After two decades studying the Bible I have gone back and forth from appreciating the Bible as a source of wisdom and progressive politics and good ethics, to criticizing the Bible's contents as many atheists do. I have moved back and forth from having an attitude to the Bible similar to Marcus Borg to one similar to Dan Barker. I would read progressive Christians and academic scholars at the University Library near by, and learn about the Bible through the sciences and then I would shop for a church and found that most of the churches in my conservative hometown rejected a scientific approach to the Bible. They did not care about history or archaeology and linguistic studies, or original languages, etc. Just as Mormons read the Bible through the lens of Joseph Smith, they read the Bible through the lens of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Darby and Moody. Many self-proclaimed Christians I talked to around my town were Fundamentalists and all I was doing is engaging in interpretation wars. I'd quote Bible scholars and they'd quote they'd parrot their pastor or their favorite Christian apologist (just like Mormons do). I'd offer an academic exegesis of the text from real scholars at Harvard for example, and they'd just read the varnished version of their translation of the New Testament, that was translated to fit Augustinian dogma. I'd point out how science shows such an event did not happen and maybe was never meant to be taken literally but is just a metaphor, and they'd appeal to faith and accuse me of being an impostor.
So after reading dozens of progressive Christian books and lectures by scholarship driven theologians, I just kept running into Fundamentalist Christians engaged in crazy making. And the more I used the Bible to try and get them to move toward a more rational point of view of the texts, the more I seemed to substantiate the source of their crazy making. I realized that these people were not honest and acting in good faith, but were egocentric manipulators, who care more about feeling right then using science to reveal reality.
I began to see that you have to start with the New Testament as a first century library of documents if you are going to get anywhere. The person has to be willing to take off their "dogma goggles" and look at the texts through science and reason. Failure to do so makes them hypocrites, as they demand that Mormons examine the Book of Mormon through a scholarly scientific lens, so to be honest and consistent they would do the same thing with the Bible.
I once had a conversation with a Fundamentalist at a coffee shop, he was wearing a leather jacket with Christian symbols. Turns out he had joined a motorcycle church. When I asked him about his beliefs out of curiosity, he went into full cult mode. My attempt to have dialogue turned in to him going to town preaching at me, which so often happens when one takes the Bible literally and imbibe a dogma. He had the same glassy eyed look of so many other Evangelical Fundamentalists have. I saw that same crazed look from a guy at a street fair selling Fundamentalist dogma. I found it impossible to talk with him person to person, as he was set on feeling right, boosting his ego, and preaching at me rather than having a conversation.
What troubled me most about the guy was that he seemed to be "taken over" by the Voices of the church leaders he belonged to; he was just parroting the cult dogma of his motorcycle church with complete zealotry. It was deeply troubling seeing him literally transformed before my eyes, from a normal sounding person, in my view, to a zealous fanatic talking about the special anointing, etc. Nothing he was saying was not standard Protestant/Evangelical/Fundamentalist dogma, but the level of unthinking and mindless parroting with which he spoke, felt like I was watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The leaders of his church had done a number on him and his crazed fanaticism disturbed me.
The Fundamentalist Trap is a metaphor for describing how Fundamentalism is meant to lure a person in and then trap their mind. The Fundamentalist trap is like a mouse trap. The cheese is the good stuff but like a mouse one does not see the big picture; which is that the cheese is attached to a trip wire. The Bible-Fundamentalist starts out seeking the cheese of comfort and certainty and doesn't realize the trip wire is there until its too late; as suddenly, SNAP!, they've been hypnotized and indoctrinated by Augustine and Calvin, Darby and Moody, and have lost their sense of self. They become vectors of the Bully Pulpiteers.