Fundamentalism: Menace II Society

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bright and Jerry's here of course, which makes this Stuff you Should Know from you can. I lead off with a couple of just fun quick shoutouts before we get to the not fun hm topic. You know, uh, going to Boston tomorrow to see Pavement. Oh that's what

you're doing? Okay? Great? Uh. My old friend from high school, Robert h. Chehade of Toughs University fame, we were texting about Pavement and he said, this is back when tickets went on sale. I'm going to both Atlanta shows, of course,

and he said, you want to come up here? I was like, heck, yeah, so going to see the Boys tomorrow, and UH also want to quickly shout out I just got back recently from my uh tenth, eleventh, and twelve Bonnie Prince Billy shows for the last couple of years, and I just want to shout out the great people in towns of Santa Cruz, California, Pasa Roblis, California, and Big Sir. Oh yeah, I just had a great time out there. It's my part of the country. I love

northern California. To my vibe, had great breakfast burrito's, great food. They do him right, man. He can't get a real decent breakfast burrito in Atlanta, and I don't know why that's gonna be my retirement job. Oh that's great, I'll come. I'll come patronize your breakfast period. I don't know what is so hard about a California saw breakfast burrito, but Atlanta does not seem capable. It's probably too healthy. It's not healthy. Okay, Well then I don't know. I'm all

out of ideas. Chuck's so frustrating anyway, great towns, great shows. Another great run with the great will Oldham. This time solo, first time I've ever seen him literally by himself. He has a variety of arrangements, ranging from full band a couple of people to six or eight bluegrass style. And this was this was just him, which was a treat

unplugged for once plugged but acoustic. Yeah, okay, did you I was wondering if you've gotten yourself a vand of hollo him around and yet no, no, I'm flying in these places. Yeah, that seems sensible, because then I ran it'd be tough to get back in time to work. You know, I wish you could fly in a place and rent a little hippie van to follow someone around for a few days. That sounds like your retirement job

instead of some dumb mid sized suv. Yeah, you could be like, run a VW wagon, get a free breakfast burrito. There you go. That's that's it. I might invest in that one. All right. Now, let's talk about fundamentalism. Yeah, let's talk about fundamentalism. Um, this is uh, this is one of those kind of I guess episodes that ties into a bunch of other stuff, and it's the kind of thing that you don't really think about, and then when you do think about you wish you weren't thinking about.

But it's kind of important, I think for everybody to be aware of because with fundamentalism, a lot of people, especially non religious people, just presume that fundamentalism is a religious thing only necessarily deaf only does affect religions most easily, as we'll see, But basically anything that people really hold dear um can actually produce fundamentalism. And when you kind of strip it of its religious connotations, um it it becomes clear like, oh yeah, there's a lot of fundamentalism

going on around. It's especially in two UM and it's it has given me just researching this, it's given me like a deeper impulse to be like, hold the center, Hold the center. We can make it through this. We just have to. We just have to get to the other side and make sure that the center remains intact. You know. Yeah, I think, I mean, you put this together. You did a great job, by the way, on a on a tough topic. But um, I think the sociologists that you found that said, uh, this really had it

is um. Fundamentalism is an ideology rather than a theology, so it can be religious in nature, but it doesn't have to be all that to say that sort of a long winded c o A that this is not a hit piece on religion at all, but it is. You know, I think it is going to end up being a bit of a condemnation on fundamentalism, because it's not a great way to be to say, hey, the way we think of things is the only right way. Everybody else is wrong, and I don't want anything to

do with you. Well, not only that you need to change your viewpoints to find that follow mine, because mine's the only right way to think. That's a terrible way to be terrible and and truly, when you start to research fundamentalism, you you do start to see it everywhere. Maybe not stuff that checks every single box, but when you understand the basics of it, it's it becomes clear we're surrounded by it right now. Um, And that's actually

kind of a new thing. Um. One of the things about fundamentalism is when when you kind of listen to what they're saying, they imagine that they're they're taking society back to this you know, golden age or golden arrow and things, you know, we're more sensible and more predictable and reliable and things just made sense more. But UM fundamentalism is actually a pretty modern thing. Um. It only

arose starting in about eighteen seventy. Uh, and it was originally UM this kind of uh assault or response to progressive ism in religion. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. I think the first wave he said, ran from about eighteen seventy to nineteen nine. I'm sorry, and uh and we'll you know, we'll see in a minute here kind of how and why it ended. The first

run at least, or at least brought it underground. But it started or it took its name at least from a series of pamphlets called The Fundamentals colon Uh, Testimony of the Truth. And that kind of says it all right there, They're like someone saying, this is the truth. This is not our opinion on maybe how things should be. Is this is the one way that things clearly should be, because it's the only way, because it's the one truth. Yeah.

And around that time, in the late nineteenth century, UM religion in America was starting to become more progressive because society was modernizing and to kind of adapt and change and alter itself to this modernizing society. UM, just the understanding of what religion meant was under transition, and fundamentalists said, no, no, no,

religion is religion. It doesn't matter what society does. This is the truth, This is the this is the way that it's supposed to be, and we need to stop progressing away from it and being accommodating to to modern society. We need to make modern society go back to the old ways, you know, the ways were we're in charge. Yeah, and there was a big um sort of one of the first big face punches to fundamentalism came about in eighteen fifty nine. Uh well, I kind of helped give

rise to the original fundamentalism. But the publication of On the Origin of the Species from Darwin, which basically you know,

everyone knows what that did. That introduced evolution and natural selection and really undermine sort of in writing for the first time, it challenged creationism as why we're here and how we got here, and it was it's sort of as you'll see that you know, at times when um, a fundamentalist might think, or a religion might think that they're being threatened by new ideas, that's sort of when the lockdown goes on and they really sort of rise to the occasion, and that sort of helped birth the

big first rise of fundamentalism. Yeah, fundamentalism UM took its first swipe at modern modernity. Yeah sure, UM with the Scopes Monkey trial in UM. It was uh Tennessee versus Scopes, where Tennessee had charged public UM school teacher John Scopes of teaching evolution in the classroom, which was against the law.

They charged the science teacher with teaching science exactly, That's exactly right, UM, And a guy, a very powerful and um prestigious and smart attorney named Clarence Darrow came to the aid of John Scopes, UM, and the Scopes Monkey trial actually ended up putting not John Scopes on trial, but fundamentalism on trial. And Clarence Darrow was not a fan of fundamentalism, and he basically used this trial as an excuse to just just show how ridiculous and backwards

these fundamentalists beliefs were. That's right, and it worked. Uh he in a sense, he lost the trial. I believe in that until nineteen sixty seven that ban on teaching evolution remained in effect, uh seven from UM. But you know, he lost a battle. He won the war and that the coverage of the Scopes monkey trial really like kind of blew the whole thing up and dealt a big blow to what fundamentalism was in the US and how

much sort of influence they might have moving forward. And kind of what it did post Scopes was it kind of moved it back underground for several decades. Yeah. I kind of think of the Scopes Monkey Trial and the result of it is like, um, when Homer gets embarrassed on The Simpsons and the whole town just points and laughs at him. In that instance, Homer is fundamentalism in

the nine twenties in America, right. Like, society did not think much of it afterwards, which is surprising because it had been kind of a respected school of thought UM for a little while, and I guess it just kind of it just went too far towards the mainstream and as it went underground. It's not like it just went away, UM.

It actually built up a kind of like shadow institution to rival the secular society like schools, UM TV stations, UH, colleges, seminaries, mission groups, and then also started to really kind of recruit new followers and members of these fundamentalist ideas UM through churches, through church outreach as well. Um, and over the years they just kind of built more and more strength and more and more strength than in the late seventies. Was just like a tidal wave of fundamentalism swept across

the world and really caught sociology off guard. Yeah, and like you said, around the world, it wasn't just we're not just saying like you United States Christians did this. It was it popped up in some very surprising places sometimes. But again, it kind of all happened at once. But there was a big distinction here with the second wave, and that the first wave was really too um to to kind of strike back against progressive religious movement and kind of keep religion as it was and not to

modernize religion in any way. This go around, it said, uh, society as a whole, I don't want anything to do with this modernization and this progressivism that's going on, and forget religion, Like, we want to get involved in government and we'll and we're gonna do it in a big way.

And that's when the Christian right was born and groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition put big money into politics and help you know, sort of the beginning of getting politicians elected with a with a pretty

severe religious bent. Yeah. And in some cases they were directly trying to elect fundamentalists like Pat Robertson actually ran for president campaign UM and uh did not win, but he is about as fundamentalists as you can get and see like a mainstream television station with the seven hundred club, but also like backing UM politicians with such gusto that the politicians they got elected basically owed them. Uh. And in that way, fundamentalism like really kind of crept into

um American politics. And since that time you start to see things like basically a challenge to the concept of something like a separation of church and state that is completely at odds with American Christian fundamentalism. Uh. And so there's been as as fundamentalism has gotten more and more into American politics, there the line between church and state, um has been blurred more and more. And that's just one example of it. Yeah. And like you mentioned, it

happened all around the world in the late seventies. In ninety nine, to be specific, Uh, militant Schiites followed Uh it's all Komany and took Iran away from the Shaw and installed uh Komani as the leader. And you know, I remember this when I was a kid. If you and I mentioned this on the show before. If you go back and just google Iran pre revolution, you will see a very swinging sixties and seventies groovy country. Uh.

