a brief comment re: Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism

2005-01-28

Richard Moore

Friends,

I was very impressed with Walter Davis' article. Even though what it said seemed
very negative, it was a work of science, not of polemics. The "negativity" 
arises from the reality of what was being described, in relation to the 
judgements made by we the readers. I learned a lot from the article and I hope 
others found it useful as well. One reader did respond with "Superlative, keep 
them coming."

But after posting the article, I began to have second thoughts. I don't want to 
give the impression that I'm trying to "put down" fundamentalists and show how 
"neurotic" they are, in comparison to "us more rational liberals."

If anyone can find one, I'd like to post a balancing article, revealing the 
"grand neuroses" of the liberal. The fact is that we're all a bit insane, 
otherwise we couldn't cope with this insane destructive society we must survive 
within. When I see a liberal, as I often have, dismiss a solid piece of 
evidence, because it "sounds like a conspiracy theory", that seems to me to be 
just the same as a fundamentalist dismissing hard evidence, because "the world 
was created in seven days". And they both remind me of the Pope who refused to 
look through Galileo's telescope at Jupiter's moons, because "God made the earth
the center of the universe." 

In my book, I've offered my own feeble analysis of the liberal mind, but I'd 
like to see an analysis with the same depth as Davis' article.  If the 
fundamentalist neurosis has to do with some kind of death wish, perhaps the 
liberal neurosis has something to do with a denial of death. While the 
fundamentalist projects the dark side onto Satan, perhaps the liberal is denying
the existence of a dark side. 

best regards
rkm

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