Lots of people bitch about Christian fundamentalists or Muslim fundamentalists, but really, most fundamentalists of all stripes are a pretty lame lot.

The irony of most fundamentalist movements is that they are rarely about the fundamentals, they’re about control over others, and imposing their views and beliefs on non-believers (and this is not limited to religion of course).

Anyhow, this deplorable behavior aside, frequently fundamentalists have some rather strange ideas compared to the mainstream.

For example, take people who object to the teaching of evolution in science classes. The Pope has stated that the teaching of evolution is not damaging to religion. Now, differences between Catholicism and various Protestant sects aside, I’m going to state that the Pope is way more qualified to speak on what is damaging to religion than most other people. What the Pope realizes here is that, regardless of how the present state of the universe came to be (God, aliens, spiritually sterile Big Big+evolution) the 150 year history and refinement of evolutionary science has demonstrated countless times that experientially, this is how the world works. And thus, because God seemingly intended it this way/the Aliens designed it/it just worked out this way we are required to work with in this framework if we really want to advance human understanding, and do things like cure cancer, or AIDS, or the common cold.

Now, I don’t want to pick on just one group of fundamentalists (Christian ones are primarily responsible for the assault on science in the science classroom). Therefore I present excepts from The Ayatollah’s Book Of Etiquette (come to us by way of Bookslut).

Just remember ladies, if your period starts while you’re praying, you have to start over. The Ayatollah says so.