Fundamentalism’s Distorted View (and why you shouldn’t accept it)

The quote above comes from one of several recent posts by Fred Clark, addressing the problem of allowing fundamentalism to define religion.

The other two posts are about how the fundamentalist paradigm distorts religion, and why you should not take the word of some faction when they say they are the “real true Christians.” Both those posts contain charts showing how fundamentalists equate conservativism with authentic religion. And that is no surprise – what should surprise us is that very frequently that equation is accepted without question even by people who are not themselves part of such fundamentalist groups.

Of related interest, Eric Reitan tackles a problematic Facebook meme. And Haroon Moghul responds in Salon to Graeme Wood’s article about ISIS in The Atlantic, which a lot of the above is interacting with.

And of course, a lot of this discussion is also interacting with President Obama’s recent comments about Islam: