Petrus Cunaeus 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.
Peter van der Kun
Petrus Cunaeus, 1586–1638, Dutch Historian, The Hebrew Republic
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Torah comprises the first 5 books of the Bible (Old Testament). The Arab countries of the Middle East are not alone in having to content with ultra-religious clerics who want to control the government and use it to impose religious law on the entire population. Israel also has the problem. In the Arab countries to deny being religion is to put yourself in danger including risking your life. So no one really knows what proportion of the population supports the religious imposition from the government. In Israel, however, this is easily determined by polls. The majority of Israelis are secular Jews. Of the religious Jews, the majority of them believe in extensive separation between the state and the religion. But there is a minority of ultra-orthodox which would have Israel to be a Theocracy. They are a minority but they are politically very strong. They receive large financial support from extremely wealthy Americans, have religious political parties, are extremely passionate advocates, and are willing to devote huge amounts of time to make Israel a more religious state and ideally a theocracy. Ironically, there is a great religious and philosophical similarity between the extremist Jews of Israel and the extremists Muslims in many of the Arab nations. They both want a theocracy. The only difference is which religion should the Theocracy represent.
Few Islamic leaders have publicly made such unequivocal statements about the problem of extremism and fanaticism.
Petrus Cunaeus was the pen name of the Dutch Christian scholar Peter van der Kun. His book The Hebrew Republic is considered "the most powerful statement of republican theory in the early years of the Dutch Republic."
