# What Makes a Fundie a Fundie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 4, 2000, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173 "2000-01-04T02:37:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LongHrn99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e4f/32.png) [@LongHrn99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongHrn99)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/1 "2000-01-04T02:37:00Z")
We’ve all read the word fundie **way** to manny times in the past few days, but I would like to know what would make a Christian or a member of any other religion (I point out Christian because of all the Christian fundies we’ve seen here lately) a Fundamentalist. Are there specific beliefs like Christ’s resurrection, Mohammed(sp) actually receiving the words of God from an angel, Zionistic beliefs, etc. that would mark one believer as a Fundamentalist but another as an unleaded believer? * * * “I hear the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” -T.S. Eliot ---
**Author:** ![Konrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f475e1/32.png) [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/2 "2000-01-04T02:51:00Z")
The words gets thrown around a lot but it’s supposed to mean someone who takes the bible literally and believes every word of it is true. ---
**Author:** ![Cooper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Cooper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cooper)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/3 "2000-01-04T02:54:00Z")
It also indicates someone easily capable of holding dozens of conflicting beliefs simultaneously. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/4 "2000-01-04T04:01:00Z")
Actually, the term originated with its proponents, early in the century; it’s not a label that was pinned on them by their detractors. If someone can help me with the history, I’d appreciate it, but IIRC, it involved a bit more than just acceptance of Biblical inerrancy - for instance, the immorality of alcohol consumption. (Which validates Cooper’s comment. ;)) Nonetheless, most people nowadays use it simply to mean Biblical inerrancy or literalism. I’ve got another term - evangelical correctness - for uncritically buying into not only inerrancy but the whole host of other things that Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, the LaHayes, the Southern Baptist Convention, etc., agree on. I was playing off the notion of political correctness, of course, and it seemed to be the natural term for the mindset one runs into on the LBMB and a host of other places. In my definition, it isn’t the holding of the beliefs themselves that defines evangelical correctness; it’s the arriving at them because all those around you do - well, they’re just _right_, you know? - without having run them through the brain first, that defines EC. And the shock that occurs when they realize a person whom they’d thought was a decent human being holds an evangelically incorrect view on an issue. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/5 "2000-01-04T05:40:00Z")
Fundamentalism is a movement within (mostly) North American Christianity that is decribed pretty well, here in the **EB** : [http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0,5716,36333+1,00.html](http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0,5716,36333+1,00.html) I disagree with large sections of Fundamentalist Doctrine, but I respect many Fundamentalists for the concern with which they approach their beliefs and the ways that they incorporate those beliefs into their live. I limit my use of fundie to people who have about as much Christian charity as your average sore-toothed wild boar and as much intelligence as a Wildmo. . . uh, rock. * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![Navigator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4af34b/32.png) [@Navigator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Navigator)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/6 "2000-01-04T06:55:00Z")
ya know… people get in trouble sometimes for answering questions on subjects they know nothing about. We get that alot on LBMB when people that aren’t Catholic start spewing rhetoric about what Catholic’s believe. (BTW I aren’t one, Catholic, but I may be a Fundementalist :)) I understand RTF point of view, and discern there may be a difference between the label of a ‘fundie’ and one with Fundementalist beliefs. I’ll try to get back to you with a working definition of a Fundementalist. Peace. * * * † Jon † Phillipians 4:13 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/7 "2000-01-04T16:56:00Z")
Tom - thanks for the link. I shoulda thought of the Britannica, now that it’s online! A quote: > [@](#): > > millenarians cooperated with other defenders of the inerrancy of the Bible in founding the American Bible League in 1902 and in writing a series of 12 pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals. The pamphlets attacked the current theories of biblical criticism and reasserted the authority of the Bible While it doesn’t specifically say, I recall reading in other sources that the terms ‘Fundamentalist’ and 'Fundamentalism’originated from the title of the pamphlet series. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2000, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/8 "2000-01-04T17:18:00Z")
Fourth paragraph of the second page of the **EB** article. > [@](#): > > The high point of millenarian influence upon the conservative tradition within evangelical Protestantism occurred when millenarians cooperated with other defenders of the inerrancy of the Bible in founding the American Bible League in 1902 and in writing a series of 12 pamphlets entitled _The Fundamentals_. The pamphlets attacked the current theories of biblical criticism and reasserted the authority of the Bible, using the arguments developed at the Princeton Theological Seminary. The series was a summary of the previous generation’s attempt to oppose biblical criticism and modernism through argument. * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![fuzzy-wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b38774/32.png) [@fuzzy-wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzy-wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/9 "2000-01-05T02:36:00Z")
As you can tell from what has been said so far…no one really knows…everyone basically has a different definition…what I have discovered so far…it’s a term given to a Christian who doesn’t go along with what the Christian before he said…one day someone calls me that…the next day they call me something else…best to just stick to what you believe and take the classifications with a grain of salt… * * * “Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/10 "2000-01-05T05:24:00Z")
Nonsense, fuzzy. We have the Britannica definition, courtesy of Tom; and we have the one I did off the cuff before we had that, which wasn’t too far off the Britannica definition. That’s hardly “everyone basically has a different definition.” * * * “I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah, where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda, S-O-D-A, soda…” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/11 "2000-01-05T05:33:00Z")
I found it! Fundie: one of the hordes of flatlander tourists invading our pleasant isle each summer, tormenting us, but leaving behind quantities of money. _Mackinac Island Lexicon_ Ooops… Sorry, that was **fudgie**. * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-fundie-a-fundie/17173/12 "2000-01-06T21:58:00Z")
A “fundament” is a foundation of something, so a “fundamentalist” is one who goes back to or otherwise cherishes the foundation. Please note that the portion of your anatomy upon which you sit is your fundament as well, which may go a long way towards explaing many things. * * * Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post