Fundmentalism and Progress?

There are many reasons why Prop 8 passed and there are just as many reasons why stem research doesn’t have the full support it needs. However, perhaps the biggest culprit in both cases has been religion. To be clear, I don’t mean all religions or all degrees of religion are at fault, but I am focusing more specifically fundamentalist religions. Regardless if it is Christian fundamentalism or Islam fundamentalism, there is something about fundamentalism in general, a common thread between all fundamentalist religions that prevents progress in many aspects of society. In terms of gay marriage, I define progress as voting for marriage equality for all and for stem cell research I define progress as the government providing the necessary financial support for research. Fundamentalism is most often characterized by its strict accordance to religious principles and scripture. For fundamentalist religions, its text or scripture, may it be the Bible, Torah or Koran, is considered to them as the word of God, thus must be followed, obeyed and not altered. While ancient text may have been more applicable hundreds or thousands of years ago, today there are a lot of conflicts and contradictions modern life presents in comparison with ancient text. However despite these discrepancies, most often fundamentalists don’t change their views to adapt to modern life, which in the end proves to be detrimental to society because it prohibits change for the better.