Word: absolutist
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...Sullivan's words of wisdom on fundamentalism and spiritual doubt need to be broadcast worldwide. Unfortunately those who are committed to absolutist religious (or political or economic) doctrines are incapable of participating in the kind of open-ended creative problem solving our present world situation requires. Rosalie Taylor Howlett London, Canada...
...Audacity of Hope, I've reconsidered my concern about his lack of experience [Oct. 23]. I'm inclined to vote for a smart, effective communicator and consensus builder who may have little experience but is pragmatic and inclusionary like him rather than someone who has experience but is absolutist and exclusionary. Our current President derived seemingly little benefit from his years as Governor of Texas. The Founding Fathers and another gentleman from Illinois in 1860 had no such qualifications, but they didn't do so badly...
DAWKINS: For me, moral questions such as stem-cell research turn upon whether suffering is caused. In this case, clearly none is. The embryos have no nervous system. But that's not an issue discussed publicly. The issue is, Are they human? If you are an absolutist moralist, you say, "These cells are human, and therefore they deserve some kind of special moral treatment." Absolutist morality doesn't have to come from religion but usually does...
...remember in my own faith journey that in those moments when I felt most lost in the world, I moved toward the absolutist part of my faith and gripped it with the white knuckles of fear. I brooked no dissent and patrolled my own soul for any hint of doubt. I required a faith not of sandstone but of granite...
...reserved only for the Islamic world. As he has done before, Benedict spoke about the need for the West, especially Europe, to reverse its tendency toward godless secularism. He believes that the gift of reason that he cherishes in Christianity has been warped by the West into an absolutist doctrine. And that too, he believes, prevents the opening of a productive channel for dialogue with a more faithful Islamic society. "Reason and faith," he insisted, must "come together...