Quotes About Fundamentalism

I grew up in a very fundamentalist, evangelical Christian household. Both my parents were born-again - their faith infused every aspect of my childhood. I'll probably spend most of my life working through that.

Doubt is the heart of the matter. Abolish all doubt, and what's left is not faith, but absolute, heartless conviction. You're certain that you possess the Truth -- inevitably offered with an implied uppercase T -- and this certainty quickly devolves into dogmatism and righteousness, by which I mean a demonstrative, overweening pride in being so very right, in short, the arrogance of fundamentalism.

An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.

Like fundamentalist Judaism and medieval Christianity, Islam is totalist. That is to say, it makes a total claim on the individual.

Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy. How dare a bunch of goondas shrink the soaring majesty of the Vedas and the Upanishads to the petty bigotry of their brand of identity politics?

Over the years I realized the damage fundamentalism did to my own spiritual and mental health. I've spend time recovering, studying scripture, sessions with a therapist, twelve step recovery.

And that's one reason why you will not find fundamentalists at the forefront of critical scholarship.

An ideological theory explains everything: all the past, all the present, and all the future. This means that an ideologue can consider him or herself in possession of the complete truth (something forbidden to the self-consistent fundamentalist). There is no claim more totalitarian and no situation in which the worst excesses of pride are more likely to manifest themselves (and not only pride, but then deceit, once the ideology has failed to explain the world or predict its future).

It is almost incredible that towards the end of the twentieth century, biblical fundamentalism made such a comeback in America. No less astounding is its alliance with the small body of Jewish fundamentalists in Israel to further their respective apocalyptic dreams.

Across the globe, fundamentalists of all religions are on one side, and their attitudes towards women and towards female sexuality are almost identical.

Some people seem to gravitate from one fundamentalism to another, from some kind of secular fundamentalism into a religious fundamentalism or the other way around, which is not very helpful.

Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism and militarism are inherently patriarchal and hierarchical.

It doesn't hurt my feeling when I get vilified by fundamentalist religious people. I've actually made comedy out of it. I've made light of that.

Fundamentalists from every religion have to be replaced, have to be disempowered.

Fundamentalism is such a pejorative word and immediately evokes images of angry extremism. In my experience, that's not usually what it looks like. I was a fundamentalist in high school.

Simply put, the radical fundamentalists seek to kill our citizens in great numbers, to disrupt our economy, and to reshape the international order. They would take the world backwards, replacing freedom with fear and hope with hatred.

I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally.

The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq.

The news that comes out of Pakistan is always geared toward terrorism and fundamentalism. But when you give people freedom of expression and the freedom to go out and be social and to express themselves, you will see a change. I see that coming about in my country.

I have been thinking about the notion of perfect love as being without fear, and what that means for us in a world that's becoming increasingly xenophobic, tortured by fundamentalism and nationalism.

Usually, fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslim, or any faith, shape and interpret religious thought to make it conform to and legitimize a conservative status quo. Fundamentalist thinkers use religion to justify supporting imperialism, militarism, sexism, racism, homophobia. They deny the unifying message of love that is at the heart of every major religious tradition.

Usually, fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslim, or any faith, shape and interpret religious thought to make it conform to and legitimize a conservative status quo. Fundamentalist thinkers use religion to justify supporting imperialism, militarism, sexism, racism, homophobia. They deny the message of love that is at the heart of every major religious tradition.

Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific co-operation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

I would expect the fundamentalists to agree with me that democracy is incompatible with fundamentalist Islam. Moderate Muslims have to decide which side of the argument they are on.