That is not like the Iran we know today. And that was partially not partially, that was completely due to the Shiite uprising and revolution that happened because of fundamental religious fundamentalism in their case. Yeah, it's exactly like if followers of Jerry Folwell um created an armed insurgency and overthrew the American government and installed Jerry Falwell as the supreme leader of America. It's the exact same thing. That's

what happened in Iran. And it's really sad to see, but I mean that's what happened, and it was part of this wave of of fundamentalism. Um. There was also Israel started to get more fundamentalist starting in nineteen seventy four. There's still um a lot of challenges by fundamentalism within Israeli politics today. UM. India has a nationalist party, a Hindu nationalist party, I should say, the b j P Um, they're fundamentalists, Hindu fundamentalists. Um, they've actually held power like

the presidency multiple times since nineteen eighty UM. And then today there's still waves of fundamentalism going on in Africa. Has become a laboratory for Christian fundamentalists who basically travel to Africa as activists and um get new laws, fundamentalist laws passed in countries like Uganda, whereas of two thousand and fourteen, you can be sentenced to life in prison

just for being gay. That is thanks to American fundamentalists who traveled to Uganda, got in with the government and changed laws like that, or got laws like that created or enforced. Yeah, and it's it's crazy when you look at the all this happening at once, Like you said, you know, it's seventy nine in Iran, seventy four in Israel, then I teen seventies in the United States. Uh, it was just a it's weird how things happened like that. I wonder if there's a podcast topic in there about

like un nonplanned coalescence of you know, anything, just a zeitgeist. Yeah, I guess that that's sort of the word I'm looking for. I wonder too, because it's not like the shi i Um militants in Iran. We're undergoing the same experience as the Moral Majority in the US. But the timing is insane. I mean we're talking like within a year of each other. There's the Iranian Revolution and the Moral Majority springs up

and gets Ronald Reagan elected like that. That's and then in in India in nineteen eighty that the Hindu Nationalist Um Party gets founded. Like all of it happened at the same time, and it had to be had to intertwine in some way. But I just don't see like um you know, um pat Robertson in the comine like coordinating any So, how did it happens? I don't know. It's a pushback against something else that was happening, But I don't know. I think I find that stuff fascinating,

how societies move as a whole. All right, how about a break? Yes, I think we're doing good so far, man, And we'll talk a little bit more about the F word right after this. Okay. So there's some things that that people some misconceptions um see you jinkstas chuck um that people have about fundamental See that's why I said the F word. I wasn't trying to be cheeky. I'm

having a hard time saying the word. So. Um, there's some miscons sceptions about fundamentalism that most people, especially secular people have, And like we said at the outset that a lot of people think it's it's an infection of religion and that it's a religion problem and if you aren't a member of a church or a religious group, it's not your problem, and that's absolutely untrue, and that that viewpoint of the whole thing is actually a big

problem for society as a whole. Yeah. Uh. And we mentioned earlier a little bit that like often you'll see fundamentalism creep up when they feel like something is being threatened that they hold dear, and that's when they really locked down and get active. And you can look at things like, you know, people are fundamentalists about the Second Amendment, people are fundamentalists about the First Amendment. Uh. And it's usually more so at times where they feel like those

amendments are threatened. During the Cold War, people were, um, you know, the threat of communism really made people a lot of people fundamentalists about uh, the free market, let's say, and uh, what else. There's a lot of other great examples. Um. Ironically, people like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins who are basically militantly anti religious. Um, they are accused by some of being fundamentalists, and they're thinking in part because they're intolerant, which,

as we'll see is a really important part. Um. And that intolerance also gets um liberal college campuses accused of becoming more and more fundamentalist in their thinking, where non liberal professors can actually find their their jobs in jeopardy and actually do get canned because of something they said

that wasn't sufficiently liberal enough. Right, So this is kind of what I was talking about earlier, where it's not like Bill March checks every single box of you know, fundamentalism, but if you if you understand fundamental fundamentalism, he actually comes there's a lot of there's enough boxes that it

makes question, Okay, is this actually fundamentalist thinking? Um, same with constitutional originalists, Like it does not have to be religion, and once you stop looking at fundamentalism as a really strictly religious thing, it really does open one's eyes to just the world in general. Yeah, I totally agree. Um, you mentioned something really important a second ago in that, which was intolerance, which is a real hallmark of fundamentalism. U. And a really great example that you gave in your

research here is the Amish. You can't get any more sort of tighten it and strict religious than the Amish. But the Amish, you know, who knows what they say about us. They may judge us, but what they don't do is leave their community and knock on our door and try and convert you to being Amish and say the Amish way of thinking is the only right way

and everyone else should be like this. Yeah, they're not running like Amish people in the local primaries to take over the school board because they want to impose is Amish beliefs on the rest of the community. They don't do that. They're not fundamentalist. And that's a really important distinction and intolerance. It's basically, uh, there there is no compromise. There is one true viewpoint that is correct, and anything

that differs from that is the enemy of that. Yeah, I mean, and intolerance is such an important part of fundamentalism that you can almost use it as a litmus test to say, Okay, is this thinking fundamentalist or not, because if if there's no intolerance. You just you got the Amish people who really really believe in in what they believe in, but they're not trying to impose their beliefs on anybody else, and they're fine with you believing

whatever you believe. That's that's your problem. You're going to hell. Although I don't think the Amish hopefully think like that. But whatever, UM and that intolerance makes it like incompatible with society because in modern society, UM tolerance is extraordinarily important. And not only is an important, it's it's it's considered to be something that just kind of bubbles up to

