The Dilemma of Fundamentalism
September 27, 2006 Wednesday 3PM CT
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This hour on Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders, Jean Feraca and her guest discuss the dilemma of foundamentalism, another program culled from the series "Understanding the Middle East."
Guest
- Martin Marty, professor emeritus from University of Chicago Divinity School, one of the world’s most prominent theologians and a recipient of a National Humanities Medal
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Listener Comments
- Dan 9/27/06: "Every time politics, philosophy or ethics came up, a professor who almost became my father-in-law used to wag his finger at me and say 'your line of reasoning opens the door to relativism; human civilization needs absolute principles that cannot be revoked or reinterpreted.' I remain intrigued by his pursuit of the ultra-modern study of electrical engineering and his devotion to the extremely traditional practices of Islam and the Jesuit school where he taught. Now the question: Would fundamentalism (or any other form of absolutism) be less troubling if it weren’t so hard to change directions when we get something absolutely wrong? Doesn’t any form of absolutism require a measure of faith that proponents are absolutely right and opponents are absolutely wrong? Whether it’s religious, political, ethnic, or cultural, doesn’t any form of absolutist thinking threaten non-adherents? Does this argument make me an absolutist in my relativism (or a fundamentalist atheist as my almost-father-in-law called me)?"
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