Huston Smith Quotes

Men whose religion was excessively zealous split themselves into opposing factions, and once divided by a single mistake they disagreed on everything and came to be entirely at odds with one another.

In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds -- that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.

In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect - if you're a moderate on abortion, if you're a moderate on gun control, or if you're a moderate in your religious faith - it doesn't evolve into a crusade where you're either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.

The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude.

All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

Politics is a highly tribal business.

Extremism, under whatever guise, fanaticism of whatever kind, factionalism of whatever persuasion would be faithful, poisonous plants and the soil of our country which will not be allowed to flourish.

The problem with absolutist beliefs that they can get you into traps in which the ends justify the means.

All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.

People at the political extremes have an advantage over the rest of us. Only they seem to know exactly who and what is wrong with America and precisely what policies and programs should be adopted to fix it.

My feeling is that the most dangerous people are always those who take a hardline position - and nothing inspires that sort of extremism like difference.

Heartless zealotry, whether from the religious right or from the teachers' union on the left, is always troubling.

I don't think you want political parties that are entirely driven by some extremely doctrinal ideology.

Ideology knows no boundaries.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

Religion has both bolstered and undermined stable self-government. It has advanced political reform and human rights, but also induced irrationality, extremism, and terrorism.

With the fundamentalist Islamic fanatics of today, there is no dialogue possible either, because for them all others are “infidel dogs”. As soon as the Other becomes a wrongdoer or an infidel, dialogue becomes impossible.

We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.

Most unfortunately, none among us arise as reformers save that they depart from moderation into extremism, and the call cannot succeed with extremism. The Wahhabis undertook reform, and their sect would be good were it not for their extremism and excess. What need is there for their call that the tomb of the Prophet be destroyed? Or their assertion that all other Muslims are infidels? Or that they must be extirpated?

We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.

Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right

Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym of "evil," regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not what you are extreme about, but that you are "extreme"—

… the politically engaged will tend also to be the most closed-minded.

Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity.