I find religious fanatics scary and infuriatingly self righteous, but words usually fail me on this subject. Luckily  there are other people who can say so well what should be said a lot more often and a lot more loudly in order to protect the good things on earth from these destructive, angry followers of their ‘righteous’ gods.

And here is a pretty good short summary, written by John Firman and Ann Gila, on religious fanticism:
Our world today is torn asunder by men and women who claim that God is on their side, and who,secure in the righteousness of their positions, perpetrate acts of violent destruction. Such individuals are driven by the certainty that they are privy to sacred truths and are therefore morally obligated to do everything in their power—no matter how many people may suffer—to act upon these truths. Coupled with their inflated sense of personal rectitude, moral certainty, and ideological purity is a tendency to dehumanize and even demonize those who oppose them.
Although this disorder can be called “religious fanaticism,” those afflicted need not appear wild-eyed or deranged; quite the contrary, they can present themselves as thoughtful and responsible people inspired by the loftiest of ideals. Nevertheless, their absolute confidence in themselves and their cause, their willingness to create massive destruction for a supposed higher good, and their dehumanization of their opponents, all indicate the imbalance of a personality disorder. We need not point out specific examples of this disorder perhaps, except to say that it can afflict anyone, from the person on the street, to the international terrorist, to the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

First day back at school for Callum and Conrad after the mid year holiday. Yesterday was a pupil free day so they didn’t have to return until today. Last week we spent three days in Kangaroo Valley and were there for the 40 anniversary of the first moon landing. As it was a New Moon the stars were amazing and with no city lights around the starry sky was amazing. Steven even saw a passing satellite and we could identify lots of constellations. We did lots while we were in Kangaroo Valley but I will have to write about that another time.

Steven had last week off and went back to work yesterday. They boys felt a bit funny about having to go to school today, because they had a great time in their two weeks off, but Conrad came home jumping up and down and telling me what a fantastic day he had and when I picked um Callum he also said that he enjoyed his day. He said in the afternoon he did ‘sewing’, which will be taught this term. He is not too excited but I told him that he might like it considering that my grandad was a taylor and my mum and her three sisters were excellent at sewing. It is sad that Mum can’t be here to see all this happening. She would so have loved to be part of the boys lives and experience them growing up. She was always so enthusiastic in everything she did that she could have taught them so much and could have passed on so much of our language, culture and traditions. So when Callum told me about his sewing class I immediately thought of her and how she would have thought of a fun way of showing him sewing.