Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And not every fundamentalist Christian is narrow-minded and closed to new ideas.
True, but the problem is that fundamentalists often cannot handle real life.
I mean when they are talking about religious things there is no problem, but applying their knowledge into the real world often causes many crisis of faith.
So their fundamental beliefs often form an obstacle for living in the modern-day world.
This is why most fundamentalist religions either isolate themselves from the rest of the world or try to convert the rest of the world to their fundamental beliefs. And I have to admit that both cases cause me great concern.
Last edited by Tricky D; 07-20-2008 at 03:09 PM..
Reason: typo
Originally Posted by Mark S. True, but the problem is that fundamentalists often cannot handle real life.
I mean when they are talking about religious things there is no problem, but applying their knowledge into the real world often causes many crisis of faith.
So their fundamental beliefs often form an obstacle for living in the modern-day world.
This is why most fundamentalist religions either isolate themselves from the rest of the world or try to convert the rest of the world to their fundamental beliefs.
Which is why I'm not a fundamentalist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tricky D
And I have to admit that both cases cause me great concern.
I'm not too worried about it in the U.S. I'd much rather live next door to a fundamentalist Christian than a group of frat boys. They're welcome to try to convert me all they want, as long they behave themselves.
I completely agree with the OP. Whenever any set of beliefs or principles becomes inflexible to change or to the consideration of contrary evidence there is no possibility of progress. Religious dogma is very common because by it's very nature religion often presents a set of beliefs with rules and regulations that believers are expected to adhere to and not question. That's because those who support this set of beliefs think that they're coming directly from God and are infallible. This has resulted in an enormous amount of conflict, death and suffering over the centuries and is still doing that in muslim nations where religious matters are taken very seriously and often result in a life or death situation.
I think that the main difference between a fundamentalist and an extremist is that extremists don't think that there is anything wrong with their beliefs, while a fundamentalist acknowledges that his beliefs might seem odd to non-fundamentalists.
So an extremists finds nothing extreme of his beliefs, the same way that truly insane people do not know that they are mentally insane. In short: what extremists and insane people have in common is that they live in their own world (read: isolated reality) and believe that the world, instead of themselves, is crazy.
dogma is the door to fundamentalism and extremism IMO
True, but fundamentalism is not extremism.
Fundamentalists can still function normally in society (probably with great difficulty) while extremists can't ( unless the whole society exists out of extremists).
dogma is the door to fundamentalism and extremism IMO
Reason is the door to madness.
But that doesn't make reason a bad thing.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
True, but the problem is that fundamentalists often cannot handle real life.
And I have to admit that both cases cause me great concern.
In short: what extremists and insane people have in common is that they live in their own world (read: isolated reality) and believe that the world, instead of themselves, is crazy.
