ExFundie

So, what do fundamentalists think? Why do they believe what they do, and how do these beliefs lead to their actions in the world? How can fundamentalists justify attitudes and actions which they themselves – not to mention Progressives in society – would consider wrong and hatred-based if performed by anyone else, in some other context? Let us start at the very beginning of their system, to work our way from their premises and see how they lead logically to their actions.

The source of everything is their belief that they have discovered The Truth. Not “a” truth, but THE Truth. This is the important, crucial fact from which everything else flows inexorably. They are convinced they have discovered (or rather, had revealed to them*) The Truth about the universe: why it exists, how it functions, what its fate will be. And most important for them, included in The Truth is everything important about human beings: how they came to be, how they should behave, and how they can shape their ultimate fate. [*We won’t, right now, go into questions about how The Truth was supposedly revealed to them, e.g. fallibility of human scripture-writers, how they chose some writings to be “infallible” and decided others were not (and their motivations for this picking-and-choosing), and so on. The purpose of these essays is only to explain what they think, and why, and what follows from that. To show the view from inside their own heads. Please concentrate on that alone while reading these essays, if you want to understand how they are functioning in and affecting the world. Later essays may deal with these other things, but they are not the priority to begin with.]

Certain things follow logically from believing you know The Truth. If you know the basic Truth about things (with details to be addressed as they come up, but all fitting within that framework) – you are not merely uninclined to entertain other truths, it is simply not logical to entertain other truths. Whatever is not The Truth is either a lie or, if you are being kind, a mistake or delusion. There is no room for “differing points of view.” Certain fundamentalists might grudgingly allow some differences of interpretation within their own belief system (e.g. should you be baptized by full immersion, or is sprinkling enough?). But the ones most convinced of The Truth often don’t allow even that. And for all of them, there is no allowance for completely different belief systems. Those are either wrong, or delusional. Or…

Or – the third option. Because fundamentalists also tie The Truth to morality.

Contained in The Truth is the explanation for why humans are the way they are (which is pretty bad), and what they can – nay, what they should – do about it. It is not a matter merely of mechanically fixing a flawed physical problem. Good and evil, morality and immorality, are the crux of what is wrong with humans, and any “fix” for this problem is a moral one. Therefore, alternate belief systems may be viewed not just as untrue or delusional, but as “sinful.”

Again, certain things flow from this.

First of all, since the root problem with humanity is moral rather than physical, the moral fix ALWAYS COMES FIRST. This is because, for Christian fundamentalists, there was an initial state of perfection for humans which their early representative chose to reject. For most of these fundamentalists, the Adam and Eve story is literally true. (For a very few, the story is regarded as metaphorical, but humans and nature still end up in the same state, so most of the following still holds true.) Man (and they would insist on this word) was made the overlord of all creation, and this overlordship was more than a matter of physical control. It included a great deal of authority and influence. So that when Adam chose to rely on himself rather than God, effectively alienating himself from God, he took all of nature down with him. Nature itself became flawed.

This is extremely important. In fact, it is absolutely pivotal, and influences everything that comes after. For Christian fundamentalists, the moral choice came first, and the physical problems were the result – not the cause. Therefore the fix for almost all physical situations, particularly in the human social sphere, is first of all a moral fix. We’ll come back to this crucial point later. But you may already see why their ideas about solutions to society’s problems are almost the exact opposite of ours.

Meanwhile, a second important idea flows from the initial belief that The Truth has this moral component. If alternate belief systems about the world are not only untrue but morally wrong, what does that say about the people who create them and those who believe them? At best, these people are mistaken. Fundamentalists can grant that people may not have the evidence or the means to figure out The Truth on their own. (In fact, they are almost inevitably NOT going to arrive at The Truth; the reasons for that will be explained in the next essay.) But there is absolutely no excuse, once The Truth has been shown to them, for not adhering to it. It is, after all, The Truth. There is no other.

So if they continue to deny it? The only logical explanation is that this is a deliberate, knowing choice not to accept The Truth. Alternate belief systems about the world can only be willful inventions of people who are determined to stay in a state – not of ignorance, but of SIN. Alternate belief systems are merely very complex and increasingly elaborate webs of lies that people have created over the centuries to avoid accepting and living by The Truth. That is the only possible interpretation of alternate belief systems, if one starts with The Truth, and it has that moral component.

So the first implications of fundamentalists’ ideas of The Truth are these:

1) It is not logical to be tolerant of “other truths” – since they are all false.

2) Since The Truth has the moral component, and a moral choice was supposedly the source of all that has gone wrong in the world since the beginning – THE MORAL FIX ALWAYS COMES BEFORE THE PHYSICAL, or at least is more important than the physical. If they can only concentrate on one of these fixes in a situation, the moral fix will always be their choice.

3) People who deny The Truth are wrong, in all senses of that word. Initially they may be deluded and mistaken, but once they have understood The Truth and continue to deny it, they are at that point outright (and deliberately) sinful.

Not a very bright picture, is it? But wait – it gets worse.

Next: Who is This God Person Anyway?

Back to: Introduction