Christian Fundamentalists and the Rise of the Radical Right

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 16, 2025 22:02
VIEWED: 9272
PAGE 1 of 15

NIKI2

Monday, July 11, 2011 6:24 PM

Regarding the increase in hate groups recently, I found this, which I think is apropos:

Quote:

---

Fundamentalist Christian churches are growing in membership and influence despite holding views that are incompatible with any reasonable understanding of our world and how it works. Their intellectual schizophrenia allows them to hold beliefs that are incompatible with the world view that depends on the conclusions and implications of science that we (and they!) rely on daily to function in the modern world. They deny the fundamental premises and conclusions of geology, biology, physics, anthropology, archaeology and astronomy. They deny a world view that most of us take for granted.

The growth of these Fundamentalist groups is counter-intuitive, but may be an unfortunate consequence of a serious decline in general literacy and in the quality, breadth and scope of liberal arts education in the United States. What is particularly disturbing about this anti-intellectual trend is that members of these fundamentalist groups hold views with implications that are dangerous and destructive for our civilization, for our nation, for world peace, and for human rights and freedoms. [ed. note: We will expand on this particular issue in a subsequent article.]

What is the appeal of these fundamentalist religious groups? They are strikingly similar once you get beneath the surface and their shared characteristics may help explain their wide and growing appeal.

Their “closed" belief system provides simple answers to complex political and social problems, but more importantly fundamentalist provides simplistic answers to ultimate questions of meaning and existence. Simplicity helps their adherents resolve the ultimate “problem” of being human, what Existentialists call angst (or ultimate anxiety). Angst means the consciousness of death-- the awareness of being human, of mortality, of non-being. It is comforting to have answers to life’s deepest questions and Fundamentalism provides relief from angst by postulating that there is some form of continued existence in an afterlife after death.

Fundamentalist Christians believe that there is a world beyond our world of experience [“heaven”] in which the injustices and evils of this world will finally be overcome and their God (and ultimate good and ultimate justice) will triumph over the unavoidable evil and injustice of our experience. They view our world as a cosmic struggle with stark contrasts between the antagonists: black and white, good and evil, God and Satan, good guys and bad guys, allies and enemies, us and them—a world in which the religious believer is on the side of right and has a duty to “fight evil” as they define it from their particular vantage point. Fundamentalists have a deep emotional commitment to the ultimate truth and virtue of their particular religious beliefs, which remain unaffected and unreachable by relevant fact, rational argument, daily experience or common sense.

Many of these religious groups combine their fundamentalist religious ideas with a wide range of far right political, economic and social agendas. In the past five years or so these right wing religious-political alliances have used political power aggressively and with considerable success in their attempt to impose their political, social and economic philosophy, their standards of public conduct, and their moral values on the rest of society.

This potent combination of having the answers, knowing what is good and evil, standing on the side of right in a cosmic struggle against the forces of darkness, believing in a world beyond this one, being totally committed to their cause, and using political power to realize their objectives makes them troublesome to deal with in our pluralistic society -- and sometimes it makes them dangerous.

Religious fundamentalists -- whether Islamic, Jewish or Christian -- seem to have few scruples and no moral difficulty using political and police p

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME