Who are "fanatics"?
Well, here's the meaning of "fanatic" : A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause. (Dictionary.com).
The reason I write this article is to, firstly, counter those people who tend to use the word "fanatic" irresponsibly, and secondly, to provide a way of testing whether someone is indeed a fanatic or isn't.
As you have seen above, "fanatics" are related to an unreasonable enthusiasm, an absurd obsession towards something. Imagine a person who likes the number 7 for example, and every clothes he's wearing contains the number 7 on it, and during exam in which he actually can do very well, he intentionally aim at "77", well, perhaps a bit exaggerated, but you got the idea. Now if we pose a question to those person, why would you do that? He'd surely have no answer, the most he can give was "Well, because i like 7!" Simply no other logically supporting reason. That's what fanatic is all about.
Often, when people mentioned about fanatic, they're speaking about something that contains many choices, such as numbers, colours, football clubs, etc. Therefore, we can't apply the term fanatic to something absolute, or even something that contains some "truth" value in it, or something that should be done by a logically right person. For example, we can't say someone is fanatic of doing well in exams, or someone is fanatic of searching for truth, or someone is fanatic of caring towards others. That would be absurd!! Well, what about fanatic towards religion? This is what i want to discuss below.
When a person accuses another person of being fanatic towards a particular religion, he actually doesn't get the whole idea. Well, what he's saying is true, but that is if only he has developed a concept that religion is merely a choice. It's not absolute, therefore we can just choose whether it's A or B or C, just as simply choosing which numbers are to be our favourite, whether it's 5 or 7 or 9, etc. Seriously, many people still have that concept! Religion is indeed not a choice, we shouldn't stick to one religion and say "Well, i shall stick to my choice since it's simply just a 'choice' ". Wrong! Religion serves to answer everything that goes under the heavens, and to teach us the "truth". If we stick to one and simply neglect others, and we simply defend ourselves based on what we've learnt about that particular religion, and not bother to learn about others, we could have become a fanatic!! At least, we should do a comparative study towards all religion, and only then we would be able to make our conclusion about which one is true!! You may say "it's an impossible task!!" Well that's an assumption, and you might never know for in the Bible it's written that those who search for truth will eventually finds it.
The final question that arise is : how do i know whether a person is a fanatic? The answer lies on logic. A person is not a fanatic if he's reasonable. Here's a scenario for an example : Supposed a person say that he's not going to believe in a particular religion since there contains contradictions in its Holy Scriptures. Logically, that person should have now believed in a religion that contains no contradiction in his religion's Holy Scriptures! If it actually contains contradictions, we can say that he's actually being fanatic, that he simply wants to defend his religion by throwing those arguments which indeed destroys his own standing. That he's actually being unreasonable! Well of course, he should be clearly aware of what's a contradiction and what's not, and not based on one's own interpretation to judge whether it is indeed a contradiction. One way to find out : research!
To conclude, fanatics are unreasonable people who are blinded by their blind faiths. What they're trying to do is just to defend their own stand no matter what, whether it's right or wrong, while those who purely search for truth, can be easily seen by certain characteristics : they will have a strong standing, simply no contradictions in their philosophy, and most of all, they'll constantly try to reflect and question their own faith, open for criticisms, willing to study more and they're not afraid to talk about epistemology.
The reason I write this article is to, firstly, counter those people who tend to use the word "fanatic" irresponsibly, and secondly, to provide a way of testing whether someone is indeed a fanatic or isn't.
As you have seen above, "fanatics" are related to an unreasonable enthusiasm, an absurd obsession towards something. Imagine a person who likes the number 7 for example, and every clothes he's wearing contains the number 7 on it, and during exam in which he actually can do very well, he intentionally aim at "77", well, perhaps a bit exaggerated, but you got the idea. Now if we pose a question to those person, why would you do that? He'd surely have no answer, the most he can give was "Well, because i like 7!" Simply no other logically supporting reason. That's what fanatic is all about.
Often, when people mentioned about fanatic, they're speaking about something that contains many choices, such as numbers, colours, football clubs, etc. Therefore, we can't apply the term fanatic to something absolute, or even something that contains some "truth" value in it, or something that should be done by a logically right person. For example, we can't say someone is fanatic of doing well in exams, or someone is fanatic of searching for truth, or someone is fanatic of caring towards others. That would be absurd!! Well, what about fanatic towards religion? This is what i want to discuss below.
When a person accuses another person of being fanatic towards a particular religion, he actually doesn't get the whole idea. Well, what he's saying is true, but that is if only he has developed a concept that religion is merely a choice. It's not absolute, therefore we can just choose whether it's A or B or C, just as simply choosing which numbers are to be our favourite, whether it's 5 or 7 or 9, etc. Seriously, many people still have that concept! Religion is indeed not a choice, we shouldn't stick to one religion and say "Well, i shall stick to my choice since it's simply just a 'choice' ". Wrong! Religion serves to answer everything that goes under the heavens, and to teach us the "truth". If we stick to one and simply neglect others, and we simply defend ourselves based on what we've learnt about that particular religion, and not bother to learn about others, we could have become a fanatic!! At least, we should do a comparative study towards all religion, and only then we would be able to make our conclusion about which one is true!! You may say "it's an impossible task!!" Well that's an assumption, and you might never know for in the Bible it's written that those who search for truth will eventually finds it.
The final question that arise is : how do i know whether a person is a fanatic? The answer lies on logic. A person is not a fanatic if he's reasonable. Here's a scenario for an example : Supposed a person say that he's not going to believe in a particular religion since there contains contradictions in its Holy Scriptures. Logically, that person should have now believed in a religion that contains no contradiction in his religion's Holy Scriptures! If it actually contains contradictions, we can say that he's actually being fanatic, that he simply wants to defend his religion by throwing those arguments which indeed destroys his own standing. That he's actually being unreasonable! Well of course, he should be clearly aware of what's a contradiction and what's not, and not based on one's own interpretation to judge whether it is indeed a contradiction. One way to find out : research!
To conclude, fanatics are unreasonable people who are blinded by their blind faiths. What they're trying to do is just to defend their own stand no matter what, whether it's right or wrong, while those who purely search for truth, can be easily seen by certain characteristics : they will have a strong standing, simply no contradictions in their philosophy, and most of all, they'll constantly try to reflect and question their own faith, open for criticisms, willing to study more and they're not afraid to talk about epistemology.
posted by ardianto86 at 8:37 AM
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