Where's the Fun in Fundamentalism

A few news stories caught my attention this week and made me wonder about the origin of the word fundamentalist. One involved a religious sect that demanded that women must now cover up their whole body except for one eye. We have seen the women in this most somber of fashion statements, with two eyes peering out, but some fundamentalist thought that these women still looked too alluring and so this decree was issued. Another religious group announced that it had found it's current goddess (aged 4) who will be whisked away from her family to sit in an old monastery with old fundamentalists, until she starts menstruating, at which time she will be sent packing... only any man that tries to woo or marry her will die a certain early death. Two incidences of fundamentalism ( defined as a strict and literal adherence to a set of principles) that involve anything but fun. Then there is the homegrown version of religious fundamentalists that I remember watching on TV, who spoke of hellfire, damnation, sin and evil, and again there was no semblance of fun, but alot of rules on how not to have any. Sadly, they are still around. By ascribing to these fundamental beliefs, people put their faith in a fear factor that not only discourages fun, but condemns those who life is filled with it. Now call me evil, but I think it is fun to be alluring, child-like, and curious about things I don't understand. But I decided to look up the word fundamental to see how such a good root of a word got so distorted. One of the definitions was as follows: "of or relating to or produced by the lowest component of a complex vibration." Hmm, maybe in some misguided way fundamentalists try to strip down the complexities and diversities and all the wonderful things that life is, to something that is easily defined and followed. Add in verbal bullying without logic and you have a simple recipe for being right. But that didn't solve the fun puzzle until I searched the definition for fun from an online etymology source, and found that the original word meant to "cheat, trick or befool." Now I get it... but I still think the name fundamentalist in this day and age is a misnomer. Maybe the word rudimentalist would be a better substitute, as the root word rude includes the following definitions: "discourteous, not properly developed, of a primitive simplicity." I just wonder who is the knucklehead who first coined the phrase fundamentalist? Probably the same one who put the 'fun' in funeral.