fundamentalism –

A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

psycho –

Crazy; insane.

fundamentalist psycho – a crazy religious fanatic.

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Some explanation:

If you do a quick web search on the term (put the whole phrase between quotes), you will get an idea of how it’s used. To MANY it is a way to characterize ANY “fundamentalist Christians” OR “(radical) fundamentalist Muslims” and to lump them all together.

It’s actually a very UN-helpful term, because it is mostly used simply to insult and attack –ESPECIALLY to attack conservative Christians whom the speakers dislike and disagree with– by lumping them together with a particular group of Muslims, viz., terrorists who advocate (and carry out) the slaughter of civilians in the name of their religion, as they interpret it.

A sad irony in all this is that those who use of the term for Christians, often with the suggestion that those Christians are hateful and ignorant, are showing by these very remarks that they themselves are quite ignorant of what those they are attacking actually believe and practice! (and often filled with the same sort of animosity they are ascribing to others!)

So, a little bit of clarification — “fundamentalist”, a bit like “conservative” is an adjective whose meaning can be VERY different depending on the noun that goes with it. When the media or politicians, or these folks on forum, just toss it around as if ALL “religious fundamentalists” are at root the same, it is at best intellectually lazy, a substitute for actual debate or evidence.

As for “fundamentalist Christian”. In America this not a precise term. It MAY refer to a SUB-group of conservative Christians who specifically use it of themselves — a group that is typically more “separatist” (many are Baptist), strongly concerned with strict moral behavior by its own members, and “evangelistic”, that is, committed to sharing what they believe with others in the hopes they too will accept it.

A century ago it was a BROADER term, coined to refer pretty much to ANY Christian who held to the “fundamentals” — a small set of historic Christian beliefs (such as the deity of Jesus, his virgin birth and physical resurrection and the inspiration of Scripture), which certain preachers and teachers were beginning to deny. As such, you COULD apply it to folks who more likely call themselves “evangelicals” or “conservative Christians” (though again, they don’t use the “fundamentalist” label for themselves).

It appear that, to many who use it, most if not all such folks are “fundamentalist psycho”, even more so if the speaker finds a point in the Christian belief of these folks that they disagree with and ESPECIALLY if they take any action (including political action) on the basis of these beliefs. So, for instance, if someone actively opposes “partial birth abortion”, and is motivated by their Christian beliefs, they might have this label pinned on them.

Now there IS an extremely tiny fringe who CLAIM to be “fundamentalist Christians” who have advocated or practiced violent and hateful acts, from bombing abortion clinics or abortion doctor’s home to hateful rallies targeting gays…. But note that conservative Christians (including “fundamentalists”) not only do not advocate of make excuses for such things — they strongly CONDEMN them.

(Note that in ANY society, there will be some handful that claims to identify with a major group and then uses that group’s beliefs as an EXCUSE to do horrible things, but that group cannot be judged on the basis of such ‘fringe’ folks, esp. when the group itself speaks out against and works against these ‘extremists’.)

So the “moral equivalence” between fundamentalist Christians and ‘radical fundamentalist jihadists’ who advocate and practice terrorism is not only very unfortunate — it is totally unjustified.

On the Islamic use — the term “fundamentalist” has recently been come to be used for those of ANY belief system who advocate strict adherence to what they see as the central, original tenets of that faith. (Again, it DOES matter what that faith is… and especially WHAT specific tenets this or that ‘fundamentalist’ group is arguing in support of!)

bible in a more stricter and literal sense…but ive never heard

of the phsycho thing