It is important to understand that our world has changed. Thus, the first part of this book will go back to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, when the people of Western Europe began to develop their new science.
We will also examine the mythological piety of the traditional rural world to see how the old forms of faith operated. Conventional religiosity becomes very difficult in a completely new world. Modernity has always been a painful process.
People feel alienated and disjointed whenever fundamental changes in society make the world strange and unrecognizable. We will explore the impact that modernity had on Christians in Europe and America, Jews, and Muslims in Egypt and Iran.
Thus, we will be able to discern what radicals attempted to do when they created this new type of faith at the end of the nineteenth century. Fundamentalists feel they are fighting against forces that threaten their most sacred values.
During a war, it is very difficult for opponents to appreciate each other’s positions. Modernity polarized society. But sometimes, to prevent escalation, we must try to understand the pain and ideas of the other side.
All of us who enjoy the freedoms and achievements of modernity find it difficult to understand the anxiety of those who become fundamentalists. Yet, modernity is often experienced not as liberation but as an aggressive imposition.
