Welcome to the Fun!damentalator, a program written to help you, the aspiring fundamentalist, pick and choose which fundamentals you are comfortable with adopting. You can use the Fun!damentalator secure in the knowledge that every fundamental offered here is taken directly from the Bible—specifically, from what Christians call the Old Testament.
To jump right in and begin fundamentalating, click here.
For some background, or to answer questions you might have, keep reading:
The Old Testament is comprised of ancient writings that can be considered the founding documents of the Jewish people. Some Jews believe these ancient writings have special magical powers called "sacred". About two thousand years ago, a Jew named Jesus was executed at the behest of the Jewish ruling class because he was going around telling people that they shouldn't listen to the ruling class when the ruling class told them these ancient writings had magic power. Ignore that primitive religious crap, Jesus told the people. Here's a more advanced religion: Just love one another.
The Jewish religious leaders had him killed—horribly—for saying that, and, thereby, they gave the world Christianity.
Modern Christians claim that Jesus was the "son" of God. And while they worship him as such, they nevertheless inexplicably cart those same Jewish writings back and forth to church every Sunday on their way to and from worshiping a man who was executed for denouncing them.
Those are your run-of-the-mill Christians. Fundamentalist Christians take it a step further. Unlike regular Christians, who tend to view the Old Testament rather like they view the Iliad: as cultural background literature with colorful characters and imaginative tales, fundamentalist Christians believe, like fundamentalist Jews, that every word of the Old Testament was literally written by God using the hand of some human to actually put the pen to paper.
This wouldn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, really, except that quite a large number of people subject a wide range of major life decisions to the "commandments" from God they find in the Old Testament—everything from how to raise children (beat them unsparingly) to whether (for American fundamentalists) the United States should go to war on behalf of Israel.
Some commandments are clear and straightforward:
"Thou shalt not kill." [Exodus 20:13]
Others, not so much:
"Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead." [Deut. 14:1]
Okaaay...
And even where the commandment is straightforward, the real life application of God's Word can be vexing. For example, in Deuteronomy 19:21 we read:
"And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."
Seems clear enough. But what about Lorena Bobbit? What do we do with her. Well, God doesn't say. But He does tell us what to do with Mr. Bobbit:
"He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord." [Deut. 23:1]
He has to leave the church. A member for a member.
While it's important as a fundamentalist to claim to adhere to all God's commandents, there isn't a fundamentalist alive who actually does that. For one thing, if they did, they'd be in jail. For example, in Deuteronomy 13:6-9 it says:
"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people."
Obviously, this is a commandment from God that fundamentalists ignore. In other words, as a fundamentalist, you get to pick and choose which fundamentals you'll adopt, and to help you do that, here is the world's only Fun!damentalator.