Talk:Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is not exclusively religious
The page treats "fundamentalism" as the same thing as "religious fundamentalism". Belief systems can be fundamentalist without being a religion. Materialistic Scientism is a fundamentalist belief system. HansNZL (talk) 10:50, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Strongly agreed. In fact, a fundamental tenant of fundamentalist atheism seems to be denying that atheists can be fundamentalist....
 * I've removed the quote tags around the word "fundamentalism" as it seems snarky. If anyone disagrees and thinks that non-religious or atheistic ideologies can't be fundamentalist....then they really need to get out more. The whole page still needs some serious work, though.


 * I think we need to swap the perspectives, start with wider political and idealogical fundamentalism and then narrow it down to specific types. As it is now it is very messy.
 * Ion Zone (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the article will get out of control if it is expanded to too many things called "fundamentalism". What about "communist fundamentalism", "socialist fundamentalism", "capitalist fundamentalism", "feminist fundamentalism", and many others getting thousands of google hits? And tons of specific nationalist fundamentalisms. I think this article should be renamed "religious fundamentalism" in order to control its scope. Atheist fundamentalism can still appear within limits (hopefully better written than now). Zerotalk 08:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You make a valid point. If the usage continues to expand like you describe then we will need a main article on fundamentalism and then sub-articles.  This one does read as mostly religious fundamentalism.  Is it time to break the article up?  The See Also list's increasing length is another sign.  Alatari (talk) 11:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * This is an old thread, but the material about labeling non-religious topics including atheism now exists in the article. The way it was presented seemed undue (it appeared twice and also had its own subsection).  Hopefully today's reorganization allows to preserve the mention without making it too prominent...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:59, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Constitutional fundamentalism entry
Entry added that needs a little work before prime time inclusion. The first source will not work unless I log in which violates WP:RS so it needs replacement. The second source is from a partisan democrat but the sentence is about vagueness of the constitution authorship which can be sourced more neutrally from a constitution scholar. The third source is from a senior Newsweek journalist and is fine but all the sources need to use or  style citations which are a much higher class referencing scheme. The text is fine with me. --Alatari (talk) 10:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The section is primarily a criticism of Tea party folks, and does not attempt to explain their so-called "fundamentalism". It seems to mean close fidelity to the original text. However the Supreme Court pays very close attention to the original words of the Constitution, --indeed that is standard practice in the U.S. The sources turn out to be journalists and bloggers and not constitutional experts. In a word: the material is not based on RS, is primarily argumentative designed to ridicule a political position (ie POV)  and is not encyclopedic. Rjensen (talk) 11:27, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

If the original editor comes back he can defend his position. I'm trying to help him through the transition from newbie to experienced editor. --Alatari (talk) 11:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't get why people keep deleting my section on constitutional fundamentalism. It has a lot of Google hits; it's not just some concept I made up. If you think that though, thanks for the honour, I must be a pretty good pundit. Abootmoose (talk) 01:21, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't look for more sources about this yet and am also unsure if this article is the ideal target. If the main issue was weight, possibly that in the new organization it could marry with the "Non-religious" section without an additional subheader...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Constitutional fundamentalism
In recent years, a trend has developed among the political right in the United States of seeing the United States Constitution and its amendments as being inerrant and perfect. 

This kind of rigid fundamentalism has been criticized on the ground that the Founding Fathers intentionally wrote much of the Constitution's language to be vague so it could evolve with the times, that it makes unfounded connections between The Bible and the Constitution , and the fact that the Founding Fathers did not unilaterally agree on everything, and some rules in the document, such as the 2 Senate representatives for each state, but House of Representatives numbers based on population, were forged out of compromise.

Social context etc
While the article has various specialized sections, some of the material in the lead should probably be in a main section, possibly before the various religions/political examples. Such section could give a little more general context, see for instance this source. There probably are even better sociology and religious studies sources about the topic that could also be used to expand that eventual section... — Paleo Neonate  – 00:16, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Another interesting source (chapter written by political scientist Michael Barkun): — Paleo  Neonate  – 20:32, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

The Christianity section currently includes some of this context. — Paleo Neonate  – 22:04, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Rube Goldberg Jack-in-the-Box
Presently the second sentence in lead:

However, fundamentalism has come to be applied to a tendency among certain groups–mainly, although not exclusively, in religion–that is characterized by a markedly strict literalism as it is applied to certain specific scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, and a strong sense of the importance of maintaining ingroup and outgroup distinctions, leading to an emphasis on purity and the desire to return to a previous ideal from which advocates believe members have strayed.

As converted to slide-projector punctuation:

However, fundamentalism has come to be applied to:
 * a tendency among certain groups
 * mainly in religion
 * although not exclusively
 * that is characterized by:
 * a markedly strict literalism as it is applied to certain specific:
 * scriptures
 * dogmas
 * ideologies
 * and a strong sense of the importance of maintaining
 * ingroup distinctions
 * outgroup distinctions
 * leading to an emphasis on:
 * purity
 * desire to return to a previous ideal
 * from which advocates believe members have strayed.

Does the average reader even agree with this, which I pondered for several minutes? This is a crazy grammatical unboxing video if you ask me. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:36, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the constatation, that sentence is indeed definitely too long and should be split or rewritten. Even the relationship of claims to the citations is blurred...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 21:31, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * BTW, I may eventually get to do it myself, but in the spirit of WP:BOLD, feel free to attempt to rewrite the lead (if it includes sourced information that's not in the body already, it should probably be moved there, then the new lead would not need any citations if it simply is a summary of the important parts of the body, per WP:LEAD). — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

"That" or "which"
Since this defining phrase is not spoken, we are free to use "which". I don't know where you got the idea that a defining phrase cannot use "which". It is perfectly good grammar. But I'm not going to edit-war over it. I have more sources. Elizium23 (talk) 04:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC)