It isn't only the Muslims

Submitted by michael (United States), Apr 15, 2008 at 11:54

We have our own fundamentalists right here in this country. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Letter Day Saints is a good example of rural, isolated communities that want to keep themselves pure, avoiding pollution by the presumably godless and corrupt general society they avoid living in. And they manifest their purity in precisely the same way: male domination, female subservience, polygamy, child marriage, severe discipline including frequent corporal punishment and the maintenance of a state of ignorance of the world beyond their compound walls. All these sects teach a doctrine of absolute and hierarchical obedience from God down to the adult males, to the females and their children, etc. Each lower level of this world is considered the chattel of the next level higher. You'll find these people off in the back woods, apart from their own general culture. More cosmopolitan sorts, whether living in New York, Cairo, Tel Aviv or Tehran, usually hold to the more worldly view, of tolerance of a variety of diverse neighbors and a tacit acceptance of their differences in a neighborly spirit.

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