Arnold Layne wrote:It depends what you mean regarding fundamentalists.
For example, would you consider someone who believes everything in The Bible, including the Creation and Adam and Eve and all that, a fundamentalist? In that case, you'd have to include my 91 year old mother who was indoctrinated into Catholicism throughout her childhood and who cannot and does not want to believe anything different. I consider her unfortunate to have been born into such a situation, but she's as normal as anyone....apart from that.
I think there's a generation and cultural difference with your mother. My mum was 88 when she died, and despite her worsening blindness, she managed to read her Bible every single day, right up to her death. She gave up attending church when she finally accepted that they were merely taking money for nothing worthwhile, but she continued to believe in God and her Bible.
My interest is in modern people, those who've had the benefit of being exposed to the information that's available on television and especially on social media where they interact with people who can show that not believing isn't 'evil' and that what they learn from their religion is just wrong.
I wonder why it didn't take with me. I know that I'm a little more intelligent than the average person (whatever that is), but if I could reason at age 5 or 6 that the Adam and Eve story is silly and improbable, how come most other kids don't? That's only the beginning of it.
A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation. - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE - 43 BCE)