* Our Mother, Who Art in Heaven ~ Tamas Pataki, "Against Religion" ~ 10 Characteristics of Religion

"The preconditions for belief in God, Tamas Pataki suggests, are set in the first months of life, when the infant feels anxious when separated from the mother. His only wishes are to be free of hunger and pain, and to believe in the mother as infinitely provident and, later, that she knows everything. 'It is remarkable, is it not,' writes Pataki, 'that these attributes—omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence—so necessary in the regulation of infantile narcissism and wellbeing, are precisely the key perfections attributed to God?'" TIME Magazine, May 24, 2007, Andrew Chapman

Neil Godfrey extracts and summarizes Pataki's ten characteristics of religious fundamentalism, as follows, and fleshes them out more fully on his website.

Godfrey writes, "Fundamentalism is a term applied to various Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Judaic groups, and even to some secular (economic and environmental) groups. All different.

"Yet Tamas Pataki in his newly published Against Religion lists what he sees as “criss-crossing similarities — family resemblances — in certain basic beliefs, values, and attitudes” (p.27) that characterize the various religious groups labelled “fundamentalist”.

1. They are counter-modernist.

2. They are “generally assertive, clamorous, and often violent”.

3. They are “the Chosen”, “the Elect”, “the Saved”.

4. Public marks of distinction are needed to maintain their sense of superiority and distinctive identity.

5. There is only one true religion and one correct way of life; and these must be defended against inroads from other religions and secularism.

6. There is an inerrant holy book, prophet or charismatic leader to whom literal obedience is mandatory.

7. Law and authority come from God.

8. Female sexuality must be controlled and clear impassable boundaries must be established between men and women.

9. Sexual behaviour is a major concern of all fundamentalists — Christian, Jewish, Islamic — without exception. Especially the fear of and opposition to homosexuality.

10. Fundamentalism and nationalism converge."

Tamas Pataki is Honorary Senior Fellow and sometime lecturer in the Philosophy Department, University of Melbourne, and Honorary Fellow at Deakin University. He has published extensively on the philosophy of mind, psychoanalysis, moral philosophy, and aesthetics, and is co-editor, with Michael Levine, of Racism in Mind (Cornell, 2004).Scribe Publications