Simon: Do you accept that the war in Iraq has created more
fundamentlists than there were before?
How are fundamentalists "created"? To call someone a
fundamentalist is to say that the person in question
believes that the interpretation of every word of a sacred
text is a literal truth.
Usually, or so it seems, the intellectual development of
people goes from a literal understanding to a figurative
understanding, and not the other way, from metaphorical
understanding back to literal understanding.
So "creating fundamentalists" implies that an event can
cause people to shed complex and nuanced views of religion,
devolving into an obedient and unquestioning acceptance of
literal statements. Seems unlikely.
If all you mean is that the war in Iraq has caused more
Muslims to join the fight against the West, what's the
problem? Intensification of ground war in World War 2 caused
more Nazis to join the fight against the Allies. Trying to
dispose of a hornet's nest always makes the hornets swarm.
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