As a born-in JW, I never considered myself to be a fundamentalist. I always thought we were enlightened, progressive and not 'stuck in darkness' like all the other religions.
I was totally wrong.
As far as fundamentalists go, JW's are probably right up there amongst the front-runners. No, they do not stone people to death or go on religion-fuelled violent rampages but that's not what I'm talking about.
A fundamentalist believes the book they consider sacred as fact, in its entirety. As we know, JW's believe the bible to be infallible. They believe everything that is written in it actually happened and look to the bible (combined with their own interpretation) as the final word in any argument, be it scientific, moral, prophetic, whatever.
Why is this so dangerous?
It negates logic and reason. A fundamentalist is by definition an unreasonable, dogmatic person. He does not care about peer reviewed scientific discoveries if they disprove what he believes in, he regards them as joke. I have heard JW's mock excellent, caring medical doctors because they advocate using blood when needed in life-saving surgeries. Others may have 'read an article or two' about bloodless surgery and now feel qualified to judge these medical staff that have devoted most of their lives so far learning to save lives. This all comes about because of an unclear scripture in the old testament. This is just one example.
As JW's, everything we do, say and think is governed by someone else, we don't get to think for ourselves. We choose life paths for ourselves and our children based on this information.
All a fundamentalist has to do is believe the bible. That's it, case closed, argument over. If you disagree then you are an apostate. A scientist however does not have that luxury. he cannot just proclaim something to be true and expect everyone else to agree. Anything a researcher does is peer reviewed, challenged, debated in a search for the truth. A scientist must go where the evidence leads them, this is rational and logical.
I haven't been to a meeting in about 10 yrs. As a baptised dub, I really thought I knew a lot about the bible but over the last 10 years I have learned the most interesting stuff and I guess that is the point I am coming to.
Fundamentalists, like JW's, base their whole lives and those of their children on the bible because they assume it to be true but how much do we know about the bible? Here's some fun stuff I really want to share. Some of this has no doubt been covered on this website but some people may not have come across it yet. This is not a comprehensive list but hopefully it will be of interest to anyone who has just started searching for truth.
Jesus was not born of a virgin. Isa 7:14,the scripture that 'foretells' his birth of a virgin has nothing to do with Jesus. The word 'virgin' in Hebrew was mistranslated into greek and originally meant 'the young woman of marriageable age'. It applied to a young woman that was standing in the presence of the King Ahaz when Isaiah spoke the prophecy. She would give birth to a child named Immanuel that will still be young when the threat from the enemy kings had passed.
There is no archaeological evidence for Moses, Abraham, Isaac outside the bible.
There is no evidence outside the bible that there was an exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
There is little to no archaeological or historical evidence for David or Solomon living in the 10th century BCE.
How long is a creative day? I don't know and neither do the governing body, although it didn't stop them from telling us to preach that it was 7000 years to the whole world for decades. This has implications for end times prophecy and its what led to the 1975 debacle.
I wasn't going to mention Noahs flood but needless to say there is absolutely no geological evidence it happened. There is no physical evidence it happened. The ark has never been found. This is a topic that has its own threads on this website.
This is the tip of the iceberg. The point I am trying to make is that as dub, I swallowed all this without thought and because I was a fundamentalist, I looked down on anyone that didn't agree with me.