LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article from ThudFactor talks about how fundementalism isn't just for religious people:

Many atheists view religion through the prism of fundamentalism, and faced with a religious person with a radically different vision of deity find themselves at a loss. At this point, some atheists themselves become fundamentalist, insisting that the religious person they are talking to is either intentionally misrepresenting their beliefs or does not really qualify as religious.

But fundamentalism is a disease of community, not a hallmark of religion. The fundamentalist impulse—the pursuit of dogmatic purity for the sake of dogmatic purity—can be seen in almost any group, political or religious, vital or trival. Just as there are Christians who seek to prove they are more “Christian” than everyone else, there are atheists, political partisans, and Star Trek aficionados who do the same.

Religious fundamentalism leverages the language of religion and takes advantage of personal religious experience for authoritarian, earthly political gain. Many religious folks (including, arguably, Christ) consider the fundamentalist disease a corruption of and obstruction to genuine religious practice and experience. As such, we find religious fundamentalism particularly awful and far more of a threat to us than secular society or atheists; we are certainly not just moderate versions of fundamentalists.