(Apparently only myself, Dorothy Mae and Mister E even look at this forum, so this will be my last thread here. I don't believe I'm unorthodox at all, or that this thread is unorthodox either, but the standard of these forums seems to be that "unorthodox" is roughly defined as "You wouldn't hear that in Vacation Bible School" or perhaps "Go away, we don't want to have to think about stuff like that.")
Fundamentalists are everywhere, not just in religion. The New Atheist movement is full of them. The JFK assassination conspiracy community is full of them. The scientific community is full of them.
I have extensive experience with all these groups. I don’t know how many times I’ve pointed out to an atheist that his atheism is the functional equivalent of a religion and he's a closed-minded fundamentalist zealot just like the Christian “fundies” he detests.
What do all fundamentalists have in common? They’re wedded to a particular paradigm – for most fundamentalist atheists and scientists, its naturalistic materialism – and won't even consider anything that might challenge the paradigm. They're more interested in “defending the paradigm” than “the truth.”
Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn brilliantly described how this works in his classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Mountains of evidence challenge the materialistic paradigm. An honest seeker of truth would confront this evidence. Perhaps he would remain a materialist, but he would deal with the evidence.
A fundamentalist can’t allow the tiniest crack in his paradigm. Conflicting evidence must be shouted down and ridiculed. We see this all the time as the proponents of Intelligent Design attempt to get a fair hearing by the scientific community. They are dismissed as "closet Creationists," their work is ridiculed as "pseudoscience."
Are Christian “fundies” any different? (I’m not using the term in any technical way, but in the way most people now understand it, as an extreme Bible literalist.) I don’t think so. It’s basically the exact same mindset.
Christian fundies, of course, think they’re pleasing God. They are what God wants – true believers who are interested only in promoting and defending the paradigm God wants promoted and defended (as they conceive of it).
Nothing about Christianity, as far as I can see, demands the fundamentalist mindset. The Bible certainly doesn’t. The vast majority of Christians over the centuries haven’t had the fundie mindset. Even today, the fundamentalist community, noisy as it may be, is viewed mostly as a curiosity by other Christians.
The fundie mindset is really a way to hide from truth, not defend it.
Why, then, do people adopt the fundie mindset? It makes life simple. It provides a rock of certainty, a security blanket, in an uncertain world. Christian fundies may sincerely believe they're pleasing God.
To me, even if what fundies believe is 100% correct, adopting the fundie mindset is a mistake. The truth will survive scrutiny and questioning. If a doctrine is true, scrutiny will only increase one’s appreciation and understanding of it.
The fact is (to take one obvious example), the Bible won’t survive scrutiny as the 100% literally true Word of God, correct and inerrant in everything it asserts, whether theological, historical or scientific. Clinging to a notion such as this does more harm than good, both to the believer who clings to it and to those who can see what he is doing.
I can live with a fair amount of uncertainty, ambiguity and mystery in my Christianity. Fundies can’t – and that’s their loss, in my opinion.
Fundamentalists are everywhere, not just in religion. The New Atheist movement is full of them. The JFK assassination conspiracy community is full of them. The scientific community is full of them.
I have extensive experience with all these groups. I don’t know how many times I’ve pointed out to an atheist that his atheism is the functional equivalent of a religion and he's a closed-minded fundamentalist zealot just like the Christian “fundies” he detests.
What do all fundamentalists have in common? They’re wedded to a particular paradigm – for most fundamentalist atheists and scientists, its naturalistic materialism – and won't even consider anything that might challenge the paradigm. They're more interested in “defending the paradigm” than “the truth.”
Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn brilliantly described how this works in his classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Mountains of evidence challenge the materialistic paradigm. An honest seeker of truth would confront this evidence. Perhaps he would remain a materialist, but he would deal with the evidence.
A fundamentalist can’t allow the tiniest crack in his paradigm. Conflicting evidence must be shouted down and ridiculed. We see this all the time as the proponents of Intelligent Design attempt to get a fair hearing by the scientific community. They are dismissed as "closet Creationists," their work is ridiculed as "pseudoscience."
Are Christian “fundies” any different? (I’m not using the term in any technical way, but in the way most people now understand it, as an extreme Bible literalist.) I don’t think so. It’s basically the exact same mindset.
Christian fundies, of course, think they’re pleasing God. They are what God wants – true believers who are interested only in promoting and defending the paradigm God wants promoted and defended (as they conceive of it).
Nothing about Christianity, as far as I can see, demands the fundamentalist mindset. The Bible certainly doesn’t. The vast majority of Christians over the centuries haven’t had the fundie mindset. Even today, the fundamentalist community, noisy as it may be, is viewed mostly as a curiosity by other Christians.
The fundie mindset is really a way to hide from truth, not defend it.
Why, then, do people adopt the fundie mindset? It makes life simple. It provides a rock of certainty, a security blanket, in an uncertain world. Christian fundies may sincerely believe they're pleasing God.
To me, even if what fundies believe is 100% correct, adopting the fundie mindset is a mistake. The truth will survive scrutiny and questioning. If a doctrine is true, scrutiny will only increase one’s appreciation and understanding of it.
The fact is (to take one obvious example), the Bible won’t survive scrutiny as the 100% literally true Word of God, correct and inerrant in everything it asserts, whether theological, historical or scientific. Clinging to a notion such as this does more harm than good, both to the believer who clings to it and to those who can see what he is doing.
I can live with a fair amount of uncertainty, ambiguity and mystery in my Christianity. Fundies can’t – and that’s their loss, in my opinion.