the top because it ends up holding society together. When you have so many different disparate people of different religions, of different creeds, of different nationalities, of um, different sexual orientation, of different genders, all living together in one country and they can coexist peacefully. Tolerance is just going to develop over time. And if you have intolerance, active intolerance, that's an infection on that society. And that's why fundamentalism is

so dangerous to society. So yeah, I mean that's a really good point. And in a in a modern society, Uh, we've talked before about the marketplace of ideas, which is the idea that um. People just throw out a lot of different ideas, and the ones that work the best are the ones that are going to rise to the top, and those are probably going to be the ones that are the most widely accommodating to the most people. And if you are a fundamentalist, you're not a big fan

of the marketplace of ideas. You're not a big fan of what's the most widely accommodating. Because as society has progressed over the years, it has gotten more well progressive, and it's gotten more modern, and things have moved forward, and fundamentalism is inherently kind of anti that in general. And they're like that that can spring up in the workplace. It's like I don't want to work. I don't want to have a cubicle next to this kind of person quote unquote UM. And it's not like I'll go quit

my job. It's like, uh no, why don't we Why don't they leave? Why don't you fire them right for being gay? Because they're the ones that are the problem. I'm the one that subscribes to the truth. And it doesn't even matter if you're speaking out or not speaking out against fundamentalist beliefs. If you just subscribe to a different way of thinking, you are challenging the truth, and that cannot be tolerated. Opposing viewpoints cannot be tolerated by fundamentalism.

They have to be stamped out, they have to be ostracized, they have to have violence against them in some cases. Um. And so it would make more sense to that that fundamentalist worker that their gay coworkers should be fired, not them. Um. And that's that's again, that's a huge contradiction to society, modern society in particular. Yeah, And I mean, you made a really good point when you sort of talked about the hippie movement. Um. Fundamentalism does challenge modernism kind of

full stop for control of what's going on. And the hippies they had a counterculture. They didn't like what was going on in modern society. They challenged it as well, but there was a big difference in that they rejected modern society and just sort of turn their backs on it and want to create a new way for themselves, like their own utophe, which obviously was never gonna happen. God bless of hippies. But that's what they tried to do. At least what they didn't do was try and say

everybody should be hippies. We want to take control of the government and until everyone that they should lead a hippie lifestyle through through like laws and violence, right right. Yeah. So, Um, what's interesting, Chuck, is what the hippies were espousing as a counter culture was what fundamentalism was doing starting in to basically nineteen eighty in the US. They as a counterculture, they went off and established their own counter culture that

they had again their own schools, their own media. Um, it wasn't until they became politically active that they became that second wave where they they they actively were trying to take over the society in order to steer it away from modernity and toward Christianity. And again they keep saying,

we want to steer it back into Christianity. That's something that's um, that's super up for debate as well, is just how christian was America before and our our fundamentalist steering us backward or is this a whole new modern direction that we've never been in before? And scholars say definitely the ladder of those two yeah, for sure. And we'll talk a little bit about that later. But Um,

some of the traits of fundamentalist groups uh. And again this is this can be any kind of fundamental fundamentalism all around the world. But one we've already kind of talked about is they're reactive to crises. Uh. And that's when you know, I sort of mentioned when they feel like they're being specifically threatened by maybe a law or anything really or a movement or a group another group. Um, then they try to sort of overcome that with uh,

with power and of course now with politics. Um. McCarthyism is a really good example there. Um of I mean, the Cold War created a lot of fun different kinds of fundamentalism. Uh. McCarthyism certainly was one of them. Yeah. And so like a fundamentalist might rise on its own just in times of uncertainty, but when things are really uncertain for a lot more people, that's when they start

to attract more and more followers. Right. There's also a big component of fundamentalism that is, um, a reliance on simplistic solutions. Right. So like, yeah, the world is huge and complex and scary, but all you have to do is listen to the literal word of God or follow the original wording of the Constitution, and all of your your answer, all of your questions will be answered. You don't even have to think about anything. Just follow the

word um. And that's another hallmark of fundamentalism is you are basically blind obedience to some leadership and or set of doctrines. And um. That's one of the reasons that it makes it so attractive. Like you don't have to think about the world. You don't have to wonder about the world and why it's so scary and why it doesn't make sense. Things are the way they are are because that's how they are, That's how they're supposed to be. Like men are more important than women because God made

us that way. Like that level of thinking, and like you just put a period on the end. You don't have to wonder any longer why a man is more important than a woman in America these days. Um, that's just that. And that's that's a really big attraction of fundamentalism to people. It's like, um, remember King of the Hill. Yeah,

so Bill Doughtree his his buddy. I remember once he said, Um, he missed being in the army because they took the guesswork out of living and like fundamentalism does that for its followers, like they tell what the answers are and you don't have to think about it yourself. Yeah, that's good. I have a friend who I won't name, who his big gripe is when he talks to his you know, he's sort of the black sheep of his family and

that they don't align politically. But he says when he tries to challenge them with actual facts and things, he said, they always say the same thing, sing They just sort of turned their head and go, I don't know about that. And that's sort of the I mean, the perfect distillation of simplistic thinking is when met with literal facts and data, just you know, I don't know about that. Like basically, what they're saying is I don't want to that threatens me.

