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> I know that there's some dangerous ideas put out there by fundamentalists, but for the most part, if they stick to themselves and are generally good people who don't interfere with others then I don't really care what they believe. It's easy to have this perspective if religious fundamentalism has not had a major impact on your life. However, if your parents were religious fundamentalists, you would likely view things in a different light (or, more likely, you'd be just as religious as them). Mine are, and I enjoyed a childhood characterized by a morbid fear of eternal damnation, church twice weekly, private Christian school to ensure that I did not come into contact with peers from less- or non-religious households, and a total abhorrence of modern science and particularly evolution. However, my parents are intelligent people - it was not their fault they were both born into religious households - and they instilled in me a great love of reading, which backfired for them because, as a science/computer geek, I eventually started in on science books and started to question everything. For me it was like a great window of truth opened on the world and suddenly, everything made sense - and was also so much better than I had been taught. Of course, that caused no end of problems within my family, in part because I passed along my newfound knowledge to my younger siblings. Dawkins would have been proud of me as a young adolescent. Most of my friends from those days never read what I read, and they carry on in the same fundamentalist, "the earth is 6,000 years old and homosexuality is evil" fantasy land. And of course, they indoctrinate their children just as thoroughly as they were indoctrinated. Religion excels at that. Meanwhile, my parents, who I love dearly, are still convinced they are both heading for an eternity burning in hell because they have yet to experience the born-again moment that Protestant Christians pine for. The problem, I think, is that they are too honest with themselves. They really just need that single powerful religious moment (aka hallucination) that they would get if they fasted for three days and prayed continually in a closet, but they haven't had it. So these dear, sweet, kind and incredibly honest and ethical people are still plagued by the morbid fear I managed to cast off as an adolescent. Just because people are "good" doesn't mean that the religious beliefs that have taken over their lives are not damaging to the lives of others and particularly children. I would take Dawkins' earnest, educated, rational and well-meaning brand of urgent atheism over fundamentalist religion any day. |
As a Christian myself, it's sad to hear there are people who don't seem to understand what they purportedly believe. I'd love to sit down with people like your parents to discuss things, as my own knowledge of scripture is fairly advanced (and I would dare to say sound, despite knowing that many in this thread would see it as a crock of BS). But I do fear that type of discussion can be difficult. I've spoken with so-called fundamentalists in the past, and I find their knowledge mostly based on whims and hearsay, rather than actual scripture. Therefore, it becomes tiring if they are not willing to have a 2-way conversation.
It is ironic, because the word "fundamentalist" would indicate to me an adherence to basic fundamentals. In that case, I would call myself a devout fundamentalist, but the word unfortunately does not have that meaning in our society. I wonder why these people are called fundamentalists, and not simply extremists or something else that makes more sense.