Yes Grieg thats my EXACT POINT... Its good that we blame them... At least we assume that the Middle East is responsible enough to govern itself... However concerning certain other situations, such as with the Aboriginals or Panzermans topic on the Sudan, we blame the government or the UN or the west for crimes that others are comitting... When it fact it is their responsibility, not ours...
I suppose you must, as I don't think I've read that from you before... And now I suspect I have been making some terrible mistake because of this failure to recognize the distinction.
A Fundamentalist, as the name suggests, is one who goes back to the very fundamentals of something. In the case of Christianity, for example, it would indicate somebody who draws on the teachings of the Bible, and in particular but not exclusively those of Jesus, and cuts out all the human-inspired dodgy theology that has cropped up since. Which would mean people behaving much like Jesus, and not like the Medieval 'Christian' nations. An Extremist (not the best term, but there you go) is somebody who takes a very extreme view of a situation, usually one involving their own prejudices taken to extreme lengths. It often erupts into extreme unpleasentness towards a particular group of people. A 'Christian' example of this is the persecution of the Jews in Medieval Europe. I (rather arrogantly!) consider myself something approaching a Christian Fundamentalist (or at least trying to be ), but not a Christian Extremist.
My topic was in fact on Rwanda (not Sudan, which is an entirely different country ) and I was not blaming the French solely for the massacre, but for: - Supporting the government that perpetrated it - Actively retarding the UN intervention (see Romeo Dallaire)
Hmmm your definition of a fundamentalist is somewhat different than the commonly accepted one over here. Most people in the US would, I think, consider a fundamentalist Christian to be one who accepts a literal interpretation of the Bible. That every word is the unadulterated word of God. There are other aspects to fundamentalim such as the conviction that Jesus will return and the Rapture will occur etc. but the literal interpretation of the Bible is perhaps the predominant theme.
Because there are always people who seem to believe that difference is simply evil and must be eradicated.
Logically, a fundamentalist is one who returns to the fundamentals of something... Either way, a Fundamentalist Christian *should* still be somebody who trys to live like Jesus, not somebody who runs around spewing bigoted rubbish and condeming all but themselves to hell. That would be an Extremeist. Or possibly just a dumbass. Is another of my biases showing now?
