Why Fundamentalist Christians Fear Knowledge and Intellectualism

I've said before that for fundamentalist Christians - and I would extend this to Islamic fundamentalists as well - the most terrifying prospect is having to think for oneself and face the fact that modern scientific knowledge is proving many dearly held beliefs to be false.  A prime example is the human genome project proof that Adam and Eve never existed as historic figures.  From that discovery, the entire Christian story line of the Fall and Christ redemption begins to come crashing to the ground.  For those with what I see as almost a form of mental illness that demands certainty and the ability to "check off the boxes" to confirm one's goodness or assurance of going to "heaven" knowledge and intellectualism threaten the entire artificial  world in which they live.   A piece in Patheos looks at the terror knowledge and intellectualism strikes in fundamentalists.  Here are highlights:

It is much easier to believe you understand who you are and to be stable when your core belief system is stable. For folks like liberals and progressives this is a little more difficult because the walls around our core beliefs are a little less rigid and more willing to flex as new information presents itself. Which means that we, more frequently than fundamentalists, are reshaping our understanding of who we are and how we relate to society, even if in small ways.

This just isn’t true for a fundamentalist Christians. The protective walls around their core beliefs are tall and rigid – and with good reason. We have to keep in mind, these core beliefs are so much more than ideas or ideals, they are identification and identity. Who we understand ourselves to be is formed around them. When you challenge a specific belief you are also, in small part, challenging the person’s understanding of who they are.

For fundamentalist Christians, it is even more complicated than just that. In both direct and subtle ways, they believe their salvation, at least in part, is dependent upon being correct on issues of faith.

Intellectualism invites the constant assessment of the “correctness” of a person’s belief system. That’s dangerous ground for a fundamentalist Christian. When you confront them on a particular belief you are not only confronting them on an idea that they have held to more rigidly for a longer time than most other folks but you are confronting the very core of who they understand themselves to be. For them, it is those core beliefs upon which their salvation hangs in the balance, at least in part. Questioning it doesn’t just question the thought but, for them, it puts into question a lifetime of holding on tightly to that thought.

When you take all of that into consideration, it’s really not surprise that most fundamentalist Christians react negatively to or avoid all together any intellectual questioning of their core belief systems.

It's a sad form of existence in my view, but that's precisely what demagogues in the pulpits and your Muslim imam  - and bitter old Catholic cardinals - seek to maintain.  Religion remains the source of so much misery in the world.  Fundamentalists of all faiths are the true slaves and, in my view, knowingly or unknowingly, the agents of evil.