***
HWMNBN is fond of saying that he has a grudging respect for fundamentalists, since they do not try to water down their religion to suit modern realities. To wit:
I've always nurtured a grudging respect for fundamentalists, despite my abhorrence of the lifestyle they would inflict on me. This is because, to my mind, they have the courage to stick to their convictions, comapred to the moral backsliding and namby-pamby compromises most modern so-called 'religious' make. All the great religions (except Buddhism, and I say that with only partial qualification) are fundamentally strict, doctrinaire, brutally rigid theocracies. But in my opinion; you either believe all the way, and stand by your convictions... or at least have the courage to say, "Fuck it, this religion is total bullshit." I lose all respect for those who simply waffle because they want it both ways; creature comforts and modern hedonism while still hiding behind the pathetic security blanket of a warped and sullied religious framework, and justifying it with catch-phrases like "It's a living religion" and "Times change". People always want their cake and eat it. Face facts. Religions prohibit sodomy; they oppress women, they impose restrictions on food, economic activity, lifestyle, and general happiness. It's only that mainstream Christians make a lot more excuses because of their growing prosperity and technological opportunity relative to the rest of the world, and hence they appear more 'liberal'.
However, I strongly disagree with this stance.
Firstly, even ignoring the issue of whether strict literalism is really faithful to the meaning of texts, fundies are even more hypocritical than liberals, since they claim they're adhering to literalism, but eschew it for some parts they're not literal. This is seen in cases such as Flat Earthism and resolving internal textual contradictions (which require some fancy footwork, ie Interpretation).
Thus, since they claim they are being faithful to their text, this is even more hypocritical than those who admit that they interpret their text in light of past and present realities. To wit, say liberals have a breakdown of 90% interpretation and 10% literalism, and fundies have theirs as 10% interpretation and 90% literalism. Yet, the latter claim to be faithful to the text. Who is more hyporitical here?
Also, true literalism is impossible. Even if there are no translational issues (eg The Koran being in Arabic), words mean different things today than they did millennia ago (just read the OED to find out how). Context is also really quite important. How do you know if a literalist reading is really truer than a contextual reading, since words never make sense taken out of their context? If our civilization was wiped out and millennia later aliens found a video left behind by us, would they have to assume that this was a definitive representation of our civilization? What if the video ended with "A Walt Disney Production"? In many ways then, literalism is being less true to textual meanings than informed interpretation.
This is one point on which I agree with post-modernists.
