Grateful

This is all a bit of a red herring.

I for one don't care whether you are a "fundamentalist" or any other kind of "ist"?

You are free to believe what you want.

Within very broad limits you should be free to say what you want. The only exception to your right of free speech should be outright incitement to violence narrowly defined.

All I and most people worry about is the first of mikk's points.

"Someone who would force others to agree with them."

Frankly I don't give a rodent's rectum whether you hate me or any other unbelievers. Hate away.

For all I care you can reject evolution, believe the Earth is 6,000 years or 6 months old and think that an angel called Gibril transmitted a compendium of 7th Century codswallop to a merchant warrior called Muhammad who most likely never existed in the first place.

You can believe that on the "last day" stones and trees will help you kill Jews.

You can wear a burqa or a bikini.

You are free to propound whatever taurine fertiliser you like.

What you may not do is resort to force or use intimidation to impose your will.

That is all.

Cornflower,

I endorse your post of 16 June 2010 1:59:13 PM

fundamentalism
a/ Strong and consistent belief in and following of the teachings of a faith
b/ A hardline intepretation of selected portions of your faith and associated traditions of that faith with a fundamental dishonesty when it comes to admitting that the teachings and traditions have been cherry picked

The only fundamentalists I've known have been christain. Some have given the impression that they treat their belief with integrity and honesty, others make a mockery of the whole thing. Not sure i

I'd agree with grateful's point that some athiests act like fundamentalists although it's a lot harder for an athiest to claim divine mandate for their hatred.

R0bert

The best definition I’ve heard for “fundamentalist” in today’s world is the strict adherence to a literal interpretation of a religious doctrine.

Which is why the insinuation that there is actually such a thing as an “atheist fundamentalist” is such an insanely asinine suggestion that it reeks of a desperate desire to drag the lack of religious belief down to the same level as the presence of a belief.

Many theists have difficulty accepting that they have a belief system that is dogmatic, when other more rational thinkers are 'freethinkers'.

Of course, there are many there who try to tie communism to athiesm in an attempt to make atheism appear dogmatic, but anyone who has read my posts over the last couple of months would have seen me systematically destroy this deliberately malicious and misleading pile of steaming bull... - even when they come from those who have lived in communist countries!

Grateful, ALGOREisRICH, mikk, pelican, Severin, david f

And others,

Would you or someone else explain to this no doubt senile poster:

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS THREAD?

Does the precise definition of the word "fundamentalist" matter?

Does it matter whether someone is a "fundamentalist"?

Surely in the end what is important is whether someone, whatever their beliefs, is willing to play by the rules of liberal democracy? That means, inter alia, that they do not:

--Resort to violence and intimidation

--Attempt to limit free speech

--Claim special privileges for their belief system.

It also means that they DO respect the right of others to differ and to express their differences freely without let or hindrance

I don’t know about other posters here; but these are the things I care about. Whether a particular belief system may be labelled "fundamentalist" seems to me to be a boring argument about semantics. What is more, since the definitions are fuzzy, it is an argument in which no resolution is possible.

stevenlmeyer
We shouldn't get too bogged down in the semantics of 'fundamentalism'. The world has no doubt been misused to infer in some part to radical extremists who don't respect the rights or freedoms of others.

Most posters would appear to agree with your sentiments as expressed below.

"Surely in the end what is important is whether someone, whatever their beliefs, is willing to play by the rules of liberal democracy? That means, inter alia, that they do not:

--Resort to violence and intimidation

--Attempt to limit free speech

--Claim special privileges for their belief system.

It also means that they DO respect the right of others to differ and to express their differences freely without let or hindrance."

I don't know much about fundamentalism, but I know it when I encounter it.

It's invariably ugly, and often noisy.