Steven.. bear with me a moment :) (I'm not picking on you here)

GRATEFUL.. r u in Victoria?
Look at Stevens words below....

//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.//

He (steven) is clearly holding your faith up to public ridicule..and mocking you and your faith.
That's not a problem for me.. even if he were to similarly mock or ridicule my own faith (which he does from time to time)

QUESTION.. do you support the Victorial law which makes such utterances from Steven illegal ? (RRT2001)

Do you support the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) moves in the U.N. to make ALL such mockery illegal in ALL countries who are signatories to the UN convention on Civil and Political rights ?

IF...you had the chance.. or power.. WOULD you make such laws and try to supress criticism of both Islam and it's so called prophet ?

DO...you wish to live under Sharia law ? If not..why not ?

Steven..as to Grateful's point ? I think it's just giving himself a platform to promote his version of soft da'wah/Islamic evangelism.

CORNFLOWER... you said:

1. movement with strict view of doctrine: a religious or political movement based on a literal interpretation of and strict adherence to doctrine

Actually 'Doctrine' is...interpretation. A "literal" interpretation of certain "doctrines" could be disastrous.
The Bible is not mean't to be understood 'literally' in all places.
"If you hand sins...cut it off"

Steven

I agree with Pelican's definition.

I don't give a rat's about others beliefs either, until they infringe on the freedom and well-being of others.

Two obvious examples of a harmful fundamentalist attitude, here and now, from both Christian and Islamic camps, would be George Pell and Al Hilaly, neither of whom respect differing beliefs or equity for women.

I don't think I need point out the more glaringly obvious harm caused by abortion-clinic shooters or bombing planes into buildings, do I?

However, if you don't see the encroachment of fundamentalism into the world's largest religions as requiring vigilance, well fine by me. Just live how you want - but don't step on me while you do it.

:D

I really appreciate everyone's input and endorse Pelly.

I agree wholeheartedly with CJ Morgan. I think the ugliness is not just in the language but the attitude or mentality. This is what I'm grappling with in trying to arrive at a meaningful understanding of what people are referring to when they talk about fundamentalism

Can we say that a fundamentalist someone who is prepared to uphold a view or belief despite reason or evidence to the contrary. The belief or view is non-negotiable.

I was going to give a list of examples relating to different religions as well as atheism but perhaps I should stick to my own religion and suggest others consider how they would define a fundamentalist from within their own tradition or (non-) belief system.

For a Muslim, the Qur'aan is considered the word of God. So a fundamentalist in Islam would be someone who would adhered to the belief that the Qur'aan was the word of God despite clear and unequivocal proof to the contrary (for example due to contradictions which could not be explained other than it being the handiwork of man).

Having said that, I have not observed this sort of fundamentalism. The fundamentalism that arises from our ranks is referred to as the Kharajitism, but that's a long story. Essentially they adhere to certain beliefs and do so despite clear proofs (from mainstream Islamic scholarship) to the contrary. Their arguments are invariably self-contradictory and their views on the nature of God lead to a type anthropromophism (they will actually argue about how many hands God has!). Of course they are uncompromising and Muslims that disagree with them are libel to being labelled a kafir (unbelievers), which perhaps is symptomic of some form of cognitive dissonance (one for the psychologists!).

Another explanation that I've come across
is again given by Richard Dawkins, in his
book, "The God Delusion,":

"Our Western politicians avoid mentioning
the "R" word (religion), and instead
characterize their battle as a war against
"terror," as though terror were a kind of
spirit or force, with a will and a mind of
its own. Or they characterize terrorists
as motivated by pure 'evil.'
They are not motivated by evil. However
misguided we may think them, they are
motivated, like the Christian murderers of
abortion doctors, by what they perceive as
righteousness... they are not psychotic; they
are religious idealists who, by their own lights,
are rational. They perceive their acts to be good,
not because os some warped personal idiosyncrasy,
and not because they have been possessed by Satan,
but because they have been brought up, from the
cradle, to have total and unquestioning 'faith.'"

Voltaire got it right long ago:
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can
make you commit atrocities." So did Bertrand
Russell: "Many people would sooner die than think.
In fact they do."

"As long as we accept the principle that religious
faith must be regarded simply because it is
religious faith, it is hard to with-hold respect
from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide
bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that
it should need no urging, is to abandon the
principle of automatic respect for religious faith.
This is one reason why I do everything in my power
to warn people against faith itself, not just
'extremist' faith. The teachings of 'moderate'
religion, though not extremist in themselves, are
an open invitation to extremism..."

cont'd ...

cont'd ...

Richard Dawkins goes on to tell us:

"It might be said that there is nothing special about
religious faith here. Patriotic love of country or
ethnic group can also make the world safe for its
own version of extremism... As with the kamikazes in
Japan and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. But religious
faith is an especially potent silencer of rational
calculation, which usually seems to trump all others.
This is mostly because of the easy and beguiling promise
that death is not the end, and that a martyr's heaven
is especially glorious. But it is also partly because
it discourages questioning by its very nature."

"Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that
unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the
case for what you believe. If somebody annouces that it is
part of his 'faith,' the rest of society, whether of the
same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained
custom, to 'respect' it without question; respect it until
the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre... "

Dawkins asks the interesting question that if we try to
explain this extremism as a perversion of the 'true'
faith... how can there be a perversion of faith, if faith,
lacking objective justification, doesn't have any
demonstrable standard to pervert?

The questions that Dawkins raises are interesting.
What he tries to say is that (and this applies to
Christianity no less than to Islam), what is really
pernicious is the practice of teaching children that
faith itself is a virtue. Dawkins feels that faith is an
evil precisely because it requires no justification and
brooks no argument. He states that teaching children
that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them - given
certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by -
to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future
crusades or jihads..."

Food for thought.

Though most here have identified popular use of the term as it presently applies to Religion. The fact is a fundamentalist is one who upholds a principle or codes with passionate obsession. Like the Football fanatic who vehemently takes a Referee to task over the application of a rule that they believe the Ref has not properly applied. They become obsessed about such fundamental matters.

However I personally have not found Christian fundamentalists I have met agressive or controlling. Most of Western culture owes many of its social advances to Christian Fundamentalists; Wentworth in his endeavour to bring freedom to slaves, Salvation Army's work in prisions and welfare to the poor are just a few.