Fundamentalism –
- Led by authoritarian males who consider themselves superior to others, and in religious groups subjugate women and dominate their fellow believers.
- Leaders retain self-beneficial aspects of their historic beliefs and of the modern world.
- Draws distinction between themselves as true believers, and others; convinced that they are right and anyone who contradicts them is ignorant and possibly evil.
- Is militant and fights against any challenge to their beliefs. They are often angry and sometimes resort to verbal or physical abuse against those who interfere with their agenda
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Self-definition is increasingly narrow and restricted to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues and view change, cooperations, negotiation and other efforts to resolve differences as signs of weakness
(Jimmy Carter in Our Endangered Values : America\’s Moral Crisis)
Another characteristic of fundamentalism is that issues are distilled to binary values, there are no shades of grey: Your are either with us, or against us.
Fundamentalism is Evil
(Is this a fundamentalist statement?)
Major fundamentalists are:
- Adolph Hitler – leader of the Positive Christianity Nazi Party
- Tomás de Torquemada – Spanish Inquisition
- Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini – Leader of Shiite Islam and Iran
- David Koresh – leader of the Branch Davidians
- Jim Jones – leader of Jonestown
- Josef Stalin– leader of “godless” USSR
- Osama Bin Laden – leader of Al Qaeda
- George W. Bush ? – leader of Christian USA
