Fundamentally Crazy

This week offered several horrifying reminders of how our nation has been infected by the mental cancer of fundamentalism.

The recent death of Reverend Jerry Falwell produced scores of obituaries and televised summaries of his career, including clips of his infamous, bigoted rants against a wide variety of people he judged to be of lesser spiritual worth.

But it also demonstrated that his views were not a thing of the past, but an ongoing phenomenon in places like Liberty University, the religion-based institution he founded and whose graduates now serve by the dozens in places like the White House and the Justice Department.

His acolytes and followers filled the airwaves yesterday confessing that they, like Falwell, were convinced that the “second coming” of Jesus would happen soon, that the "end days" were finally approaching.

Despite the presence of highly advanced, science-based technology in virtually every facet of life, it's astonishing that many evangelicals and members of other religious brands continue to ridicule science while embracing the medieval superstitions of books written thousands of years ago, claiming that those books were authored not by men but by the creator of the universe.

Their religion is more than a way to truth or enlightenment or peace.

It is The Way, while all others are wrong, bankrupt and of lesser worth.

This distinction separates fundamentalists from the sensible, sane and rational among us. Their certainty and conviction are actually the grave symptoms of people living in an intellectual black hole.

No matter how you slice it, believing that the Bible, Torah or Koran are literally true (rather than figuratively or metaphorically true) requires a grotesque suspension of judgment and reason in favor of powerful fantasy and fairy tales.

Take the “second coming” myth. It predicts, among other things, that Satan, in the form of a dragon, will be cast into a bottomless pit by an angel.

How is this tale any different than the Odyssey, which uses historical fact—the Trojan war—as a starting point for a fable that includes a Cyclops and Sirens? Other than words on a page, we have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anybody walked on water or that any virgin gave birth to a child. Dragons and Miracles, like Sirens, are the fantastical imaginings of early writers hoping to imbue history with magic powerful enough to influence their intended readership.

Likewise, today’s fundamentalists want to frighten and control their communities using crazy stories like the End Days. Or by claiming, as several Republican presidential hopefuls have, that a fetus or embryo is actually a wide-eyed, innocent child. Indeed, Governor Mike Huckabee claimed in last night’s GOP debate that a fetus was a “person”.

But a fetus is most certainly not a person. Just look in the Dictionary. Among other things, a person has a moral sense, as well as an awareness and comprehension of the world around it. Thus a fetus might be a potential person, but it is clearly not an actual person.

Ultimately, fundamentalists care little about facts. They want to sprinkle magic fairy dust on anything they deem sacred or important. Then need to claim divine license in order to give their superstitions weight while forcing the world to conform to the lunacy of their sacred texts.

For example, even though a vast, overwhelming majority of scientists believe that life on Earth has been developing for millions of years, fundamentalists argue that God created the world six thousand years ago. Why? Because the Bible says so. (Or at least some believe it implies so.)

Three of the Republican presidential candidates don’t even believe in evolution. They’ve chosen instead to elevate superstition above science and reason.

I don’t know how many Americans qualify as fundamentalists. But I’m sure the number is large. And every time their particular religious leader decides to alter an interpretation of holy scripture, they seem distressingly happy to go along with it.

How long until one of those leaders decides that the Constitution is immoral? How long before one of those leaders decides Democracy is against God? How long until one of those leaders decides that citizens who sin should be stoned to death?

As long as a person is infected with the cancer of fundamentalism, anything is possible. And as Muslim fundamentalists have demonstrated, that means anything.

- JT Compton

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