An Observation on Fundamentalism

[rfmcdonald]

Found on Atrios' comments page:

The way their line of thinking goes, God is the ruler of all men, etc., his laws are the laws that really matter and must be followed, God doesn't allow for leway- if you don't follow his laws you're toast, therefore there;s no other way to live life than the way god says.

That in and of itself can be creepy, but it's not necessarily bad. The problem is these people take the fateful, damning next step and think:

These laws aren't for me, they're for the whole world. Who am I to say someone can live outside of God's laws? God is king so therefore his laws must be followed. It's not up to me, imposing God's law upon everyone is necessarily how things must be. He's the creator for crying out loud!

They simply can't conceive of faith as only a personal thing. It the same way they equate criticism of America as "hating" America. That's just how fundamentalists think. And it never ceases to amaze me how they can denouce Islamic fundamentalism while at the same time striving for a fundamentalist state here. It's the same damn, destructive, ignorant thing.