I don't want to talk about that, right, And I'm not curious about getting to the bottom of this. I'm not curious about your viewpoint. I'm not curious about my own viewpoint. I don't want it to be challenged. Let's stop talking. What is that a thought terminating something somebody wrote in and told us once about, yeah, like statement or something yeah, or like um, let's agree to disagree, which I still think is valid. But yeah, I get it.

I think maybe that's a last resort sort of thing, so you don't like start punching each other exactly that it goes hand in hand with digging your fingertips into the arm of the chain. Exactly. Does someone smell burning sawdust? Oh, Josh, is just across the bar. Uh. Another sort of fundamentalist trait that um can happen is uh. It's not always, but it's a lot of times it's anti science. But at the same time, and we've talked about this a little bit here and there, is it can go the

other way. There are some people that are dogmatically fundamentalists, uh, believers in science to a degree that isn't may be helpful. Yeah, that that basically, um uh goes away from the concept of science that science is constantly looking for new answers and everything, and dogmatic science people are like, no, this is it and let's stop, let's stop thinking about it anymore. And if you challenge it, I'm not tolerant of that, and you're wrong, um that that is out there, but

that's a an aberration. I think for the most part, it's it is an anti science kind of thing because science is part of modernization of society, and so that makes it an enemy. It's an enemy especially of Christianity or other religions as far as fundamentalism goes, Yeah, for sure. Uh. And then the last couple of things kind of go hand in hand. Is a lot of time, Um, fundamentalists

can be conspiracy oriented. Uh, you know a lot of paranoia, sort of dwelling about the and you know, it all comes from it all stems from them feeling threatened about X, Y or z. Uh. And then they usually rally around some sort of charismatic leader, uh, whatever the group is whever, whether it's the Komeni. Even though that didn't maybe didn't translate to America as being a charismatic leader. Uh, he certainly had his followers. Um, But it's usually a man.

They usually authoritarians and charismatic. Uh. They usually are bullies in some way or the other. And a lot of times fundamentalists look at these people and admire the like kind of wish they were like them, Like they're doing the things that we would do if we were in power. Yeah, Like I like a guy who can get up there and talk about beating up are critics because I wish I could punch him in the face and he's talking

about it and it makes me feel so good. Yeah, that kind of thing UM, and that conspiracy thing in particular, I was reading about that there's a huge overlap that's developed between Q and non beliefs and evangelical Christianity, and they have a lot in common about like end times apocalypticism.

Just there's a lot of overlap. But but one of the things that I think is starting to become apparent is that people of faith, especially fundamentalists, because they are maybe the most people of the most faithful of the faithful UM, are possibly more susceptible to conspiracy theories because literalist religion, whereas like your your religious text is is infallible,

there's no mistakes in it. It means everything literally, and where science or physics contradicts it, sciences physics is wrong. That level of of of UM belief and something like Q and on that's just that out there require faith, and if you're already faithful to something like that, you apparently are more susceptible to things like conspiracy theories that require you to ignore facts and just take things on faith,

and that that has kind of infected evangelicalism. Uh, something like I think I saw on a five thirty eight um blog that like a quarter of evangelicals in America believe in Q and On too, which is that's a tremendous amount of people. I think a third of people in America are evangelical, So a quarter of that third

subscribe to Q and onbeliefs belief. Well, yeah, and here's something I don't think we maybe have hammered home enough is that there is a large portion of of American religious people who are not fundamentalists and who did since the beginnings of modernization try and roll with it and say, well, you know what, maybe the Bible isn't to be taken so literally. Maybe these are allegories and metaphors. Maybe Noah didn't literally take two of every living thing, and maybe

this red sea didn't literally part. Maybe these are all stories that we should draw inspiration or or our our way of looking at the world from and and believe in science. And they're combatible, uh not compatible compatible, Uh there are That is a very huge part of religion. So we're not painting religion with this single brush here. Uh, we're just talking about one one part of it, not at all. And some of the most vocal and outspoken

opponents and scholars of fundamentalism are religious groups. Because you've got progressives and moderates in any given religion, and they've got fundamentalists who are trying to take over take control of their religious group. Uh, and that's a problem for them. And it was evangelicals, moderate and liberal evangelicals who started telling the rest of the world like, hey, q and On is making serious headways into our religious group, and it's a big problem and we need to figure out

what's going on here. They were the ones who told everybody else basically. Yeah, And those fundamentalists, the progressive non literalists are in a way their enemy as well of the fundamentalists, you know, like within their own religion, The progressive non literalists of like you know, the people say like, well maybe we should take the Bible is just a metaphor their their enemies of the fundamentalists. Yeah. Absolutely, And again that's where it started back in the eighteen seventies

and the original split right, Yeah, exactly. It was a struggle within the Baptists and the Presbyterians for control over the Baptists and the Presbyterians. These fundamentalists came up and said, stop accommodating modern society. You're straying away from the Word. And their beliefs got harder and harder and more and more and more literal, and they were a huge problem for the Baptist send the Presbyterians for a while. Yeah

