Religious Extremism: Not what you perceive

Over the weekend, I had a weekend workshop on "The Psychology of Religious Extremism". Let me start off by raving about how unbelievably amazing it was! The professor was kind, funny, and the material she taught answered a lot of the questions I had about extremism: Was it always violent? How long has it been around? How do you identify extremism? I had walked into the course generally believing that religious extremism was when a small group of people of any faith do one horrible act against humanity. In turn, I learned that religious extremism doesn't exactly have to be violent towards other people, but can be violent or harmful within itself. To explain what I mean, I'll make an example of the Heaven's Gate mass suicide in March of 1997. Heaven's Gate was cult founded in 1974 lead by Marshall Applewhite. Within Heaven's Gate were it's followers, who all believed in basically a more scientific and modern twist to Christianity. Eventually, these beliefs lead to them committing mass suicide in order for them all to escape earth before the "end". What is peculiar about Heaven's Gate is that it's followers were completely at ease. There was no murdering of non-believers and, believe it or not, the Heaven's Gate members were very excluded from society themselves (so they left people alone). Overall, Heaven's Gate showed me that religious extremism is not the stereotypical attacking of others. It taught me that extremism is sometimes much more than violence to others, but problematic within itself.