Faith, Fundmentalism, Fact, & Freedom

faith |fāθ|

noun

1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something : this restores one's faith in politicians.

2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

• a system of religious belief : the Christian faith.

• a strongly held belief or theory : the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe.

fun-da-men-tal-ism |ˌfəndəˈmentlˌizəm|

noun

a form of Protestant Christianity that upholds belief in the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible, including its narratives, doctrines, prophecies, and moral laws.

• strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology, notably Islam.

Modern Christian fundamentalism arose from American millenarian sects of the 19th century, and has become associated with reaction against social and political liberalism and rejection of the theory of evolution. Islamic fundamentalism appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries as a reaction to the disintegration of Islamic political and economic power, asserting that Islam is central to both state and society and advocating strict adherence to the Koran ( Qur'an) and to Islamic law ( sharia), supported if need be by jihad or holy war.

fact |fakt|

noun

a thing that is indisputably the case : she lacks political experience—a fact that becomes clear when she appears in public | a body of fact.

• ( the fact that) used in discussing the significance of something that is the case : the real problem facing them is the fact that their funds are being cut.

• (usu. facts) a piece of information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article.

• chiefly Law the truth about events as opposed to interpretation : there was a question of fact as to whether they had received the letter.

Link to Source

Over fifty years ago I encountered the following line from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up (1936).

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

In combination with the Agnes comic strip above, it provides the inspiration for today's post.

* * *

Fundamentalism holds that intelligence comes from faith, not reason, that belief is superior to reason, and at the same time that it is more reasonable for humans to believe than to reason. On the surface that certainly looks like proof of intelligence according of Fitzgerald's definition, but that is not the case.

Fitzgerald's notion is that intelligent people "retain the ability to function" when confronted with two opposing ideas. It is that part of the test that fundamentalists fail.

No matter the time frame, no matter the culture, wherever and wherever fundamentalism is found, reason that contradicts belief hits an impenetrable wall composed of brains cramped in knots. The cramping arises from attempts to justify denying what their five senses tell them is reality.

Fundamentalists dare not question the legitimacy of what their "leaders" tell them are the words of their god for they have been taught that only through blind obedience will they know the truth which will set them free.

Such freedom a swindle, of course. As with all cons, it offers a big payoff for an absurdly small price and counts on the sucker's greed to ignore the axiom, If sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

In thrall to "leaders" who claim direct knowledge of the desires and plans of their god, fundamentalists enjoy several false freedoms. They are free from doubt. They are free from ever thinking that they make mistakes. They are free from having to change their ideas when confronted with overwhelming evidence that shows those ideas to be false. But most of all, they are free from feeling any responsibility toward those who live outside the wall which surrounds their enclave of inbreeding, true-believers.

They do not live to function in a world they see as damaged. They seek to die so that they may reap the rewards promised them by "leaders" who swindle them out of their money and their right to live as intelligent, thinking human beings.

Having been told by parents and teachers that I was intelligent, Fitzgerald's idea intrigued me when I first heard it, and I began actively seeking examples of simultaneous, opposing ideas in my own mind as well as in my interactions with others. I did not know it then, but that was the first step toward my liberation from the yoke of control by others.

Parents, priests, politicians, bosses, my elders? None would ever again be seen as absolute authorities whom I had to obey without question. I knew I had a say in how I conducted my life; and, for better or for worse, I owned the results of my choices.

That is true freedom. It's the freedom to learn and grow and the freedom to make mistakes in the process and sincerely apologize for them afterward. It's the freedom to be alive and know that life is not a pre-packaged bouquet of sterile, plastic flowers, but a bush full of fragrant roses blossoming and thriving among thorns.

I would not trade that freedom for the pie-in-the-sky promises offered by any fundamentalist faith, and that, dear reader, is a fact.