Terms of Endearment

The homo v. jesus debate has heated up recently over on Eleventh Ave South. I'm staying out of it because I generally prefer to only argue semantics. That is, I enjoy arguing with folk who have similar, nuanced views from my own. I get into one of those "opposing moral vales" debates and my head starts spinning.

There are some subjects upon which I cannot escape putting in a word or two. This is a n excerpt from a comment in the article above. To be fair, you should read the whole post to get the correct context, but in an effort to conserve space (and your interest) I'll just extract the part I take issue with most severely:

The difference between true fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam is that no fundamentalist Christian would take his words "we probably shouldn't firebomb their offices," as anything but hyperbole. He has publicly published his views on the immorality of resulting to violence on his weblog.

I believe this comment to be grossly inaccurate. One does not have to look outside our own country to find evidence to the contrary. Timothy McVeigh comes to mind, as well as countless people who have carried out attacks on Planned Parenthood locations across the US. And really, Pat Robertson's praying for the deaths of Supreme Court justices could be interpreted as a call to action by some fundamentalists. It's not that far from the kind of inciteful speech that allows prosecutors to go after KKK members and Neo-Nazis.

Look outside the US and there is even more evidence. The countless people who have killed in the name of catholicism or protestantism in Ireland as just one example. In actuality, any perceived difference between religious fundamentalists is probably an expression of two distinct differences: 1) The difference in education levels between alleged fundamentalist groups and 2) The difference in capability of action. That is to say, a fundamentalist in the US is more likely to be constrained in his actions by both the government and societal laws in general than a fundamentalist in a developing nation-state.

As a hypothetical, would people like Pat Robertson call for more violence if they knew the consequence would be something less than outrage? Would their followers be more inclined to act if they thought they could get away with it? Or if they felt their situation was so unfair as to warrant any consequence the government/society could impose?