Religious fundamentalism

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fundamental means basic facts or ideas. Fundamentalism means acting and thinking in a way that agrees with the basic facts or ideas. Religious Fundamentalism is the movement to act and believe by the basic principles of a religion.

[edit] Origin of religious fundamentalism

In religion fundamentalism means anti-modernist ideas in the religion. Anti- is a prefix that means against. Anti-modernist means against modern ways of thinking.

Religious fundamentalism is a new development in society. People who study religious fundamentalism see it as a response to modern society. Today society is not as simple as it was. Today many people live in societies that can be hard to understand. Changes in familiar things can make people feel unsafe. So some people look in their religion to see something that does not change. They want to know something that will not change. They also want rules about how to act that do not change. So they see their religion as this thing that does not change.

When people look at religion this way they see the ideas in the religion as absolute. This means that it is not possible for them to change. When religion is seen as absolute it becomes fundamentalism.

People can be any religion and be fundamentalists.

[edit] The term (word or group of words) 'religious fundamentalist'

Some people who are called religious fundamentalists do not like that name. They do not like it because 'religious fundamentalist' has some negative ideas about it. Many people who are politically progressive or liberal sometimes do not like religious fundamentalists. They believe bad things about them like that they are not clever, they are not educated, or that they do not respect people's human rights. Some people who are called religious fundamentalists do not like that the term has these other meanings. So they do not want to be called religious fundamentalists.

Some people who are Christian fundamentalists do like that term and use it to name themselves. But they do not like being called religious fundamentalists because Islamic fundamentalists are in this same group.

[edit] Issues of religious fundamentalism

Not all religious fundamentalists believe the same things. But there are many issues that they have strong beliefs about. Some of these issues are similar even in different religions. Some of these issues are: