Can someone please explain this to me?

[scimitar60]

Steffen gives several features associated with religious fanaticism or extremism. Calling it “the demonic”, he says:

The demonic meets spiritual needs… human beings have a spiritual longing for understanding and meaning, and given the mystery of existence, that spiritual quest can only be fulfilled through some kind of relationship with ultimacy, whether or not that takes the form as a “transcendent other.” Religion—even demonic religion—has power to meet this need for meaning and transcendent relationship.[3]
Demonic religion is attractive… because demonic religion is real religion and meets real human spiritual needs, it presents itself in such a way that those who find their way into it come to express themselves in ways consistent with the particular vision of ultimacy at the heart of this religious form. People are not attracted to demonic religion because it is false or a perversion of religion; they are attracted by all it promises to do for them, and more often than not it delivers on its promise.[4]
The demonic is a live option… the demonic is presents itself in competition with another way to be religious, the life-affirming option, and it sometimes wins. It wins because it is present to the moral consciousness as a live option that addresses spiritual need and satisfies human longing for meaning, power, and belonging.[5]

 

[St_Francis]

Well, I hope you are not getting that off the Wikipedia article about religious fanaticism, because it has a lot of “inaccuracies” in it!

As to what you have posted, each person has a desire for a connection with God: our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest with Thee. As both material *and *supernatural creatures, we have a need for the spiritual.

Unfortunately, some of us satisfy that yearning with false substitutes for God, for various reasons, because of the fallen aspect of our human nature. Sometimes we are simply dazzled by the here-and-now of the world: it’s like being unable to see the stars during the day because of the immediacy of the sun; sometimes we are pulled away from the good by the bad habits, or vices, that we do not want to leave behind.

Sadly, any sort of false religion or spirituality will be attractive to people because they want the spiritual but they do not want to make any sacrifices.

ETA: You should put more information about what you are questioning, like the writer’s full name, and a link to the work you are asking about. Your author’s name, btw, is Lloyd H Steffen, who wrote a book called Holy War, Just War.

 

[scimitar60]

Yes, thanks very much for your reply. I read it off wikipedia and I thought it seemed a bit… dodgy…

 

[MtnDwellar]

If not for your first sentence, I would have thought that the article was referring to cultism rather than religious fanaticism. Maybe the two are more closely related than I thought??

I will say that many people long for a physical connection to the spiritual world. Is that what the author means by “relationship with ultimacy”? The physical signs, either rightly or wrongly, assure people that they are on the right path.

It just occurred to me that whether it is speaking in tongues, resting in Christ, or pagans lighting up the forest with energy during a drum ceremony, all are physical connections to the spiritual world.