Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Fundamentalist Judaism and Islam

Rabbi: The Pinch of Snuff by Marc Chagall

I was alerted to an article in the Asia Times Online entitled Fundamental Flaws by a Rabbi Moshe Reiss. This is a strangely disturbing article comparing the "fundamentalist" philosophies of Judaism and Islam.

Reiss says:
Three themes that Judaic and Islamic fundamentalists share are: (1) the belief in the absolute supremacy of religious law; (2) the contention that secular regimes, though they may pay lip service to religious law, have rejected this law and rely instead on outside, and particularly Western, influences to guide the state; and (3) the insistence that the only way to restore the people to their rightful status is to wrest control and implement a "return" to the divinely inspired code.
He goes on to talk about these three similarities in more detail. At the end of the article he points out the differences between us - well those of us who are "fundamentalists" - and Islam but I still find his opinions a little strange and somewhat inaccurate.