it is important that we not view fundamentalism in an improper light; for by 'fundamentalist' in its colloquial usage, we often mean to simply imply an 'extremist,' and by 'extremist,' to take an extreme stance. in this layout, however, things are unfortunately distorted from the inside out. for we still view an extremem as a bilateral product, a position that is necessarily accompanied by a remote and more often than not dialectic converse, an opposite extreme. we view the extreme this way instead of as the nuance of an extremity, a line of growth projected outward from an indeterminable center of an asymmetrical body (indeed, indeterminable precisely due to this asymmetry). that is, not as a choice between the left and right hand, as (more or less mistakenly) posited on nearly all forms of modern globalizing governmental structures, but as the protrusive skeletal framework to one of multiple fingers, or manner of excess, like the penis or the nose, that shows no resemblance even to branching. while we have split the brain in two to further attempt to explain away our everyday behavioral functions and peculiarities via centralizing them in either one or the other half, we have maintained the heart’s basic holism, even allowing its oddly nonbisymmetrical shape and location on the left side of the chest. the circulatory system’s excessive faculty, serving the function of that name. the timelessly depicted rendezvous point for excessive emotion and stir for mobility. it is in fact the heart, not the head, that better portrays the nature of the extreme, to which the negative connotation in ‘extremism’ may be attributed where the results appear violent or undesirable. make no mistake, though, that we are all necessarily extremist at some frequent points in our lives, climatic stages to an unraveling storytelling and process of reasoning.

this more realistic portrayal of extremism is the only way through which to properly view fundamentalism. for in deriving the concept from the term’s ethnological roots, we understand it as an extremist adherence (which may or may not be conservative) to the most base literary fundamentals of a schooling. the Universal Darwinists are cemented to the principles of natural selection, with signs of their extremism appearing in the disregard (if not complete denial of) the other essential functions to evolution – ‘survival of the fittest’ is the world’s Absolute creed. the Sunnies and the Shi’ites now continue to dispel their rage of their political differences through violence and war sponsored by their each absolutely infallible version of Islam – despite that the Islamic doctrinal differences at the base of the politics is so trivial that such hatred and killing could hardly be proclaimed to have religious purposes in mind. and there are of course those Christians, most renownedly labeled fundamentalist Christians, who have perhaps spanned the course of history longer than any other form of fundamentalism (albeit in a wider variety of manifestations). it is also perhaps the most formidable fundamentalism, second to only one other in the world (which i will get to in a minute) but at the same time invariably linked to it. for Christianity, in its fundamentalist form, unlike the structure of Islamic fundamentalism which is foundationally religious and stems into a disparate but inseverable political arena, is political throughout; that is to say that the religion and its contextual political environments have since its propagation been so interwoven that the differences between them have by this day and age become inscrutable. thus why the insistence of a separation between church and state has nevertheless mostly resulted in its failure. thereby, the number one fundamentalist operation, so covert and widespread now that few would not hesitate to call it that, is the adherence to an American-based ultracapitalist model around which all developing conformist countries and globalizing societies revolve, beset from the start with past colonialist influences and reformations to thus be so conducive to this way of (the more subtle and thus perhaps more dangerous) neocolonialism.

if we approach these real world schemas with the left-hand-right-hand gestalt of extremism, we can, however painfully, justify these courses of theory and action as a very far right wing affiliation (the Son sits at the right hand of the Father), just another sort of manifestation within the diverse spectrum of beliefs. as such, it deserves the respect and toleration that all sorts are due, especially amid the ever growing awareness and necessity for international, intercultural cooperation. but that is precisely what throws fundamentalism outside of the categories for belief systems at the pragmatic stage – for Christianity rises among Christians, but fundamentalism is itself blind to the veracity of its host beliefs except as to whether or not the conditions of the host are sustainable – for it is at its rudimentary praxes uncooperative, unnegotiable. fundamentalism is not any kind of belief; it is a function by which a system of beliefs can assume a tyrannical or at least dominant position against other systems. and what is partly so dangerous about this is that it does not retain itself within the order from which it originated but breaches all manner of diplomacy, protruding further and further into eventually raping the substances of other intermingling orders – überChristians are captured by the fabricated rhetoric of politicians raving world progress in the name of the Father and are at once moved to challenge, and respond to being challenged by, the sciences, in converting by forgery the observations of their religious reality into those of a scientific one (i.e. Creationism); Universal Darwinism not only confounds the sciences (for it is not itself a science but an approach to science) by castrating of them their necessary degrees of complexity and permanently vague teleological conclusions (wherever they have any), but also destroys God. it is thus not anything so innocuous as a choice of the right versus the left (which is itself too limiting a model by which fundamentalism can operate), but an uncompromising literalism with solely proselytizing intentions, a forceful insemination by a distorted and relentless intercultural phenomenon.

miss truth

One of Science’s main contentions with religion is in its handling of the truth. For in this day and age, only religion can hold a person’s appreciation for lies, for this is most often how it reveals to us the truth. Indeed, some truths can only be understood through lies, which are not really lies so much as mistruths, imaginary elements that provide the contrast that is sometimes our only means to perceiving an important aspect of the real. As such, both conservative sciences and fundamentalist Religion (what we can call the ‘pseudoreligious’ in the same way that we call methods and institutions sub par of the natural sciences pseudosciences) make the same mistake in assuming that all knowable truths are explicit – with conservative science belaboring the attempt to make what is knowable explicit, and fundamentalist Religion what is explicit knowable. Both miss entire dimensions of reality, dimensions that are real as that they are manifest in the physical and mental and spiritual aspects of human being, and that are missed due to this myopic, monist and even violent assumption concerning the nature of truth. Only the spiritually healthy perhaps can develop an experienced appreciation for mistruths.