Understanding "Fundamentalist" Religion

I was reading a post by the Maverick Philosopher and stumbled across a series of statements that I found interesting. Ignoring the various interpretive elements and the truth of both scientific and biblical statements, I focussed on the understanding of "fundamentalist" religion expressed by them. These statements express a misunderstanding of the beliefs of a significant portion of religious believers.

This quote will demonstrate some of what I mean:

Now the Bible story has it that there were these two original human parents, and they came directly into existence by divine agency with God pictured as a Big Man who makes Adam and Eve (Adam out of dust, Eve out of a rib of Adam) in the Big Man's image and likeness.

Now it seems crystal clear to me that this story cannot be taken literally: God is a not a Big Man; image and likeness has nothing to do with physical image and likeness; The human race is not unevolved.

One may wonder whether this kind of literal reading is done and believed by anyone at all, but apart from further comment it could be a statement about how no one reads this text that way to begin with.

Of course, I am not saying that man as spiritual subject can be understood naturalistically. My point is that to read the Bible materialistically is to block out its spiritual message. So perhaps one could say that fundamentalists and their atheist opponents are strange bedfellows in the bed of materialism.

One might be able to say such things if "fundamentalists" of that sort really were a significant portion of the Christian population. More on this later.

But science affirms common descent while fundie religion denies it. Here there is conflict and fundie religion has to give way.

Let's stipulate that if one is a Christian and denies common descent based on one's religious beliefs that one is a fundamentalist. Taking this definition, are the previous quotes really the beliefs of fundamentalists? A simple look would show that this is not true. These fundamentalists do not believe that God is a Big Man, nor do they believe that the Genesis story teaches that we are made in the physical image of God.

Here are some quotes that demonstrate this:

Man in the image of God; what does this mean in practical terms? It cannot refer to bodily, biological form since God is a Spirit and man is earthly. - Creation 4(1):21–29
March 1981

Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken literally. This is not so! Rather, the key to a correct understanding of any part of the Bible is to ascertain the intention of the author of the portion or book under discussion. - Creation 16(1):38–41 December 1993

When God created man in His own image,⁷ He purposed that mankind (both man and woman) would resemble God in certain ways, and share certain of the divine prerogatives. - Creation ex nihilo 16(4):42–45 September 1994

These quotes are just a sample of what can be found on the internet. So at least a significant portion of fundamentalists do not read the Bible literally, do not believe in a Big Man and do not believe that man is made in the physical image of God. On its own, this does not show that fundamentalists are believing rationally but it does show that they do not believe in the way that they are commonly depicted. These fundamentalists would agree with the meaning, but not the wording, of the thoughts in this post on the image of God.

One might think that these comments about a set of statements in the comments of a post are a bit much. I mention them because this characterization of fundamentalists is quite common. If one wishes to argue against fundamentalists actual beliefs or characterize them accurately, then I have no problem. This is not one of those times.