Originally, a fundamentalist was someone who believed in the "five fundamentals" which I indicated earlier. Such Christians were reacting against modernism or liberal theology's tendency to deny what they thought were the essentials of Christian doctrine. In more recent parlance, it has simply become a term of abuse for those more theologically conservative than oneself, as Plantinga points out. But I think fundmantalism also can be a term for a kind of intellectual vice: the vice of being controlled by, and locked into, a system of beliefs, such that anything from outside that system has to be rejected, however insightful it may be. The "fundamentalist" critics of C. S. Lewis are guilty of this; Lewis agrees with them on several important points and has numerous valuable apologetical and spiritucal insights, but, because he doesn't fully agree with them, he is to be denounced. Intellectual opponents aren't just mistaken, there is something really wrong with them, they are enemies, intellectual frauds to be demolished at all costs. When you encounter someone guilty of the vice of fundamentalism, what they want to know from you is "Are you for us or against us. Do you believe all of the Bible (or evolution) or do you believe none of it."
This is a link to "You might be a fundamentalist atheist if" from the Tektonics website. I don't endorse all the content here, and I find Holding to be too much of an ideologue for my taste. All I am saying is that it is possible to be guilty of the intellectual vice of fundamentalism without being a Christian or even a theist.
5 comments:
I very explicitly referred to Holding as an ideologue who is not to my taste. I think what happened was that someone else started the list and he took it over. Absolutely, I think he himself is guilty of the vice of fundamentalism.
Although I am, for the most part, on the opposite side from Rush Limbaugh, and I find a lot of his statements obnoxious and vicious, I also often find him entertaining. I suppose ideologues help keep life from being boring. Some of the statements in the fundamentalist atheist list ring a bell with me. Others don't, so let me repeat, caveat emptor.
Remember, for many Christians the atheist isn't just wrong, he/she is damnably and culpably wrong, and is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. I think we aren't in a position to diagnose this in nonbelievers, but there are others who differ with me on this.
One more thing. I have seen atheist (and pro-evolutionist) responses which strike me as being fundamentalist in the sense required. The list is full of misfires, but it scores some hits too, it seems to me. However, the list does seem to imply that atheists are all really fundy atheists, and this of course would be a misrepresentation.
The post said:
You think questions like, "Can God create a rock so big that He cannot lift it?" and, "Can God will Himself out of existence?" are perfect examples of how to disprove God's omnipotence and ultimately how to disprove God. When someone proves to you the false logic behind the questions (i.e. pitting God's omnipotence against itself), you desperately try to defend the questions, but then give up and go to a different Christian site to ask them.
Saying it is 'false logic' to pit omnipotence against itself does nothing to dispel the logical problems. Why is this false logic? What definition of omnipotence is being used from which it follows that the logic of the question is wrong?
This person is angrily dismissing a beautiful question, one a child can ask and understand, about an omnipotent being. The question leads to a host of interesting philosophical issues about the meaning of 'all powerful'. Could God not make the law of noncontradiction false? Could God make immoral things moral? What are the limits of God's power? They clearly exist, and hence the logical conclusion seems to be that God is not omnipotent. There are moral and logical constraints on God's powers.
An awful piece. I'd rather read another treatise on what Lewis meant by the word "high".
With all due respect, Victor, I think you're exhibiting an attitude that comes close to fundamentalism itself:
Lewis agrees with them on several important points and has numerous valuable apologetical and spiritucal insights, but, because he doesn't fully agree with them, he is to be denounced. Intellectual opponents aren't just mistaken, there is something really wrong with them, they are enemies, intellectual frauds to be demolished at all costs.
"Intellectual frauds?" "Demolished at all costs?" I think words like this are apt at use with fundamentalists. I don't think being a fundamentalist is equivalent to being a Christian either. Having read a score of apologetical and philosophical works by would be "conservatives" or "fundamentalists" I can tell you that the majority of them look highly upon C. S. Lewis. I have only read but a few who think Lewis should not be elicited as a great apologist. But that's a very very very very few. You'll definitely have a harder time finding C. S. Lewis bashers than C. S. Lewis praisers within the Christian community. Also, JP Holding is politically mixed; so, by definition I don't think it would be fair to call him an ideologue or fundamentalist. Anyway, that's how I see it.
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