"I think it's better to have ideas..."

I'll be honest I had no idea what to blog about tonight but through discussions in the past couple of hours and an inadvertent radio dial brought me to this point. "I think it's better to have ideas..." This quote is from Dogma and is part of a bigger dialogue on religion overall and more specifically the extreme ends of it.

Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good? Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant. 

I bring this up because of the House Homeland Security Hearing on the "radicalization of Muslim Americans". Personally I think this is a thinking error and is biased, not because I'm blind to radicalization but because radicalization is not isolated to Islam. While the events of September 11th surely weigh heavily on the mind of the representative of New York who called the hearings, Peter King, it seems to me that he is quick to forget the beliefs of members of other faiths. The individuals from the Westboro Baptist Church, the Dove World Outreach Center (Koran burning day), and the Oklahoma City bombing were/are also actions of radical individuals who take their beliefs too far. To single out individuals to a particular idea or extension of ideas, in my opinion, is wrong.

If you are to have a hearing on the radicalization of ideas have it based on all beliefs, all faiths, all people do not single out an individual people simply because of fear. I practice a Catholic faith, I call myself a Christian and an American, I do not fear Islam, Christianity, Judaism, agnosticism whatever, what I do fear is a radicalization of politics to where the common good is pushed to the side for a specific agenda.

"I think it's better to have ideas..."