Fundamentalism: what is it?
Fundamentalism has become a major issue in religion over the last century or so. Prior to that there was no need for it but this has changed largely as the result of the huge progress that science has made. While most people continue to think of fundamentalism in a negative way there has actually been a large increase in the people who hold this view over the last few years.
Fundamentalism is when somebody holds religious beliefs that are based on a strict adherence to the doctrine of the faith. Basically this means that they believe that the original teachings of the faith are correct and that they should not be altered for changing times. For example if you were a Christian fundamentalist you would take the teachings of the bible literally and believe that the doctrines of the faith are absolute. Even here however there are different levels of fundamentalism, most do not believe that everything in the bible should be taken literally for example. Nevertheless fundamentalists believe in a far stricter interpretation than other people do.
Fundamentalism started in the early twentieth century as a reaction to what was seen as changes in the religious faith. For most of the history of religion there was no need of fundamentalism since strict adherence to doctrine was already considered an essential part of religion. In the nineteenth century this would start to change mostly as the result of the scientific revolution. It was becoming obvious that the facts taught by religion did not fit with what science was discovering. Therefore a lot of people took the belief that religious doctrine was not absolute and that it could be changed.
Fundamentalism was a reaction to the new belief that religious doctrine was not absolute. There were a number of people who did not like the direction that religion was going and they decided to revert back to the original teachings and doctrine. Originally the term fundamentalist was used by these groups to identify themselves but it has lately taken on a negative connotation. There are some groups that continue to refer to themselves as fundamentalists but for the most part they have changed to other names.
Fundamentalists have been the subject of a lot of criticism over the years for a variety of reasons. The main one is the rigidity of their beliefs. In particular the idea that the teachings of the church cannot be questioned. This has of course brought into conflict with other groups particularly scientists. To the fundamentalists if science says something that disagrees with the teachings of the church then it must be science that is wrong since the church's teachings can't be questioned. Despite the fact that fundamentalism has taken on something of a negative connotation there has been a significant increase in the number of people holding this belief in recent years.