Religious fanaticism
Religious fanaticism, or religious extremism, is a pejorative designation used to indicate uncritical zeal or obsessive enthusiasm that is related to one's own, or one's group's, devotion to a religion – a form of human fanaticism that could otherwise be expressed in one's other involvements and participation, including employment, role, and partisan affinities. Historically, the term was applied in Christian antiquity to denigrate non-Christian religions, and subsequently acquired its current usage with the Age of Enlightenment.[1]
Spiritual needs: Human beings have a spiritual longing for understanding and meaning, and given the mystery of , that spiritual quest can only be fulfilled through some kind of relationship with ultimacy, whether or not that takes the form as a "transcendent other". Religion has power to meet this need for meaning and transcendent relationship.[2]
existence
Attractiveness: It presents itself in such a way that those who find their way into it come to express themselves in ways consistent with the particular vision of ultimacy at the heart of this religious form.
[3]
A 'live' option: It is present to the moral consciousness as a live option that addresses spiritual need and satisfies human longing for meaning, power, and belonging.
[4]
Lloyd Steffen cites several features associated with religious fanaticism or extremism:
Teaching in a World of Violent Extremism. N.p., Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2021.
Antitheism
Cult suicide
Extremism
Religious ecstasy
Just war theory
Mass suicide
Nonviolent extremism
Religious terrorism
Religious violence
Religious war
Violent extremism
Anderson, Paul. "" Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Vol 4. Ed. J. Harold Ellens. Westport: Praegers, 2004.
Genocide or Jesus: A God of Conquest or Pacifism?
Edwards, John. "Review: Was the Spanish Inquisition Truthful?" The Jewish Quarterly Review 87 (1997): 351-66.
, ed. The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Vol. 3. Westport: Praegers, 2004.
Ellens, J. Harold
, ed. Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Vol 4. Westport: Praegers, 2004.
Ellens, J. Harold
Farr, Thomas. "Islam's Way to Freedom." First Things 187 (2008): 24-28.
Johnson, J. T. "Opinion, Jihad and Just War." First Things (2002):12-14.
Moran, Seán Farrell, "Patrick Pearse and Patriotic Soteriology," in Yonah Alexander and Alan O'Day, The Irish Terrorism Experience, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 17–30.
Selengut, Charles. Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
Shafer, Grant. "Hell, Martyrdom, and War: Violence in Early Christianity." The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Vol. 3. Ed. . Westport: Praegers, 2004.
J. Harold Ellens
Steffen, Lloyd. Holy War, Just War: Exploring the Moral Meaning of Religious Violence. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.