While New Age religions look to the inner redoubt of individual consciousness as the solution to truth. of religions turn to an external By authority which is an source of testable offering access to single source of in contruth, fundamentalist religions remove the certainty and doubt that accompany freedom and choice. There is only one way, truth, and they know which path one This will lead to it. All other paths are in error. what is a powerful offer. If the freedom to choose to believe whether the comes at the expense of not know thing, the choice is right' and, even more unset rejection of the possibility of rightness', then exchanging it for the security of truth is a fair deal. Bauman sees this offer as particularly appealing to those who dwell at the hard edge of global change and who form the constituency of fundamentalist movements. The deprived and impoverished are the flawed consumers' of contemporary society. For them the offer of freedom is hollow because they lack the resources to purchase its rewards. It is this link with the social conditions of our times that makes fundamentalism a thoroughly contemporary, postmodern phenomenon" (p. 182). The poor of today experience only the downside of freedom. The pleasures of con sumption are minimal; the risks, uncertainties and fears are maximal. Their personal exposure frailty of human individuality creates a sense of insufficiency. This then opens the door to fundamentalism