DOUBT IN RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM: EDUCATION BETWEEN AUTHORITY AND RATIONAL AUTONOMY

A fundamentalist religious practice determines daily life, personal beliefs, and interaction with fellow human beings. Children and adolescents who grow up in fundamentalist homes are often collaterally involved in their parents’ religious practice. Therefore, a self-determined decision about potential religious participation is usually anticipated and exchanged for authoritarian patterns of upbringing. When this practice demands blind trust in the universality of the religion and its scriptures, this is mainly reflected in educational practices and how authority determines them. The ability to doubt is fundamental, particularly regarding critical opinion-forming, social participation, and democratic involvement. But how does the possibility of young people learning to doubt situate itself in this field of tension of religious infallibility? To pursue this topic, the influence of multi-layered authority in a religious fundamentalist education on the emergence and handling of doubt is examined and compared to the requirements for developing an autonomous personality. A delegitimation of doubt in pedagogical practice can lead to difficulties in the child's autonomy development. It is, therefore, in the interest of society and institutions to promote the ability to exercise autonomy. This paper attempts to generate a broader and interdisciplinary understanding of the interaction of doubt in religious fundamentalism and the development of rational autonomy.