Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by linda wagner on November 8, 2009 at 11:39am

If i was fundamentalism I would have a very hard time keeping up that level of stupidity. You have to scrutinize everything.

Permalink Reply by linda wagner on November 8, 2009 at 11:40am

everything thats FUN I mean.

Permalink Reply by Aaron S. (USA) on November 8, 2009 at 3:18pm

People of the previous generation could retreat into a culturally isolated community and pull down the shades, but their children live every day with a heightened, web-enhanced awareness of a diverse world.

They've never met the Mormons, lol. If the writer really thinks you can't live in a bubble, they've never met an actual fundamentalist.


The very nature of human religiousness is changing in a way inimical to fundamentalist thought. The most rapidly growing spiritual groups today focus not on someone else’s authority, but on a direct encounter with the divine.

Which is exactly the problem - each individual person becomes the word of God itself. If someone's just following this or that book, you might be able to reason with them, but if they're convinced they talk to God personally, it just gets that much more difficult.


But a tectonic shift in religion is underway, and the fundamentalist moment is ending. A new and promising chapter in the long story of human faith is beginning. Its untidiness often reminds me of the exuberant earliest years of Christianity. Maturity comes with time.

So he's calling the Dark Ages "maturity"? 'Nuff said.

This isn't the first time people have claimed God was dead or that fundamentalism is over. Who knows? Maybe this time it really will be - but I don't see any reason to believe that there's anything new going on. The problem with fundamentalism isn't just that it feeds off ignorance, but that it creates that ignorance itself. Fundamentalism is a self-sustaining system, sort of like Communism. I think we're not going to be done with it yet.

Permalink Reply by OutlawGirl on November 8, 2009 at 7:39pm

As an atheist I'm all for spiritualism as long as the individual remains open to the light of science.