# How Can There Be NON-Fundamentalists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 24, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896 "2004-09-24T17:06:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/81 "2004-09-27T13:11:55Z")
> [@Oy!](#): > > \ **Eve** , if you think Harris is hot, check out [Ed Wasser](http://www.wasser.com/) (Morden) on the first three seasons of _Babylon 5_! Same look, only even better.\ Nah, I think Harris looks like they did Ben Stiller over and got it right this time, without the chimp-like elements. Now, back to the intelligent discussion, folks! This is fascinating, and I am happy to see it remain on a high, “pass-the-tea, Maude” level. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/82 "2004-09-27T13:19:31Z")
By the way, I just sent Sam Harris a link to this thread, telling him if he’s not sick to death of the subject by now, he might be interested in reading it (and that perhaps his wife might like to join in on the hotly contested “Sam Harris/John Irving” debate). ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/83 "2004-09-27T13:44:39Z")
> [@trandallt](#): > > How about “assholes?” My point is that when a fundamentalist Christian tries to convert me he is doing so because his faith commands it. There are no tenets of athiesm that require proseltysing. If an atheist is pushing his beliefs on you or calling you an idiot for not agreeing with him, he is simply being a jerk. It has nothing to do with atheism. The only belief fundamental to atheism is a denial of a particular god. A person who professes to be a fundamentalist Christian is required to behave in certain ways consistent with his faith. A claim of atheism has no such requirements; in fact, it is simply a descriptive term. I think you have a valid point, but I still beg to differ. What is motivating the asshole of either variety – the faith-based asshole and the “evangelical atheist” – is the opinion that his own views as to the Truth trump any rights and privileges you may have to your own faith or to making up your own mind on the issue. I have as strong a call to help you find a deep, close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ as that guy who called on you unexpectedly last week with a Bible under his arm and a tract in his outstretched hand. The difference is that I’m not convinced that you’re deluded and need to have me rescue you from the error of your ways – you’re a human being with the same wisdom and abilities as me, _ceteris paribus_, who arrived at whatever position he has on the religion issue based on his own life experiences and the logic which he applied to them. And the omniscient God whom the fundy is so anxious to keep on the good side of, He knows that – knows right where you are, and loves you nonetheless. Lots of people have read **Eve** ’s books and columns. And they know her in one sense of the word. We on this board know her better – we’ve come to exchange views with her. We’ve traded more than a few witty riffs over the years; I was around when she “came out” online; I have more than a clue how she’s likely to react to a given comment. Some lucky few of us know her as a flesh-and-blood person, adding to the interchange of ideas here the ability to interreact with body language and such, to share a meal, etc. And for some obscure reason, no one has seen fit to court her and know her in the Biblical sense. That apparent total digression has a point. Nearly everybody claims to know God from His books – but remember that He has the same problem as Socrates; leading writers attributed back their own _idées fixés_ to Him, and from His literary output, you can’t get to know Him all that well. He wants to get into a one-on-one with you – not just having you read His book, but sending spiritual IMs into your mind, and receiving them back from you. That bit of witnessing was essential to my point – **that** ’s where I’m coming from religiously. I’m conveying the message of a God of love who wants to make your life richer and fuller and extend it indefinitely, not one that is playing carrot-and-stick in cosmic terms and trying to coerce you into turning to Him by threatening you with eternal damnation if you don’t. And do I care if you take my witness seriously or not? Well, I have enough of an ego to wish you would, and enough commitment to Christ to hope you would – but I also know God as loving and omniscient, and quite well aware of where you are, in spiritual terms. And He is in charge, not I. Therefore, if any given person decides that my witness above belongs in the trash can right alongside the Jack Chick tract, hey, no problem – I did what I was called to do, and you reacted as you felt right, and that is exactly how things should be. Because you see, I don’t have that sense of ultimate egotism that affects the fundies and the “evangelical atheists” – that what they “know to be the Truth” is something that they need to force down the throats of everyone else, like some magic potion that will remove stupidity. Peace. