Spot the zealot

IN THE NEWS
Perhaps the defining characteristic of a religious zealot versus other types of religious believers is the constant sense of outrage that the zealot has to maintain. If you read the public statements of leaders from Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Abu Sayyaf, the Taliban, and other Islamist groups, you'll see this constant, angry refrain.

To sustain outrage, religious zealots often stretch reality out of shape to manufacture new reasons to be angry. The bizarre conspiracy theories you hear from the Middle East--for example, an international Jewish conspiracy had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and warned Jews working in the World Trade Center not to go to work on that day--undoubtedly arise from this source.

Having seen this sustained, manufactured outrage at work in other societies, we should be on our guard against its appearance in our own. Americans should therefore be skeptical about the alleged "war on Christmas." As this excellent, thoughtful, and honest post at Poliblogger shows, there are lots of good reasons why people say Happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Since the retail sector of the US economy depends on Christmas sales for half of their sales, a solid majority of Americans identify themselves as Christians, and there's no confusion over whether December 25th is Saturnalia or Christmas, the whole "war on Christmas" is ridiculous on its face. However, there are people who, for their own reasons, want to invent conspiracies where none exist.

Comments

[Steven Taylor]

For some reason "Saturnalia" makes me think of a holiday in which you get so drunk you mistakenly purchase a Saturn autmobile...

But that's just me.

(Thanks for the link and the kind words).

[Kingdaddy]

The Saturn: the only car you should buy while intoxicated.