Are We Secular Fundamentalists

I just started reading God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. Admittedly, this is a bit of a change of pace from the books I usually read. It was written by a Christian who wants more faith in politics but opposes the co-opting of religion by either political party. While I find all the pro-faith stuff rather sickening, I am determined to give it a chance.

In the first few pages, I encountered the term "secular fundamentalists" in the context of right wing Christian conservatives. The author used this phrase to describe people who want to keep religion out of politics and public life. The author feels strongly that faith has a central place in both politics and public life and that both extremes (i.e., Christian fundamentalists and "secular fundamentalists") are problematic.

I argue here that the term "secular fundamentalist" is a meaningless distortion. Fortunately, we have a widely accepted definition of religious fundamentalism from which to start our comparison. As researched for a previous post, religious fundamentalism includes the following components:

1. Biblical Inerrancy

2. Evangelism

3. Premillenialism (expectation of second coming, rapture, etc.)

4. Separatism/Sense of Persecution

5. Biblical Literalism (at least with regard to creation)

Note: The research through which I arrived at these 5 components included mostly Christian sources.

Are there analogues for any of these components in the secular community (so far as there even is a secular community)? There is no core secular doctrine, so #1 and #5 have no bearing. I also see no analogue for #3. We are focused on this life because we recognize that it is the only life we have. The closest thing we might have to #2 are efforts by some atheists to combat the negative image of atheists held by much of the public. Certainly there are those among us who seek to foster the spread of atheism, but we are not really trying to spread a doctrine as much as we are encouraging people to embrace reality and give up superstition. I do see an analogue to #4, but our sense of separation/persecution is based in modern reality. We are a hated minority; this is not a point of controversy. Some of us also foster this sense of separation by continuing to mount an assault on the religion.

The closest label I can identify to what might be called "secular fundamentalist" would be something like "atheist activist." By this I mean an atheist who takes an activist stance about his/her atheism. Yes, I would put myself in this category. However, I don't see the necessary components of fundamentalism in this label.

Tags: atheist, atheism, religion, Christianity, politics, secular, fundamentalist, fundamentalism, faithCopyright (c) 2013 Atheist Revolution.

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Fundamentalists Vs Liberal Christians

While commenting on a recent post at Proud Atheists, I found myself again reflecting on how I have more respect for fundamentalist Christians than the so called liberal Christians. Of course, I realize that "respect" isn't the best word here because religious fundamentalists are hardly worthy of respect. I recognize that the fundamentalist forms of any religion are far more dangerous than the liberal to moderate forms. Still, there is something a bit more admirable about someone who tells us what he or she believes and then acts in accordance with it versus someone who does not.

How can I possible have more respect for the fundamentalist Christian than the liberal Christian, especially when my worldview is so much more similar to that of the liberal Christian? Like the liberal Christian, I reject a literal reading of Genesis in favor of evolution. Like the liberal Christian, I think that religion is most tolerable when it is directed toward helping others as opposed to converting, enslaving, or destroying them. Like the liberal Christian, I find some of the teachings attributed to Jesus to be morally acceptable and much of the Old Testament to be horrific in its immorality.

While watching The Atheism Tapes recently, I was overjoyed to see this very question come up in one of the interviews. Nobel Prize-wining American physicist Steven Weinberg tackled this one, and I finally heard an explanation for what I have felt but not adequately understood. Even if the rest of the interviews weren't as excellent as they were, this part would have made the whole collection worthwhile.

What Weinberg said, and I am paraphrasing greatly here, is that religious fundamentalists have a coherent worldview while religious liberals do not. What makes the fundamentalists more appealing to some of us is that they possess a theory of the world that we can examine, comprehend, and even test. Weinberg said that this appeals to him as a scientist, and I think he's absolutely right.

Religious liberals, as compared with fundamentalists, have no coherent theory or worldview. They are all over the place in picking various bits they like while ignoring the parts they don't care for. This results in an incoherent mosaic of ideas slapped together without any sort of unifying principles. Much like the "New Age" perspectives many Christians love to criticize, liberal religion offers no theory to understand or evaluate.

There is plenty I despise about fundamentalist Christians. I'd much rather associate with liberal Christians in my day-to-day life, and I'd much rather have them in positions of political power. However, I now have a better sense of what I do find more appealing about the fundamentalists and why.

Technorati Tags: atheism, Christians, Steven Weinberg, fundamentalists, liberal

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