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/84 "2004-09-27T14:02:07Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > Literalism isn’t the issue. It’s the issue of being willing to compromise. The fact is that there is a certain category of people who believe that to compromise with the infidel is to become the infidel; if you’re not in that category, then in a very real sense you’ve already compromised. Well, but then “fundamentalist” becomes redefined on the basis of _what ARE the “Fundamentals” on which you may NOT compromise_, and specifically applies then to those persons who will accept NO compromise at all whatsoever. (Or else, there can be NO non-fundamentalists, because _every_ sect – or freelance believer – will have SOME “fundamental” belief on which they won’t compromise, and the term loses meaning) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/85 "2004-09-27T15:51:35Z")
Unfortunately, he is too snowed under and over-extended with plugging his book, and starting new work, to join in this discussion, but he did read the thread and finds it interesting (_of course, he agrees with some of us and disagrees with others, esp. on the presumed inerrancy of Holy Texts_). Nice fellow. He finds the “Sam Harris/John Irving” contest “very funny,” by the way. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/86 "2004-09-27T17:46:45Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > **JS\_Africanus** OTTOMH a rather large portion of Jews do hold that the Torah, in its entirety, was given by G-d to Moses on Mount Sinai. Well, there you go, learn something new and all that. Does that include all the OT stuff that occured after Moses’s death? That would be kind of bizarre. [puzzled Israelite]I’m not sure where we’re headed as a people…oh, wait, it sez it right here…nevermind.[/puzzled Israelite] Or does the Torah end w/ Moses’s death? And since “Moses” is singular, is the possessive form “Moses’s”? I can never remember. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/87 "2004-09-27T18:00:47Z")
**Polycarp** , Thanks for a thoughtful, interesting post. I am still going to insist that there is nothing about atheism that commands an advocate to witness. The difference between your approach and a more aggressive, unyielding one is a matter of degree, not kind. My understanding (from A Southern Baptist upbringing, and right down the road from you if I am not mistaken), is that believers are supposed to spread the word of God. I suspect a fundamentalist Christian might take that directive more to heart than one who is not a fundamentalist, but nothing compells him to be overbearing about it. If anyone comes to to me and says “I’m right and you are wrong and nothing you can say will change my mind,” that person is simply being a jerk and in my mind such behavior has little or nothing to do with the message, only the mesenger. If I were to insist to you that Eric Clapton was the greatest guitar player who ever lived and anyone who says otherwise is delusional would that make me a fundamentalist Clapton fan, or simply obnoxious? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/88 "2004-09-27T19:28:52Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Hmmm… hold it, I don’t think that you’re using the same meaning of “fundamentalism” as the rest of the thread – which is not exact either. (More on that later) You seem to be mapping it to dogmatism, but at the time of Luther Catholicism was dogmatic but NOT “fundamentalist”. _Luther made Christian Fundamentalism possible_ (as we know it by that name); it is a _PROTESTANT_ phenomenon. > > _ **In this thread, however** , “fundamentalist” as used in the OP actually refers to a **Scriptural Literalist** _, one who believes in the literal factual truth of the entirety of their Scripture’s text as-is, not just as a source of spiritual guidance but also of documentary history AND of legislation for everyday living; and who believes that this can be mostly discerned from a reading at face value, rather than by a select priesthood figuring out the symbols. This most often, but not absolutely, comes tied in with the doctrine of _Sola Scriptura_, the Scripture as sole source of faith and authority in of itself. Yet even at the time of Luther, the Catholic Church did NOT hold to this doctrine; it was the Protestants who exalted _Sola Scriptura_. > > Thing is, Scriptural Literalism is only PART of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism originates as a “Back to Basics” movement, ditching those accumulated practices and doctrines acquired through tradition, uses and customs, and theological pronouncements that he feels are extraneous to the fundamental message of the religion, or that have corrupted over time. In the practice, that includes _most visibly_ an active opposition and effort to roll back any practices and doctrines that are seen as an accommodation to the secular world, an appeasement of nonbelievers, or a watering down of the Old Values; as well as, for the more activist, actual effort towards having civil society itself also conform to the “Basics”. _But it does not necessarily mean it HAS to go that