Smart Fundies- How is it Possible?

[LilMissMetaphor]

"It is not an inherent incompatibility between science and religion that is really at issue but rather the irreconcilable chasm created by arrogantly extremist positions. Overly zealous and combative misrepresentations of religious and scientific principles lie behind the misapplication of both and the resulting harm to humanity. These misrepresentations usually have been brought about not by those who have most furthered scientific and religious endeavors but by those who distort the investigators' and prophets' discoveries to exclusively appropriate the pursuit of truth."

from here: http://bahaisonline.net/index.php?optio ... 1&Itemid=2

[mockingbird]

I'm reading the Authoritarians book now - thanks for the link whoever posted that. I was going to say that I think many people discovered fundy-dom during a period of emotional vulnerability in their lives, but having an "authoritarian" sense of personality also makes sense to me. I'm sure there is no one single reason for why someone ends up fundamentalist.

I will say the smartest person I knew in high school was my very, very conservative Christian male friend - the only reason I wouldn't call him fundy-lite is because he is super into social justice and likes to go on feminist and anti-racist rants on his Facebook and is very politically liberal. His family is definitely fundy-lite in all other aspects; my brother and his brother have actually gotten into arguments about their beliefs. My brother is very much a keep-the-peace person, but hates stupidity/irrationality... he'd love FJ if he enjoyed reading. Anyway, my friend is now doing a grad program about teaching to underserved populations. So in his case I would say he is just a really spiritual person, but I also think he takes a lot of his beliefs to heart in a way most of our fundies don't - like the message to serve the poor.

[sugarloaf]

I read somewhere that more intelligent people are actually the most capable of holding contradictory views, because they're more capable of rationalising them. So smart fundies to me says "a lot of mental gymnastics".

[quiningseven]

There is an theory of knowledge that I think accurately describes the way we process new information called coherence theory. It says that the way we test the "truth" of new information is by testing how well it cohereres with our current body of beliefs. Those that cohere are accepted, those that don't cohere with less core beliefs are sometimes rejected, an those that do not cohere with core beliefs are rejected out of hand. If your core belief is biblical literalism/ patriarchy everything else is adjusted or rejected to correspond with those core beliefs. Asking them to give that up is like asking me to give up my causal materialist view of the universe- which I hold onto fervently despite knowing things like quantum uncertainties exist.