for sure. All right, let's take our final break and we'll talk about what history thinks about fundamentalism right after this, So Chok, we talked about how fundamentalist groups say, they claim that they're taking society back to like this Golden Ages era where things were the way that the fundamentalists wanted them before, right, And that doesn't seem to be true. But again, fundamentalists seemed to be a modern phenomenon, taking us in directions that we've never been in before, where

the fundamentalists are the ones in charge, right. Um. And one of the ways that they do that is by selectively citing stuff in religious texts or in historical documents that support their ideas and um the christian Um. American Christian fundamentalists love to do that with UM, like historical documents from the founding of the United States and even back when the United States was just some colonies as

British colonies. Yeah, because a lot of those documents say the word God and mentioned God, whether it's the Charter, the original charter for Virginia in the early sixteen hundreds, to George Washington saying that the drafting of the Constitution was an event that was in the hand of God. Um fundamentalists say, hey, George Washington is George Washington. He

also mentioned God. And it's also he also says that you shouldn't compromise because the Constitution was written in the in the hand of God, and so that kind of takes all the boxes as far as drawn a line in the sand. But again, all this stuff is sort

of out of context. And when you go back and you look at what the original Charter of Virginia meant and why it was written, or what George Washington meant and what ultimately made it into the Constitution, which was not the word God, you really got to look at that in context, like what was what was the deal with a Virginia Charter. So the Virginia Charter said that one of the colonists goals was to propagate the Christian religion to the indigenous people that they met there, although

they didn't call them indigenous people. Um And if you look at the Virginia Charter from six o six, it was written by people who were British, who were corporate shareholders who lived in London, who were ruled by the crown, and their aim was not to form a new nation, and just Christianizing the indigenous people they met there just added legitimacy to this commercial pursuit that they were undertaking.

It's it's pretty flimsy as far as like a proof that America was founded as a Christian nation that in the menalists need to take back. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. And like I said, the word God didn't make it into the Constitution. The word science did. In Section eight Article one, UH promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

Um And you know, America may have been founded on Christian principles, but this is important. Very early on, you know, I think what was it like a hundred and fifty years after the Puritan colony of Plymouth was was founded. The Christian experiment in government in America was over, and they said, no, we're going to found the federal government. And Thomas Jefferson said, we're going to separate church and

state because we're going down a bad road. Yeah. Even if you know, George Washington meant what he said about being in the hand of God, and he was a Christian and a lot of the other founding fathers were Christians, and um, they had Christian beliefs. But when it came time to found the United States of a America, it's not like they hadn't considered like there, they hadn't even

crossed their mind to to found a Christian nation. There have been Christian governments in North America already, and they said, no, we're going to abandon that and go a different direction. So literally, America was purposefully not founded as a Christian nation. It could have been, had every opportunity to be, and it wasn't. And the point is, I mean, Chuck, we could make an entire spinoff podcast just going tip for

tat on on contexts and liberalism with fundamentalism. But the point is society's evolved, so it doesn't matter what was going on four years ago. Like, yes, they did a really good job writing in the constitution, founding some some are creating some really great guiding documents. But society has evolved since then. It's become much more diverse, much more culturally rich, and we've just changed, most people say for

the better. And there's a lot wrong with it. It was modern sty There's a lot right that if you had the choice, you would not want to go back to sixteen o six and live um compared to today. Yeah, and modernism is really basically what sociologists think is why fundamentalism still exists as as a response to modernization. And you know, modernization has it's ups and its downs over the years. It's has been perfect. Pre modernization, though there was people were a lot more the same, uh they

you know, we've talked about this before. You know, pre urban uh sort of factory work settings, people lived on farms, they lived on on the land and worked the land, and they lived in the fields, and they were a lot more alike and there were a lot more like sort of the same group of people. And industrialization came along and it fragmented society and entirely different people started to become people like, it changed the way people were. It didn't just change how they went to work in

where they live. All that inherently changed what people could be like. And uh, social values changed and that's a part of modernization. And you know, for better or for worse, we it is is fragmented us and there's been a lot of negative aspects to it, but it's also come along with protection of civil rights and racial and gender equality and uh, you know the World Wide Web, which is you know, we can all agree with the best

thing ever, right, it's flawless, no downside. But but yeah, I mean it would be ridiculous to say that modern society is just you know, perfect or even generally better in every single way. Now, there's plenty of stuff that's wrong with it, like um, the emphasis on industry and profits and and um can can be really isolating and make people feel like there's they're they're just basically a cog in a machine. That's a big problem. But yes, there are there are plenty of solutions and plenty of

things that have gotten better too. And one of the things about modern society is that we have brought more and more different people together who have more and more different ideas and experiences, and it's become clear that no one group is right or has all the answers, or is the guardians of the truth. It's just been shown not to be correct. And um, these a pair of sociologists kind of put it, uh, Michael O. Emerson and

David Hartman. They said, when when you have when you bring together people of differing views and values, what rise to the top has shared values are tolerance and acceptance, and that these become the core values of highly modernized societies. And that is great for most of us. But if you're a fundamentalist, that is the opposite of great. That is the opposite direction that you're supposed to be going. Because not everybody's right. We're the only ones that are right.