way_. An interesting POV. To take it a step further, the Catholic Church may not have held the biblical doctrine of _Sola Scriptura_, it did hold the Pope’s interpretation of it to be infallible (and therefore literal). It is to me, the birth of biblical “literal interpretation”. To me, Protestantism allowed individual study of the bible vs institutional study, and thus encouraged the literal attachment to the written word. Since I hold no degrees in religious study I am forced to simplify my views on the differences that have evolved over time. I never approached the idea of fundamentalism as a Protestant issue within Christianity because I was raised Catholic. I’ve always thought of the early years as being more dogmatic because of the violent lengths the Church went through to maintain the status quo. To me, dogmatic behavior was the result of a fundamental state of mind (The world’s flat and I’ll kill you to prove it). Although this is not a direct relationship I think it applies to the violence found in today’s fundamentalist Muslim doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/89 "2004-09-28T07:19:19Z")
> [@js\_africanus](#): > > Well, there you go, learn something new and all that. Does that include all the OT stuff that occured after Moses’s death? That would be kind of bizarre. > > Or does the Torah end w/ Moses’s death? > > [/hijack] No, but I think tradition says Joshua wrote the parts afte Moses, and the book of Joshua also, of course. I believe that book was written by an author of the Torah, and is considered closely related to it. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/90 "2004-09-28T14:31:38Z")
Old-school conservative attribution of authorship, which I believe is based on Talmudic doctrine borrowed by Christianity, claims that Moses wrote the entire Torah except the last few verses of Deuteronomy which describe his death. They were added in order to close out the narrative by Joshua, who wrote the book ascribed to him – again, except for the final passage describing **his** death, which was written by Phinehas ben Eleazar ben Aaron, the High Priest, to close out the story of Joshua. Modern scholars, of course, take a quite different view, ascribing the entire Hexateuch to four or more traditional sources: the Yahwistic or Judahite (J); the Elohistic or Ephraimite (E); the Priestly §; and the Deuteronomic (D). Some scholars claim to see interior strands within these four principal traditions that produce, e.g., J1 and J2, and P1 and P2 traditions. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/91 "2004-09-28T15:47:47Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > An interesting POV. To take it a step further, the Catholic Church may not have held the biblical doctrine of _Sola Scriptura_, it did hold the Pope’s interpretation of it to be infallible (and therefore literal). It is to me, the birth of biblical “literal interpretation”. You DO understand that “Papal Infallibility” (on teachings regarding Faith and Morals) was only made an official Catholic doctrine _after_ Luther’s time, right? In any case, it’s still not “literalism”, since “literal” means “to the letter” – that what it says on the text is all that is; and the RCC has always picked and chosen which parts of the text are to be taken as allegory and symbol and which as fact, and has always inserted tradition and scholarship into the mix. Now, they _were_ (and are) dogmatic and absolutist about what traditions and scholarship were “the Truth”. But Literal is not a synonym of Absolute. > [@](#): > > To me, Protestantism allowed individual study of the bible vs institutional study, and thus encouraged the literal attachment to the written word. Thus literalism and fundamentalism found the most fertile ground among the Protestants. > [@](#): > > I was raised Catholic. I’ve always thought of the early years as being more dogmatic because of the violent lengths the Church went through to maintain the status quo. To me, dogmatic behavior was the result of a fundamental state of mind. (The world’s flat and I’ll kill you to prove it). Although this is not a direct relationship I think it applies to the violence found in today’s fundamentalist Muslim doctrine. Except that you’re coming up with a personalized definition of “fundamentalist” ("= dogmatic, oppressive, absolutist, intolerant"), that does not exactly map with the origin of the term “fundamentalism” itself, and its use in a _religious_ sense. (BTW, teachings about the shape and location of the Earth in the universe were not Fundamentals of the Faith, but Ordinary Magisterium, albeit dogmatically held and enforced. The “I’ll kill you if you say otherwise” part was mere authoritarianism.) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/92 "2004-09-28T15:54:48Z")
