Jainism Extremism and some other ism’s

I was thinking more about extremist ideas as they relate tofundamentalism in religion. It seems that all extremism andfundamentalism really do is defeat the religion it is representing atits Core. Its root. For example, Jainism in its extremefundamentalist form does the exact opposite of what it sets out to bein the first place. "Compassion for all life, human and non-human" isa central belief in Jainism yet when it is practiced in its extremeform it becomes self-defeating. In order to preserve the "living"down to the smallest organism in such an extreme manner you causemore damage than you try to prevent. For example, avoiding lightsfrom video cameras, or even avoiding eating mostly all types of foodyou end up destroying the most important living thing. Your "humanself" You destroy a central doctrine by taking it to the extreme. Soit becomes a double edged sword so to speak. It dies at the root,never really having a chance to grow. We see this same repeating ideawhen anyone takes a Religion in an extreme fundamentalist approach.

Professor Lane spoke in an earlier class about "licking Jesus" whenhis communion instructor informed him that "Jesus didn't want to bechewed." Now the Eucharist is central to the Catholic faith but bydoing that, professor lanes teacher completely undermined, ignoredand stripped the Eucharist of its true meaning by bringing upsomething that is pretty much irrelevant to the true meaning of theEucharist to a Catholic. So because this person went about it in anextreme way he destroyed it at the root. Didn't allow it to grow.

Another example would be Islam "The religion of Peace" at what point does that equate with suicide bombings and killing others in order to force your peaceful religion on to others? And again with "Biblealone Christian fundamentalists" It is designed to take Christianity back to its supposed true fundamentals using the idea of "SolaScriptura" (Latin for Bible alone) yet at the very heart of thatdoctrine we know it is self defeating as Professor lane explained in class last Thursday. There wasn't even a Clear and universal New Testament until the 4th Century! Not only is that a glaring inconsistency but we also know that the Bible itself nowhere says that the "bible alone" should be the sole rule of authority forChristians. This idea was unheard of for the first 1500 years of Christianity. Again because of the extremism of the people thatdecided to take Protestant Christianity too far they ultimatelydefeat it at its core.

I realize I have made some blanket statements here, but basically mypoint is that when you take a religion to its extreme fundamentals, you basically kill it at its root. You black out what is probably supposed to be its shining point by either taking it too far or misrepresenting it.

It can even be argued that by taking a religion to its fundamental root, you possibly can even make it clear that it just doesn't work,therefore can't be true. That's another possibility and a subject foran entirely new Post.

Thoughts?