I promised a more philosophical post...

The more serious stuff going through my mind right now has to do with religion in history and how they work together. In my Reformations class, we're ending the semester with a few lectures on what's going on right now in Iraq and Iran, between the two countries, within the two countries, and so on. We're doing this because there's just so many similarities with the religious wars happening during the Reformation time period; for example, the similarities between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the New Model Army in England are uncanny in their belief in equality and their reliance upon the idea that they are doing God's bidding each time they go out and fight.

So all through my history education (at least Mr. Moyer onwards), it has been pushed into my head that the whole purpose of studying history is to prevent the repeat of horrible events of the past through the examination of their underlying causes, etc. It just seems to me that no matter how much we study history, stuff keeps happening over and over again...like the religious wars happening, likely as a result of the seemingly increasing presence of fundamentalists within both sects of the Muslim religion. So here's my question: is this problem based in (here's some Nietzsche for you) an inescapable cycle of history or is it based upon what religion is and how it fits into society and the decisions that a country may make?

Here's where the religious idea is coming from: most religions that come to mind have either current or historical forms of fundamentalism and the violence that usually accompanies the movements. Catholicism had its Inquisition, burning of heretics both by church leadership and by Catholic rulers, the Crusades (totally not in chronological order). Protestantism has the craziness that happened throughout the 1500's -- the Munster Commune in Germany, the Diggers and the Levellers in England, to some extent the Puritans in New England. Even the Mormons have their own fundamentalists, who have been all over the place in the news lately, the FLDS. But at the same time, there are the Buddhists and the Hindus...I mean, have you ever really heard of a Buddhist fundamentalist? I haven't, at least not as they apply to making decisions socially -- those protesting in China are nominally promoting equal rights, maybe separation based more on politics and history than religion. So, is it a religion in general kinda thing? Is the formation of fundamentalist splinter groups reserved to just the major world religions because there are political leaders who are practicing members of the religion? I don't know the answer; it's something I've been toying with in my mind for a long time.

But it's something that we -- as historians, as scholars, as people -- need to figure out. Too much violence and unrest happens as a result of religious fundamentalism. Is it something in a society? A lot of sociologists seem to be looking to the economic conditions in the Middle East to explain the growth of fundamentalist terrorist groups in Iran, Afghanistan, etc. Or is it based upon the human concepts of God and religious practice? It seems like there's so much at stake when it comes to religion that it's hard to agree to disagree. In many people's eyes, it's others' salvation that they're dealing with and that's generally not something people are willing to compromise on. I'm not criticizing religion, or God, or anything here. I think there's something underlying all of this...we just might need a genius to figure it out, if we, as humans, can figure it out at all.