> [@js\_africanus](#): > > Well, there you go, learn something new and all that. Does that include all the OT stuff that occured after Moses’s death? That would be kind of bizarre. Just so we’re all in the same page, **js\_africanus** , the _Torah_ is specifically the First Five Books of the Jewish scripture, Genesis through Deuteronomy, not the entirety of Christian OT. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/93 "2004-09-28T23:19:17Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@JRDelirious](#): > > > > You DO understand that “Papal Infallibility” (on teachings regarding Faith and Morals) was only made an official Catholic doctrine _after_ Luther’s time, right? > > **No, I wasn’t specifically aware of it but the Forrest Gump in me says that infallibility is as infallibility does. Martin Luther wasn’t ground zero for blasphemy. Doctrine is something written after-the-fact by people who want to codify their intentions.** > > > [@](#): > > > > Except that you’re coming up with a personalized definition of “fundamentalist” ("= dogmatic, oppressive, absolutist, intolerant"), that does not exactly map with the origin of the term “fundamentalism” itself, and its use in a _religious_ sense. > > \*\* Yah, that pretty much sums up my opinion. \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > (BTW, teachings about the shape and location of the Earth in the universe were not Fundamentals of the Faith, but Ordinary Magisterium, albeit dogmatically held and enforced. The “I’ll kill you if you say otherwise” part was mere authoritarianism.) **Fundamentalists are the end product of doctrine, not of the written word. If they were the result of the written word, there would be no need for the advise and consent of religious leaders. One follows the other. Religion REQUIRES leadership in order to stay on message. Fundamentalism is based on “literal interpretation by proxy”. I hold as a test of my theory that all fundamentalists have leaders.** ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/94 "2004-09-29T14:10:23Z")
In any case, **Magiver** , we’re hijacking the thread, as this is not really its subject. Just reiterating my (further back) observation, that this is yet another different definition of “fundamentalist” that makes the OP harder to answer. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/95 "2004-09-29T16:42:03Z")
Yes, we’re getting off point but the original question is based on a premise that all religions are based on the literal word of God. Fundamentalists who make allowances are not, by definition, fundamentalists. There is some truth to the original concept of the thread. As people gain general knowledge of the universe it becomes more apparent how much faith is required to maintain a certain level of religious conviction. It does not nullify a belief in God but it does question the religious doctrine that has survived from the earliest days of civilization. At some educational point, doctrine begins to resemble nothing of God and everything of man. I would project that thought forward. As knowledge of the universe increases so does the prospect of a belief in a higher power. The magnitude of the universe demands a certain respect for it’s order and complexity. Its sheer mathematical beauty is beyond man’s comprehension. Over time we may cease to believe in religious doctrine but nobody escapes the laws of gravity and time. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/96 "2004-09-29T18:21:04Z")
I thought about this thread last night, as I am reading a very enjoyable social history of single women in the US, and I thought I might use it as a reference source for a book I’m doing. Then the author says that many girls envied and looked up to “Florenz Ziegfeld’s Florodora Girls,” and I smacked my forehead in dismay. True, it’s a minor mistake—but it puts everything else she says into doubt, too. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/97 "2005-04-15T15:32:24Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > [Oh, and, sadly, Sam Harris is not “my” hot author, he’s married and probably young enough to be my great-grandson . . .] Well, sure, if you’re in one of those cultures where they marry them off before they hit puberty… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/98 "2005-04-15T16:07:04Z")
God’s divine message might be tainted by human error? Next you’ll be claiming Jesus didn’t really bless the cheesemakers. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/99 "2005-04-15T16:42:07Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Am I the only one who sees a resemblance to Ben Stiller? No. No, you’re not. I went eagerly to the link just to see the photo after **Eve** declared him “hot” (shallow slut that I am) and the first thing I thought was “Ben Stiller? **Eve** thinks Ben Stiller is the hottest thing going?!” ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896/100 "2005-04-15T19:30:43Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > (is that the hottest author ever, by the way?) > > Opinions? Not bad…my bookclub is currently doing “books by authors we have crushes on.” Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon and Salman Rushdie. OK, Rushdie isn’t cute in that “see him on the street and want to do him way” but he is intellectually adorable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-there-be-non-fundamentalists/265896.md?page=6)