The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth

Library Journal

Many books have appeared recently on religious fundamentalism, with most of them focusing on Islam. Schimmel (Jewish education & psychology, Hebrew Coll.) here deals with fundamentalism as found in all three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The author was raised as an Orthodox Jew and later came to reject its rigid and dogmatic components, finding them to be unreasonable. As a psychologist, he turns his attention to those who continue to affirm religious fundamentalism, even as abundant evidence indicates many of its tenets are incorrect. Schimmel devotes a chapter to fundamentalism as expressed in each of the three religions, and he then addresses the reasons why adherents seem to hold to their views so strenuously, even as reason and evidence would seem to invalidate them. He considers fear to be the core basis for their resistance to letting go of their beliefs. This is a well-researched and thoughtfully presented book; however, it would have been better if the author had included some studies and surveys from the social sciences and psychology of religion that addressed attitudes and perceptions of religious fundamentalists.
—John Jaeger