).

Islam IS fundamentalism, and exclusively so, and it is very much a "mono-cockpit", made of one piece only - you cannot strip it of some things you do not like, like christians in the following of the Christ's teachings can (and must!) reject much of what has been said in older parts of the bible. A Muslim doing so feels the illness and incompleteness of Islam's teaching, that is good for him for he is aware that he suffers a deficit, so he is yearning for more, western rights and values for example. By that he is no more muslim, but an apostate that is not willing or unable to admit that he already has rejected Islam. There is a reason why moderate "Muslims" and Muslim governments cooperating with the West and trying to implement certain western measures (legal systems for example) get targeted by "fundamentalistic Muslims" as well. For they are rightfully defined as treachery, and islam's teachings do not allow apostacy.

What I ask is why such Muslims that are no Muslim anymore, nevertheless reject to end their official following of this islamic ideology, and are offended when one is telling them that they are violating integral parts of what they claim is still their belief. I also ask why they remain so damn passive about Islamic aggression, and deficits in Islamic culture and nations, are so eager to "conquer" (in the widest sense of the word) new hunting ground, and even allow "extremists" to commit mass murder and war and terror in the name of that wonderful ideology these moderate muslims claim they still want to be a part of. "Moderate muslims" are contradicting themselves. For me, they are deeply confused and illogical people.

Just btw, most of the last year'S Muslim attackers in London, Madrid, are said to be coming from integrated, eductaed families. They had jobs, and perspectives, where considered to be ordinary, normal, kind. Nevertheless, western culture somehow did not find entrance into their Islamic thinking, obviously, or was driven out by Islamic thinking again. I wonder why this is so...

How many terror acts we have seen that were commited by christian fundamentalists in modern times? How many uproars of Christians about the DAILY massive insultings and mocking at Jews and Christians in Arab and Palestinian TV programs, calling them swine people, telling Islamic kids that they are no humans, but the offsprings of donkeys and apes??

You are chasing shadows.