#fundamentalism

It is often said that mankind needs a faith if the world is to be improved. In fact, unless the faith is vigilantly and regularly checked by a sense of man's fallibility, it is likely to make the world worse. From Torquemada to Robespierre and Hitler the men who have made mankind suffer the most have been inspired to do so have been inspired to do so by a strong faith; so strong that it led them to think their crimes were acts of virtue necessary to help them achieve their aim, which was to build some sort of an ideal kingdom on earth. ↗

— David Cecil

#evil #faith #fanaticism #fundamentalism #good-intentions

There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty. ↗

— Bart D. Ehrman

#dogma #fanaticism #fundamentalism #religion #religion

I'm a fundamentalist in the true sense. That is to say, I follow the fundamentals of religion... But for over 1,400 years people have been interpreting and re-interpreting the religion to suit their own purpose! ... These [extremist and terrorist acts] are not Islamic fundamentals any more than the Christians who burned people at the stake are fundamentalist. They are actually deviating from the teachings of the religion! ↗

— Mahathir Mohamad

#islam #malaysia #religion

In this respect fundamentalism has demonic traits. It destroys the humble honesty of the search for truth, it splits the conscience of its thoughtful adherents, and it makes them fanatical because they are forced to suppress elements of truth of which they are dimly aware ↗

— Paul Tillich

#respect

A fundamentalist is someone who wants to substitute what he believes for what you believe," Max said. "And someone who thinks he knows the will of God better than anyone else. ↗

— Robin Wasserman

#religion #religion

Have you ever thought what a God would be like who actually ordained and executed the cruelty that is in [the biblical Book of Revelation]? A holocaust of mankind. Yet so many of these Bible-men accept the idea without a second thought. ↗

— C.J. Sansom

#armageddon #book-of-revelation #cruelty #destruction #fundamentalism

Warren is stuck in Sunday School-level, pretheological fundamentalism. It is religious infantilism of the kind that Freud to conclude that religion is nothing more than neurotic wishful thinking and the refusal to grow up. I believe there is a good bit more to religion than that, but I'm afraid Freud was right about Warrenism. It is a pinata, made of brightly colored paper, filled with sweet candy, and too easily knocked apart. ↗

— Robert M. Price

#rick-warren #religion

He defended respectability with violence and exaggeration. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#fundamentalism #respect

People wrap themselves in their beliefs. And they do it in such a way that you can't set them free. Not even the truth will set them free. ↗

— Michael Specter

#atheism #denialism #fundamentalism #michael-specter #science

Many [Tudor-era religious radicals] believed then, exactly as Christian fundamentalists do today, that they lived in the 'last days' before Armageddon and, again just as now, saw signs all around in the world that they took as certain proof that the Apocalypse was imminent. Again like fundamentalists today, they looked on the prospect of the violent destruction of mankind without turning a hair. The remarkable similarity between the first Tudor Puritans and the fanatics among today's Christian fundamentalists extends to their selective reading of the Bible, their emphasis on the Book of Revelation, their certainty of their rightness, even to their phraseology. Where the Book of Revelation is concerned, I share the view of Guy, that the early church fathers released something very dangerous on the world when, after much deliberation, they decided to include it in the Christian canon." [From the author's concluding Historical Note] ↗

— C.J. Sansom

#armageddon #book-of-revelation #cruelty #destruction #fundamentalism