[jlgreco]

The subset is not particularly small in America.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form".

32% think that "Humans evolved, with God guiding", which is still a lot of the religious in America, but far fewer than many seem to expect. Fewer than those who reject evolution completely.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intel...

[dragonwriter]

> According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form".

That's not particularly either Fundamentalist or fundamentalist; "Fundamentalism" is a particular school of Christian theology for which specific creationism of that type is not distinguishing, and "fundamentalism" in the generic sense inspired by Christian Fundamentalism is "the demand for a strict adherence to orthodox theological doctrines" and cannot be identified by simply belief in a particular doctrine on a matter of "what happened", its defined by beliefs of how you treat people who disagree with your beliefs on such doctrines.

[lotharbot]

creationist often means fundamentalist, but not always.

EDIT: there is definitely a lot of fundamentalist influence in the US on certain topics, particularly on literal creation. But that influence has been waning for 30-40 years. And many of those who have been influenced on one or two topics are nonetheless very much not-fundamentalist on other topics.

[jlgreco]

That is subject to interpretation, but I disagree. If you can't consider your creation myth to be a metaphor, a nice back-story, or whatever... then basically you are unwilling or unable to budge on what should be a pretty uncontested point. Maybe you are progressive on other fronts, but at least in that regard you are a fundamentalist.

I would say that fundamentalist does not imply creationist (you'll find fundamentalist Roman Catholics for instance), but creationist does imply fundamentalist. Creationism is one of many fundamentalist stances.

[lotharbot]

> "you are unwilling or unable to budge... in that regard you are a fundamentalist."

In Christianity, "Fundamentalist" refers specifically to a Protestant/Evangelical movement that was named for a series of essays published before and during WWI, which outline certain specific doctrinal positions. The movement arose largely in response to opposing beliefs which themselves date to the mid-late 1800s. Being "unwilling to budge" might make someone a literalist or a dogmatist, but being a Fundamentalist is more specific.

Among Americans who call themselves Christian, few are anything close to true Fundamentalists [0]. Most are hybrids whose beliefs have been assembled in bits and pieces from pastors, books, etc. which includes some fundamentalist-inspired ideas, some ideas that resemble fundamentalist ideas but are actually much older, and some ideas that are completely opposite of fundamentalist ideas. People whose beliefs are mostly Fundamentalist are a very small subset of Christianity, both globally and in the US.

[0] note that "no true Scotsman" is only a fallacy if one is using inappropriate criteria to determine group inclusion/exclusion. It's not a fallacy to point out that James Doohan wasn't really Scottish.

[jlgreco]

If you want to define "Fundamentalist" to be something other than current real-world usage, that is fine. I'll just pick a new, less 'technical', word: Nuts.

If you are a creationist, you are an utter nut, full stop. A significant portion of Americans are religious nuts.

And, to clarify earlier discussion on the behalf of JabavuAdams, "Online, when someone writes "Christian", it's hard to tell whether they're referring to fundamentalists^Wreligious nuts, or not."

All better?

[lotharbot]

I define Christian Fundamentalist according to its actual usage within the relevant community [0]. If we were referencing Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu Fundamentalism the definition could be substantially different.

I have already proposed better terms: "literalist" and "dogmatist". Those terms may be insufficiently pejorative for your purposes, but here on Hacker News we have guidelines and cultural expectations against name-calling and incivility.

[0] note that I am not a member of the Fundamentalist, literalist, dogmatist, or creationist communities.

[jlgreco]

Let me guess, next you'll demand that we not refer to chiropractors or psychics as "quacks"...