I have a thesis that fundamentalists of every religion represent a type of human being that is generally akin to a zombie.

Most human behavior fits on a spectrum; genetics or upbringing or a combination of both seves to put people on these spectrums. Take having a temper, for example. People show a wide variation in their tempers, with some able to get extremely angry and others remaining exceptionally calm in difficult moments.

There's also a spectrum on ability to have a free mind that is open to ideas and that is comfortable with intellectual ambiguity. Religious fundamentalists are to the far side of that spectrum, perennially fixed in their notions of "God" and "Christ" and the "Bible".

In this sense, they are truly zombies on earth, barely registering the real joys and puzzles and strangeness of life and the universe. When challenged to think, these zombies fall back on their ever-fixed concepts.

It's so obvious that the Christian zombies would be Muslim zombies had they been born in a different country. Or Jewish zombies.

I do know that nothing will penetrate their dead minds, so discussion and rational aruments do not work. It's not even worth trying.

But once you understand the zombie concept, you can see where these people are coming from, you can see the blankness that has taken them over.

Individually they are to be pitied, but collectively they are to be feared, because their beliefs bring no joy or compassion to the world, only superstition, division, war and death.