Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. For today’s discussion, I thought it might be interesting to bring up the subject of religious fundamentalism.
The concept of religious fundamentalism first came into common use in the 1920s when it began to be used to describe Protestant Christians who interpreted their version of the Bible literally and were intolerant of any criticism of what they considered the Absolute Truth. Paul Kurtz, writing in Free Inquiry published by the Council for Secular Humanism, writes:
“A fundamentalist is a person who is committed to a set of basic beliefs or doctrines with dogmatic and inflexible loyalty.”
Fundamentalism is generally associated with universalizing religions, that is, those religions that seek converts. Fundamentalists feel that they have the Absolute Truth and that their particular version of religion has a monopoly on this Truth. All other religions are, therefore, false religions and perhaps even evil religions.
This is an open thread. Feel free to talk about fundamentalism, or whatever else is on your mind. Discussions of dinner are welcomed.