Tom Facchine – A Muslim Fundamentalist

			Some people ask, Well, are you a fundamentalist? Or they accuse you of being a fundamentalist? And
this is a trick question. What does that mean? If you want to go with the actual historical
definition what a fundamentalist isn't, it doesn't make sense to apply to a Muslim because the term
fundamental fundamentalist came about due to the differences in kind of the Christian church, once
the Big Bang Theory and evolution came about. And then there was a split in the church, the
Protestant church between those that were going to reform themselves and those who are going to
remain sort of on the old teachings and get back to the fundamentals or stick to the fundamentals.
		

			That's where fundamentalist comes from. Okay, so how does that have to do with us, right? You're a
fundamentalist Christian, if you believe that the Bible is the actual word of God, okay? If you're
gonna use the same criteria for Muslims, and every single one of us is a fundamentalist. We all
believe that the Quran is the word of God, right? So it doesn't translate and certain things a lot
of a lot of religious concepts and theological concepts don't translate what people really mean when
they say it is it's a smear, whatever bad religious guy that they have in mind. And it's a it's a
shifting goalposts. There's no strict definition to it. That's who they're going to label as a
		

			fundamentalist. They're labeling you as a fundamentalist so that they can punish you in some sort of
way, either dismiss you d legitimize what you have to say, or potentially make you Yeah, the
suspicious, you know, a suspect when it comes to either the violence of the state or the police or
the FBI, or if you're abroad, you know, the army or whatever, right. But it's a ridiculous notion
because it has no actual definition me, it's just like terrorist who's a terrorist, right? Some
people could if they look back into history, they could say that the founding fathers of America
were terrorists, right? If the British wrote the history, you know, George Washington and Thomas
		

			Jefferson and the Boston Tea Party, and all these things, oh, they were just terrorists, right? We
don't have a strict definition. And so people throw this term around, and they label whoever they
disagree with or whoever they don't want as that name a fundamentalist is the same you you're scared
of religious people, or you have a low opinion of religious people. You think that religious people
are intolerant? Or you think that religious people are particularly prone to violence in a way that
non religious people aren't. So you're going to label anybody who believes that their thing is right
as a fundamentalist. You think somebody who believes that their religion is the only true religion
		

			that's a fundamentalist that's I got news for you that's that's half the world at least it's not
Islam does not have a monopoly on that disposition. You go to ask ask Buddhists. You got to ask
Hindus, you go to ask other people, not the westernized ones that come through in the English
language. You go to these places, and you ask people, are these other religions? Correct? They'll
say No way. Ours is the one that's correct. Everybody's a fundamentalist. Come on. We need to have
languages more refined and we need to have more intellectual and academic discussions about these
sorts of things. If you don't like something that I believe in or you disagree with a concept of my
		

			religion, then let's talk about that instead of labeling each other with these childish empty names,
just to kind of dismiss each other