All of you are wrong, and you're wrong in a really terrible way that we have to change, so we

have to take over society. Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the big threats to fundamentalist and why they've think dug in more and more over the years is it's science is coming along to demystify a lot of the things since the dawn of time that we're you know, took took tried to explain you know, the seasons and rain and thunder and death, and you know, in various ways, and people since then have been trying to explain that stuff. Then science progresses and comes along and says, oh, wait

a minute. You know, we can explain natural selection. Now we can explain gravity, we can explain electro magnetism, and you know, we know why the apple falls from the tree. It doesn't have to be some magical thing or some

religious allegory. And so what that does is that pushes religion out a little bit because fewer people needed it to explain things, which can be a big part of religion, and all of a sudden, religion wasn't like the overriding fabric of society, but it was just a part of society. And that that's a big threat a fundamentalist. Yeah, because a lot of people just say, okay, well science makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not gonna abandon

my religious beliefs. I still believe in God and Jesus or Mohammed or buddha Um I like I'm going, like you said earlier, I find those things compatible, not combatible. But there's a group of people who are just find this unbearable. Modern society is just unbearable. It doesn't make sense. I don't know the people who live around me. Um, I'm not valued like I used to be or like my great great grandfather was. Um, my wife is working out of the house. What's up with that kind of thing?

And um, Rather than their their beliefs loosening and progressing, they actually become more inflexible, more rigid as as society continues to progress and their beliefs are left behind because they feel left behind, so they actually come to rail against society and that these are the will who become fundamentalists. So part of it is feeling left out, left behind or um opposed by society in general. That's part of it.

But then also part of it is that attraction of um, you know, somebody having all the answers in a really frankly confusing period of history, which is what we're in right now. Yeah, And you know when people get together and isolate themselves from others and say we're the only ones that are right, and hey, we need to get involved in politics and get a candidate that things like us out there, you kind of get where we are today, which is like you said, it's a pretty Oh what's

the word scary is too easy? Uncertain? Yeah, I mean it is uncertain. Like things are changing so fast right now, it's totally understandable why fundamentalist movements would be swelling. It's scary as as heck. Right now, I feel like the world is way more nuts than it was maybe thirty years ago. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. It seems like it to me, and I think it's because of

this incredibly rapid social change. For me, society is generally going in the direction that I agree with, so I'm not threatened by it, even though I'm still just overwhelmed by how fast things are changing, and then also by how much tension there is from opposing sides to that change. Um, it's a really unsettling and unsettled time, I think. So I can totally understand why fundamentalism would be so attractive

to so many people right now. Um. But again, one of the tenets of fundamentalism, Chuck, is if you can't take over the ship, sink it. That's that's basically the second way fundamentalism in a nutshell. So they can't be ignored. Society can't just ignore it. We have to figure out what to do about fundamentalist impulses. And there's some good ideas, some not good ideas. Uh, and so that maybe worth

trying and not worth trying. But we're still kind of in the very beginning stages of figuring out how to reconcile modernized society with fundamentalist impulses. Got any ideas well? I saw one pair of sociologists who wrote a book

suggested that everybody should just read more fiction. Okay, I couldn't believe that that was they meant that literally, because they um they say that if you read more fiction, it can kind of transport you into other people's experiences and points of view and will foster tolerance, which again, intolerance is the hallmark of of fundamentalism. I'll throw one out there. I just thought of off the dome, travel someplace that you may not ordinarily travel, it's a big one.

Or travel someplace period. Yeah, if you can. I know it's a financial burden for some and now everyone can just like jet off to Paris to see how the Parisians live. No, but it turns out you are allowed

to leave ohio, Oh no, I that's true. Another thing that they say can help is to be more tolerant yourself and to be friendly and to approach a fundamentalist with friendship, because one kind of criticism you'll hear from fundamentalists is sort of thrown it right back in the face of a non fundamentalist and say, you're in just as intolerant of my beliefs as I am of yours. I think a counter to that would be to say, well, know what we're intolerant of is your extreme intolerance, which

is a big distinction. Yeah, and that's like you're you're intolerant of my racism. It's like that's not a great argument. Yeah, but that's like one of those things that it's like, Okay, well, yeah, you can't just be tolerant of everything, Like there is a line, and like, you know, racism is a really good example of that. It's a really great line that society shouldn't just be tolerant of that. But you know, how can you figure out how to apply tolerance to

the people who feel that way? Like, can can you be tolerant on an individual level as as their neighbor or their coworker or the fellow grocery store shopper, to where you can display some form of tolerance with them without supporting or or allowing their their you know, tolerance for their beliefs, of their racist beliefs. You know, it's it's I think the reason why we are not a fundamentalist podcast, Chuck, is because we're not saying this is

