Fundamentals

Religious extremists are often referred to as fundamentalists. Now please forgive me if I am wrong, but I always thought that a fundamentalist was one who attached himself to the fundamentals of a particular belief. Now the fundamentals of a belief are the bedrock, core beliefs on which the religion as a whole is founded. So, a fundamentalist Christian will believe in original sin and so will believe that the story of the fall of man in the garden of Eden is factually true. This means that everything else in the Bible is true, otherwise the core beliefs upon which the sacrifice of Christ depends fall apart and you are left with a watered down faith which means little or nothing at all. Because it is all true, then it must all be incorporated into one's life and the way one interprets the world. Therefore, evolution cannot be true because the Bible clearly states that the Earth was created by God in 6 days and rested on the seventh, in the year 4004 BC (as calculated from scripture by Bishop Ussher). This gives fundamentalists the god given right to pour scorn upon the findings of modern scientific research which has a tendency to disagree with the creationist view - unless the evidence is there to support it. Fundamentalists don't need evidence to believe anything; they don't need it because they have the word of god, (even though the word of god is different from one faith to another - they can't all be right) so it is perfectly correct for them to try and foist their unreasonable and unreasoning beliefs upon anyone who doesn't see things the way they do. They have god on their side, so they cannot possibly be wrong. So, apart from denying children access to scientific truth, they also condemn gays, women who have had an abortion, etc etc. Catholic dogma denies people the right to contraceptives while poor overcrowded Catholics live in disease ridden squalor in South America and other outposts around the world. There are far too many people in the world, but because all human life is utterly sacred (according to religious dogma), the population is set to keep growing exponentially - that's if the Catholics get their way. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Leaving aside Christianity and looking elsewhere, we have religious fundamentalists thinking its OK to fly crowded passenger jets into crowded skyscrapers, carry out suicide bombings in crowded restaurants frequented by young people, blow up Mosques and people while they are in the peaceful act of worship. The list is endless - and terrifying. The problem is this - if adherence to the fundamentals of a faith causes people to find justification in committing such atrocities, what does this tell you about the religion itself? Think on.....