[CB..]

i feel it comes from the fundamentalist unconcious (?) desire to by pass the need for faith...hence the literal interpretation of the various scriptures..here's a good example...
whilst i was working in a hospital a while back...one of the ward assistants (a fundamentalist Christian) was amazed to the point of confusion by the fact that one of the patients was a Christian..and yet was ill....this completely contradicted the literal interpretation of the Bible...where-as all illness had been taken onto Christ as part of the sacrifice he made etc..ergo no Christian could ever become ill...

i kid you not.....the literal interpretation of scripture ...(again i cannot emphasise enough just how "normal" this type of thinking is in fundamentalist groups..it's bog standard run of the mill fundamentalist doctrine)

now this ward assistant went into a deep crisis regarding this patient even to the point of haranging the patient about his lack of faith...how could he be ill?? ..she is going to spend most of her life in such a state of confusion and cause no end of harm if she does not cotton on..(if you see the relevance of the comparison)

etc

mean-while the patient maintained that his faith was not negated by his illness..far from it ...

the fundamentalist point of view and their literal interpretation of scripture is a "low brow" attempt to avoid the need for faith entirely...faith is complicated...faith is not blind...etc etc well you know the storys same as me..

fundamentalists by their actions seek to deny the need for faith by claiming the literal truth...but because faith is anything BUT literal...and....hence the need and use for/of parable..etc..thus they are unwilling to accept that faith is a struggle...not a light switch ...and that really "does their heads in" lol