Google is my shepherd, I shall not want.
It seems our fundamentalism was a homegrown response to the enlightenment. I would be interested in more detailed information on what particular sects it sprang up in, and how their pre-fundamentalist culture differed from the post, as well as a tracing of their lineage. I still have a suspicion that they are largely drawn from the memetic stock of europe’s displaced religious radicals, but I’d be eager to see someone who, unlike myself, knew what they were talking about on that topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianity
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/
Actually I don’t think they are strongly drawn from the displaced european people other than the fact that the united states lost the idea that society has to be based on some sort of religion unlike most of europe now*. I think it is more of a reaction to the massive amount of change that our society has had over the past 100 years. One of the things I am agruing in my thesis is that any sort of religious fundmentalism is a reaction to extreme changes in a society. Though I focus on Christian Fundamentalism in the 11th century and Arab Fundamentalism now I do know a lot about different sects of Christianity today.
*Europe just has had more religous wars than here. Since our government is setup in many ways to support Christianity we haven’t had a reason to reject that way of governing. I had a professor a couple years ago that started her class with the dicussion “Are you Christian just because you live in the United States?”
Maybe I’m cynical, but that makes it sound like, instead of trying to keep up with changes in technology, lifestyle, culture, etc. people just withdraw into a cocoon of simplified absolutes, only to be continually irritated when the new world continues to intrude upon their happy cocoon.
Oy.
Heh, are you suggesting that’s inaccurate for people as a whole?
I think it is true, I mean, why else would there be religion at all? Religion explains the world in a way that makes it easy to understand and anything that isn’t easy is mystical.
I think school is making me cynical. odd.
But of course.
Schools are nothing more than chapels for liberal sermons after all. 🙂
you are as bad as me. i am going through a whole “wtf am i doing in school” phase again. sigh.