Why do people confuse fundamentalist with terrorists?

Question

Fundamentalist is "A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism."
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/fundamentalism

Terrorism is "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/terrorism

Answer 1

The confusion results form the last parts of your citations:

"..by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism."

"..use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

One is the motive of the other. That is how they become linked. Christian fundamentalists have terrorized and murdered doctors because of their beliefs. Islamic fundamentalists have terrorized and murdered people because of their beliefs. No wonder this creates confusion.

Answer 2

Copying and pasting from your own Question here, pardon me:

"...by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism."

THAT is the problem. In a nutshell. Rigidity, meaning your "declared faith" has you hoodwinked into NOT thinking for yourselves by and large.

Intolerance, meaning you see nothing wrong with condemning people to death and sending them to YOUR vision of Hell, just for the "gawdawful sin" of not being Just Like You.

And Opposition, not just to anything "secular" or non-theocratic, but also opposition to anything based on reason or support of human civilization unless it sucks up and takes second place to your mis-quotings and prattlings that are at best only *loosely* based on Quotes Out of Context from your Good Book of the Week.

Meaning? People are finally getting a clue, that what Fundies and Zealots *do*, by and large, is not about getting *souls* right for Eternity, and *is in fact* about exercising unearned social power and control over "unbelievers" you'd just as soon KILL if you had the chance to.

We're getting the clue here that you guys are about Violence and Coercion and about anything BUT the *freely chosen* decision to find God and follow.

Granted, I knew it all along, but some folks aren't as *in* the habit of using their heads as I am and it takes a while (and some tragic loss of life) for people to catch up. :) But still....

Fundamentalism is *implicitly* violent and *implicitly* anti-humanity, to the degree that it denies the role of human *reason* and the role of *civilization* in human life. You'd rather see us living like herd animals walking on *all fours* than anything human with the mind and free will to *reject* your dribblings.

Get it now? Bite me. Take your apocalyptic nonsense and shove it. :) Really.

Answer 3

because terrorists started out as fundamentalists.
Some (a lot of) christian fundamentalists have been known to kill here they like to pick on gays and abortion clinics elsewhere they kill anyone that doesn't believe what they believe.
salem witch trials, the crusades, Pat Robertson telling America to "off" the prime minister of Venesuela (sp).
Sounds pretty terroristic to me...