For them as has interest and patience to read

[Edson!]

I might be overly technical here, but I can't really call it "faith" in its purest sense. Big difference between pure faith and pure brainwashing to me...

[CrankyChrissy]

Plenty of people would say that faith and brainwashing are the same thing. What exactly is your definition of pure faith? (To whit, is it pure when its object something YOU believe in?) Less overly technical than irrelevant, I'd say. The point is the power of fanaticism.

[CrankyChrissy]

WHY HAMAS WON By RALPH PETERS June 19, 2007 -- HAMAS won its shut-out victory in Gaza with alarming ease. And the reason Hamas won is even more alarming: Fanaticism trumps numbers. You'll hear no end of explanations for the terrorist triumph: Hamas was backed by Iran; Gaza is Hamas' base of support; some Fatah units ran out of ammunition . . . All true. And all secondary factors. Fatah's security forces in Gaza outnumbered the Hamas gunmen. Fatah had stockpiles of weapons and military gear (now in Hamas' arsenal). Fatah even had the quiet backing of Israel and America. And Fatah folded like a pup tent in a tornado. Hamas won because its fighters are religious fanatics ready to die for their cause. Fatah runs an armed employment agency under the banner of Palestinian nationalism. Most of the latter's security men are on the payroll because relatives or ward pols got them jobs. And they want to stay alive to collect their wages. The result was predictable. Our government pretended otherwise. Now hairs should be standing up on the backs of thousands of necks, from the White House to the Green Zone. Yes, Iraq is more complex than Gaza. But once you pierce the surface turbulence and look deep, the similarities are chilling: Iraq's security forces do include true patriots - but most of the troops and cops just want a job, or were ordered to join up by a sheik or a mullah, or are gathering guns until their faction calls. The al-Qaeda-in-Iraq terrorists, the core members of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the hard-line Sunni ghazis are willing to die for the victory of their faction and their faith. They believe they're doing Allah's will. It gives them a strength we rush to explain away. The raw numbers suggest that Iraq's fanatics don't stand a chance. The government has a far greater numerical advantage than did Fatah. But numbers often mislead analysts during insurgencies: Iraq's government wouldn't last a week without U.S. troops. The lesson from Gaza is that such wars are neither waged nor won by the majority of the population. A tiny fraction of the populace, armed and determined, can destroy a fragile government and seize power. Polls showing that most Iraqis "want peace" and don't support the extremists only deceive us (because we want to be deceived). It wouldn't matter if 99 percent of the Iraqis loved us like free falafel, if we're unwilling to annihilate the fraction of 1 percent of the population with the weapons and will to dictate the future to the rest. At the height of last week's fighting in Gaza, one Palestinian in 300 carried a weapon in support of Hamas - a third of one percent of the population. Now Hamas rules 1.5 million people. Numbers still matter, of course. But strength of will can overcome hollow numbers. And nothing - nothing - gives men a greater strength of will than religious fanaticism. We don't want to hear it. Secular virtues were supposed to triumph. They didn't, but we still can't let go of our dream of a happy-face, godless world where nobody quarrels. Our refusal to acknowledge the unifying - and terrifying - power of extremist religion has deep roots. As academics rejected and derided faith in the last century, even the Thirty Years' War - the horrible climax of Europe's wars of religion - was reinvented as a dynastic struggle, or a fight for hegemony, or a class struggle. But the Thirty Years' War was about faith. All the other factors were in play, but the core issue, from the Protestant coup in Prague in 1618 to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, was religious identity. And the atrocities committed on both sides make Iraq look like amateur hour: Wars of religion always demand blood sacrifice. (It was a compromise of bloody exhaustion that ended the Thirty Years War.) Our problem is that, of those who rise in government, few have witnessed the power of revelation or caught a life-changing glimpse of the divine. They simply can't imagine that others might be willing to die for all that mumbo-jumbo. Our convenience-store approach to faith leaves us numb to the passion of our enemies. The true believer always beats the feckless attendee. The best you can hope for is that the extremist will eventually defeat himself. And that does leave us some hope: Fanatics inevitably over-reach, as al Qaeda's Islamo-fascists have done in Iraq, alienating those who once saw them as allies. But the road to self-destruction can be a long one: The people of Iran want change, but the fanatics have the guns. And sorry, folks: Fanatics with guns beat liberals with ideas. Faith is the nuclear weapon of the fanatic. And there's not going to be a religious "nuclear freeze." It doesn't matter how many hearts and minds you win, if you don't defeat the zealots with the muscles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Congress for Truth is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Everyday, ACT is on the front lines fighting for you in meeting with politicians, decision makers, speaking on college campuses and planning events to educate and inform the public about the threat of radical Muslim fundamentalists to world peace. We are committed to combating the global upsurge of hate and intolerance. To continue and bolster our efforts, we need your continued solidarity, activism and financial support. We are only as strong as our supporters. We thank you for helping us carry on this important work. American Congress for Truth (ACT) , P.O.Box 6884, Virginia Beach, VA 23456

[Edson!]

Well there are a lot of things to bring into that--historical basis, unity throughout Scripture, many things beyond what could be discussed in this forum this weekend.

Brainwashing doesn't allow for intelligent dispute, etc. It doesn't allow for free will...many things.

True brainwashing and fanaticism isn't about faith in the sense of reasonable trust. In fact it is the total opposite. People like to throw out, too losely, the terms brainwashing and fanaticism. Nevertheless, the continuous bombardment of terrorism and terroristic threats worldwide demonstrate the very definition of truly extreme brainwashing and fanaticism. And that's what we've been seeing globally.

The difference is so transparent and great that it cannot help but be especially relevant.

[CrankyChrissy]

See the definitions below, then please tell me how you are going to determine which is operating in the heart and/or mind of any given terrorist. Or how it matters unless it offers a possible means of reversing terroristic ideology.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

Brainwashing

Systematic effort to destroy an individual's former loyalties and beliefs and to substitute loyalty to a new ideology or power. It has been used by religious cults as well as by radical political groups. The techniques of brainwashing usually involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; an exacting regimen calling for absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for noncooperation, including social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, sleep, and social contacts, bondage, and torture; and constant reinforcement. Its effects are sometimes reversed through deprogramming, which combines confrontation and intensive psychotherapy.


Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Faith: Etymology: Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust

1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
synonym see BELIEF
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[faithforever]

Don't have time to really review and study the article, sorry, will get back to it INSHALLAH.