There is an elephant in the room and nobody sees it, or isn’t talking about it. The whack job, crackpot, Looney-Tune, ignorant elephant is Religious Fundamentalism. This has done the most harm to America than any other behavior.
The Academy of Arts and Sciences (founded 1780 USA) did an exhaustive study of Religious Fundamentalists. The findings were; no matter what the religion, the culture or country, the Fundamentalists have five common traits. They are as follows:
- Women will acquiesce to the male. They are to raise children and do men’s bidding.
- Their Book, with accompanied dogma, is the only word. It is absolute, there is no compromise. You are either with us or against us. Not one of us? You are the enemy who must be fought everywhere all the time.
- Children need to be sequestered until they are completely indoctrinated. Therefore, their communal schools and or home schools are the only schools their children will attend. Only when properly schooled may the children enter the society at large.
- Their religion, being the only Word, must dictate how the other Institutions operate. All our religious laws will be government laws.
- We must get back to the pure golden era when our Book was followed absolutely. We have to change this impure society.
I am not going into all the ramifications or immediate consequences of this really stupid behavior. That would be a book. I’ll just mention a few.
- Against: abortion, birth control, equal pay for equal work, domestic abuse laws, prostitution, legal definition of rape, etc…
- The issues: Ten Commandments in public places, Atheists, gays, public prayer, the flag, etc… Their behavior; if they believe it (i.e. no tax) there is no compromise.
- Push for; vouchers, home schools and charter schools, divert government funds from public schools to theirs, etc…
- School prayers, teach creationism in public schools, only their icons in public places, declaring their religion as The American Religion, get out of the UN, punish single moms, no Head Start, get rid of EPA, etc…
- Back to the 50’s, back to US founding father’s Christian ideals, don’t let the impure horde into the country, etc…
The scary part is fundamentals who hold public office are taking up the Fundamental’s cause. The Tea Party group in the congress want chaos, this means the Rapture is coming. They hold no compromise as a principle.
But, here is the good news. Little by little the American public is pushing back. The turning point is this last election. The real vocal Wing-nuts were defeated. The Fundamentals showed their hand on woman, education and government laws, all were rejected. As of this writing gun laws are being discussed again, yeah.
Let me finish with a side-bar. Anti abortion is a religious issue. For the Catholics it keeps the organization, for the Fundamentals, it keeps the Devil from killing Baby Jesus in the second coming. There is no other logical reason for their stance on abortion.
