This page is part of “Problems with Religions and Spiritual Traditions”.
Within a religious tradition, some adherents slide from ordinary devotion into fundamentalism and zealotry: an unwavering conviction that their interpretation is the sole truth, a very strict and rigid adherence to it, and a willingness to act on it at any cost. Zealots prioritize doctrinal purity over compassion, becoming willing to harm others, or even sacrifice their own lives, in the name of the cause — turning people into perpetrators of extremism and violence.