Zealotry does not depend merely on religious faith, and it is not today
confined to the US.
Some of the worst zealots of our time were not religious unless you consider
their ideology to be a religion. The leaders of different movements are
often convinced that they know not only what is best for themselves, and what
is best for those around them, but what is best for everyone, and they are
going to try to impose their ideas on others for their own good whether they
like it or not.
If one ran a psychological profile on the following, he would find this
common thread in the following:
John Calvin, New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Robespierre who as a
little provincial judge could not bring himself to impose the death penalty
but later sent thousands to the guillotine, 19th and early 20th century
European anarchists, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Sandanists, Ho Chi
Men, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Quadaffi, and various others.
Jean Paul
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