A question - it could be argued that fundamentalism is a mindset, and that all fundamentalists share one world view with different window dressing. Agree? Disagree? No real stake in this - just thought it would be an interesting topic.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

Yes.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think that Fundamentalists are all the same in that they take a concept in which a reasonable person could find doubt and shades of gray and make it a black and white issue. Unfortunately for them, the number of issues that exist in a pluralist society that are black and white are few and far between.

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Political Wrinkles
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Political Fever

An excellent definition of fundamentalism.

Seeing everything in black and white.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The same? Depends on what you mean by that. In some senses, obviously not, but I think that all fundamentalists share some... fundamental qualities.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

I agree with the definition that Fundamentalists see things in black and white. Fundamentalists may differ on details specific to their religious sect, and even to their particular followers, but the same principle is at work.

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"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."
- The Declaration of Independence

Then what is dissimilar are qualities that are not fundamental. I'd say that supports the thesis.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

I love the brevity of your response and the eloquence of your sig!

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

I don't think Fundamentalists are bad because they are black and white: the issue is fairly black and why. Little room for gray. They are just wrong. The real problem is that they are delusional. If they actually believe, for example, in transubstantiation, they are absolutely delusional.

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Meet the Fundies

If you are a fundamentalist, you think in terms of right and wrong, black and white. But the key ingredient is that you have the one and only right way of thinking or believing in God. It's YOUR God.

Fundamentalism is very "possessive."

Then from there you get to lecture down to people. The "juice" fundamentalists feed upon is being on a soapbox lecturing down at others in self righteous designation or standing on someone else's front porch telling them to convert or die and go to hell. There is no room for anyone else in the universe to disagree or have a peer level of belief. That is disallowed. You have a monopoly on the one and only true God. And it is no random accident that the God of your "vision" is a morph photoshopped picture of yourself dressed up as Christ or Moses or Muhammed.

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