Religious Fundamentalism

Essay # 63750

Political Science > Marx / Engels
Political Science > Terrorism
Religion and Theology > Islam

This paper applies Karl Marx's conflict theory especially "false consciousness" to religious fundamentalism especially to Islamic Jihad.

1,890 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that every religion, as a social institution, has its fundamentalists, which drives the thought processes of its adherents, often with great social implications. The author stresses that the role of fundamentalism can best be interpreted by applying Marx's conflict theory, which emphasizes the role of power and coercion in producing social order, in conjunction with Marx's idea of "false consciousness", which theorizes that a subordinate group internalizes the values, views and thought of the dominant group, to Islamic terrorist groups who believe that they are being oppressed by the secular West, that the Western lifestyle is against Allah and those who follow him. The paper states that the main limitation to the concept of conflict theory is that there is no absolute end to the fighting; different groups continually will lash out against one another in a never-ending spiral of violence.

From the Paper:

"The roots of Muslim rage go back more than a thousand years. "The idea that religion and politics should be separated is relatively new, dating back a mere three hundred years." Christians tend to keep a division between church and state. "Render...unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." In Islam, there is no such separation, and an assault upon God is seen as an assault upon the state. The United States, though built upon a separation of church and state, still struggles with the boundaries of God. In California, as in many other states, there has been an ongoing debate about whether or not to make it possible for two homosexuals to marry one another. ... Whether or not invoking God to settle a political issue is appropriate is irrelevant. What this is meant to illustrate is that religion and the belief in God has a definite power over the way people think, their beliefs, and their agendas".