"But isn't this just endorsing a wholly outmoded and discredited fundamentalism,(Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 244-245).
that condition than which, according to many academics, none lesser can be
conceived? I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to
stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first
look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary
academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like
'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at
least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on
matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch.' When the term is used in this way, no
definition, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a
sumbitch, would you fell obligated first to define the term?) Still, there is a
bit more to the meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use); it
isn't simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have
some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative
theological views. That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist
sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch' simpliciter. It isn't exactly like that term either,
however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its
content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal
theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional
Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the
mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to
denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation that
the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the
phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my
enlightened friends.' The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can
be given by something like 'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are
considerably to the right of mine'"
Sherrif Buford T. Justice would be proud.
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