For fanaticism is nothing but over-compensated doubt

The title of this entry is a quote from Jung, which I found while reading Stott's Everyday with the Bible. Stott was examining the repentance of Saul, the arch-enemy of the young church. A zealous Jew, Saul was determined to exterminate the church--a deviant sect following (and worshipping!) Jesus of Nazareth.
How can this Saul turned so drastically from wanting to kill every Christian to wanting to convert everyone to Christianity in the person of Paul? Well, perhaps, Saul was very doubtful about his faith and religion, deep down in his heart. That's why he was compensating it with finding an enemy so that by defeating the enemy, his faith and religion looked right in his perspective.
I think I see this kind of over-compensation among many people nowadays. Their interpretation of their faith, or whatever ideology they holding to, has never been shaken. Once they hear news about people criticizing or doubting their faith, they try to defy the criticism by building a fanatical attitude towards their 'correct' interpretation and shun all the others.  Any attempt to shake their interpretation will be met with hostile attitude.
Luckily, many years ago, my interpretation on my faith was tremendously shaken. It was not done by any of the liberal scholar you met at the Jakarta Theological Seminary. I was already 'prepared' and immunized myself from such notable person(s). I just listened to whatever he or she had to say and did not bother to contemplate on it. It was the words of the evangelical Rev Yonky Karman that shook my faith to its very core. Pak Yonky was examining the types of errors in the Bible. It was really an eye-opener. I had previously heard about errors in the Bible, but not explained in clear words and in detail to my very own eyes and ears. It took a couple of months of re-examining what it meant to be Christian and Bible-believing. However, it was a necessary step for theological and spiritual enlightenment and good riddance of fanatical views in me.
I wish all people had that experience--being shaken to their very core. By systematically doubting our own values, principles, and faith, we actually can grow stronger in them without having to resort to that over-compensation called fanaticism. And of course to be able to systematically doubt and evaluate our primordial trappings, we must nurture the critical thinking faculties in our brain. Unfortunately, the nurturing of critical thinking is severely lacking in this republic. At the post-graduate level, I find my students unable to evaluate (or even worse, understand) the information given to them.
I dream of the day when I can do more to train critical thinking among the future generation, not so that they become doubtful about their faith and values, but so that they are able to appreciate their faith and values in a balanced manner and openly embrace differences of views. Hence, we won't have fanatical Sauls anymore. We'll have more intellectually robust and spiritually enlightened Pauls.