I have on occasion remarked on the tendency of fundamentalists (and cultists) to see ubiquitous "sin and Satan" amongst those who don't follow and/or identify with their system of observance. For example, I might call myself a "Christian" but as far as the fundamentalist is concerned I'm likely to be beyond the pale and as such my motives, whatever I do and say, are suspect and subject to a creeping evil. On more than one occasion I've been taken aback to find what I believe to be quite innocuous talk being interpreted as malign (See my side bar link to my post on Nigel Wright for instance). This behaviour on the part of the fundamentalist is down to a belief in the total depravity of the world outside their sect; this exo-sect world is seen through a distorting weltanschauung which tends to superimpose malign ulterior motives especially if it involves robust opposition to their system of observances.
A recent example of this behaviour has come to light in a post on atheist PZ Myers blog. See here:
In this post Myers refers to a Facebook post by Ken Ham. Apparently Ham is unable to distinguish the difference been "Tax incentives" and "Taxpayer money". He's claiming that atheists are saying that his "Ark Park" project will receive "Taxpayer money" (which according to Ham it won't) when in fact these atheists are saying that it will receive Tax incentives, which is something different. The suspicious fundamentalist mentality of Ken Ham, very liable to detect "sin" even when not present, reads Taxpayer money instead of Tax incentives. This, of course, is seen by Ham as an example of atheist lying, evil and a desire to spread mischief: On finding this "sin" one can almost see the man tearing his clothes like the high priest in Matthew 26:65, so uptight is he about atheist behaviour. It is easy to see why the fundamentalist mind is susceptible to conspiracy theories.
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