While I have been reading about your belief that moderates spawn fundamentalists, I would tend to believe that it is the atheists that spawn fundamentalists. Wanting to totally separate themselves from atheism, fundamentalists push away from moderates. Just like in politics, a conservative defines themselves as the opposite of a liberal. Meeting in the middle ground is the MOST dangerous because you are likely to get hit from both sides.
Don’t you see that in nature opposite forces – like magnets – push each other to greater extremes?
Posted: December 6th 2008
Eric_PK
If this were true, one would expect the rise of fundamentalism to coincide with the enlightenment, when atheism first showed up.
Now, it may be true that what we call “american fundamentalism” comes from that age, fundamentalism is much older. Orthodox Jews, for example, are fundamentalists.
Fundamentalism arises when some are dissatisfied with moderates. I’m not an expert in this, but my guess is that it’s more likely to show up with the devout and moderates of a same faith, because that will likely lead to direct conflict.
Atheists, on the other hand, are rarely in direct contact with the very religious, so I think that historically that’s unlikely to be a common cause. This may be different now because of the effect of mass media, but I think then you are talking more about secularism than atheism.
Oh, and persecution has historically also been a good way to create fundamentalists.
Posted: December 8th 2008
SmartLX www
Fundamentalists would never willingly push away from moderates. They would rather take moderates along with them. Jihadists, for instanace, call for all Muslims to rise up, not just their own buddies in balaclavas.
There is indeed a wealth of explicitly anti-atheist propaganda and campaigning which has resulted directly from the popularity of the “new atheism” as described in the press (same old atheism, really, just better publicised). But where has it come from? Correct me if I’m wrong, other answerers, but the sources are people like Ray Comfort, James Dobson, Dinesh D’Souza, Ken Ham and Father Jonathan Morris. Furthermore, though the target demographic of this effort is moderates, the idea is really not to make them more fundamentalist. It’s simply to discourage them from even considering the arguments of atheists.
I think the push by fundamentalists to create more fundamentalists is unchanged by the pressure of atheism alone; it’s simply intensified their push to make moderates stay religious. As for the moderates themselves, they have largely responded to atheism in moderate ways, for instance responding to the arguments in civil, structured debates.
Posted: December 6th 2008
logicel
Conflating faith-based beliefs to politics falls flat on its face. Politics operate in reality, often with statistical backing and hard facts. We can see, hear, touch politicians, unlike supernatural entities. Also, it is sloppy thinking to apply the physical force of magnetism to social/political/religious perspectives. But, even if you did allow such extrapolation, atheism and theism are opposites, therefore they would attract and not repel each other (the north and south poles of an magnet if brought close to each other will cling to one another).
Fundamentalism certainly does not need atheism to flourish. The majority of people in the most religious developed country, America, are Christians with a good portion embracing a literal, fundamentalist acceptance of biblical Christianity. Though atheists have certainly become more vocal in the last five years or so in America, they really have not enjoyed historically the prominence both in influence and in numbers as Christian Fundamentalists have. Also consider Saudi Arabia which is teeming with Fundamentalists Muslims with nary an atheist to be seen or heard.
We have seen that forced atheism in communistic countries have encouraged religion to secretly flourish, as in Poland. While in France and Nordic countries, the critical evaluation of faith-based beliefs while allowing religious belief to be practiced, has resulted in a majority of people not professing god belief.
Moderates are in a pickle for sure. They have worked so hard and diligently to cherry pick their particular religious brand to their heart’s content. And to be informed that their embracing non-evidential faith even though their version is so diluted from the original and more fit for modern times, is basically doing the same thing as Fundamentalists (using faith as a basis for their beliefs) therefore giving a superficial dusting of respect to fundamentalism, must be most jarring.
Additionally, the nutty fundamentalists are causing problems for the moderates, as they are certainly giving faith-based beliefs a bad name. And yet moderates can’t really criticize the fundamentalists, because they are faith-heads also.
In effect, moderates are not really moderates, as they are clinging to faith-based beliefs, with no extraordinary evidence for their extraordinary claims.
Posted: December 6th 2008