Being veterans of the struggle to push back against fundamentalist Christians, American liberals are well acquainted with the pitfalls of the neoconservative flirtation with the religious-right.
I get along so much better with fundamentalist Christians than I do with wishy-washy liberals, who want everyone to get along.
I am much more open to plural marriage than I was before, and I now support it in certain situations. I do believe it is right for some people. But our example in America today is gross abuse - I can't support it in fundamentalist compounds.
Fundamentalism is such a pejorative word and immediately evokes images of angry extremism. In my experience, that's not usually what it looks like. I was a fundamentalist in high school.
A lot of people, to attack an outspoken atheist, one of the things they'll do is say, 'You are as bad as the fundamentalist Christians.' And my answer is always, 'I hope so.'
I am called an Islamic fundamentalist by Rushdie. My critics in Pakistan say I am a Zionist agent. I must be doing something right.
I remember going to a funeral at a very fundamentalist church, and I just had to get out of there. I went out in the parking lot and just sobbed. I think there was a sense of loss of that little boy not knowing if he was right or wrong. Everything I grew up with I had to walk away from.
I grew up in a very fundamentalist, evangelical Christian household. Both my parents were born-again - their faith infused every aspect of my childhood. I'll probably spend most of my life working through that.
The fundamentalist religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones.
I went to a fundamentalist Christian high school and went to a fundamentalist church, and they were the greatest people; there was an amazing sense of community. The problem is when the messiness of real life enters, and the inflexibility of a moral code cannot cope with the realities of moral relativism.
Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong.
In the late 1980s, a new revolt broke out, this time led by the fundamentalist FIS (Islamic Salvation Front). Many of its leaders were the kind of young Algerians who joined the struggle against the French occupiers in the 1950s.