the answer, this is this is what you do. There aren't any answers right now, but there's a lot of different ideas floating around that could work or might not. I think of music can be united. I think sports fandom can be a uniter. Uh. I mean, you'll never see a more tolerant, harmonious place than like at a Falcons game in the South and the Deep South, you know, black and white people like urban versus some of the

most rural, red, nicky type folks. You could imagine like arm in arm for the same cause and it's a dumb football game. But like, there are small lessons to be found. I think in those situations. Oh yeah, for sure. I remember um reading a study years back that people who were super racist who lived in towns where Um like Hispanic I can never remember Latin Latin X people

had come to live. There was like a large population of Latin X people to where they lived among them, where they might still support like immigration policies um or anti immigration policies, but they would be like, but not my town. Like they had developed tolerance without even realizing it, and their their overall beliefs hadn't caught up yet. So maybe they were still voting one way, but as far as that person that they knew down the street, they

were not about to let that person get deported. Not my town kind of thing. And yeah, so I think whether it's a Falcons game or a like a musical rock concert um, bringing people of you know, disparate backgrounds together does foster tolerance, I think too. And you know it may not. I'm not saying that. Uh, these people of the Falcons game walk out of there forging lifelong friendships and they're like, you know what, why don't we

get together tomorrow for lunch? But you know, there are there are small experiences that maybe can add up to something at some point in life. I don't know. I'm like, I feel desperate for people to get along better. Yeah, for sure. And there are people out there who are saying, like, what are you talking about? No, we should not even be we should be isolating people with racist beliefs. Um. No, it's not enough to just have somebody like have fun

at the Falcons game. Like, we're way beyond that point. And I mean I get that argument too, Like I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but I can get how people are like, No, we're at like five alarmed stage. We need to figure out huge radical responses of fundamentalism right now because they're knocking at the door of our the highest levels of government. And if they are an infection on society, we've got huge problems because they are growing and gaining strength. So I totally get both. Both

arguments are both ways. Yeah, one other thing I think, Yeah, one more thing. Um, So, religion has a place in modernized society. It helps people from feeling totally crazy. Um, if you need a sense of community, go join a religious group that's like a built in, ready made community for you. Who's going to accept you into it? Moderate

and progressive, I should say, um groups. Um, But there's the religion doesn't have to be the only institution in society that addresses things like angst and unease and um, you know a need for reassurance, Like what if society, what if? What if? Science? What if? Um a culture in general just kind of undertook the project of finding meaning in this crazy modern world and like helping reassure people. Like that's what people join fundamentalist movements for is reassurance. Ultimately,

that is the basis of joining a fundamentalist movement. They want to feel reassured that everything is going to be okay. And if you can find equally reassuring alternatives to fundamentalism, I would guess that fundamentalism. I don't think it would ever fully go away. There's always going to be fundamentalists, but they would be so increasingly small an insular that you could conceivably just generally let them do their own thing and tolerate them. Maybe. So Okay, that's it, he said,

with a resigned sigh. Uh. Well, I'm just gonna ask just to button it up. You've got anything else. I got nothing else. I don't either, Chuck. If you want to know more about fundamentalism, start researching it. There's a lot out there that will probably open your eyes. And since I said open your is, it's time for a

listener mail. Uh, this is about basectomies. And by the way, we heard from a few dudes that are that already have said, and this is day one of getting emails in real time, that hey, vasectomies aren't quite as painless as y'all made it out to be by the way, I guess it can vary obviously from person to person, but we've had quite a few guys that were like it heard bad for a couple of days, and I was very uncomfortable for a couple of weeks. Poor guys.

So I just wanted to say that, hey, guys, listen to the basectomy episode. I have to say you're doing a great service by disseminating this information. I'm a twenty six year old who's been with my wife for almost nine years. We've talked, oh well I got married young, Good for you. We've talked about not wanting children for years, but made the jump to getting mesectomy in July. For me, it was relatively painless, but for the rest of that day it did feel like someone had landed a low

below punch. Uh. The next day I had little pain with use of ice packs. Uh, it was fine, and by day three I was back to exercising. After a couple of months, I feel psychologically and sexually liberated. Our friends stated their concerns on how we would move on if regret crept in. Since we made this decision about not wanting children, um, having biological children is not a concern, and if we ever regret it, because life is never definite, we can look at adopting highly about all the answers,

he should start a fundamentalist group, got all answers. You guys mentioned that should be called a asodomy because there isn't anything removed. But with my procedure and for others I've seen on YouTube, they remove about one centimeter of the vase completely and send it to a tissue sampling, so technically ectomy still works in this case. Thank you for the years of knowledge and entertainment. YouTube. Put special comfort in the podcast realm wishing you Unburdened ejaculations that

is from Ryan. Very nice, Ryan, thank you and for everyone here in the United States. About one centimeter of best differences point three nine three seven zero zero seven. Well done. Uh. If you want to be like Ryan and share your viewpoints and have us be like wow, this guy really knows what he's talking about, you can send us an email too, and guy of course, is as always gender neutral, because we're in a modern society

and we love that fact. Anyway, you can send us that email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.