Why No Fundamentalism?
Question
I'm an agnostic atheist with an intellectual interest in religions - I'm studying judaism now as opposed to christianity, and I am confused as to the sociological/scriptural basis for the relative absense of jewish fundamentalism (belief that scriptures should be followed literally and absolutely is the meaning I'm using). Many people eat kosher foods and so forth, but nobody executes homosexuals etc as parts of the OT demand, and I was wondering how that happened. It's my theory that fundamentalist judaism wasn't in power ie "enforced" by some authority for long enough that secular values such as life, liberty, persuit of happiness etc could develop - but I'm not sure how that happened or how it's permissable to follow any kind of social concensus within the scriptures. Anyway, I was just wondering what your take on this would be, and if you can give me an answer scripturally as to how fundamentalism isn't followed anymore, or how that's permisable. Thanks very much, M