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This is probably the best way of arguing it I've ever heard. So often, when Christian fundamentalists apologists come to defend the wacky views, the argument is usually 'well, they aren't cutting heads off,' which is a pointless argument really. Even if we take your excellent point, that odds are, if the Christian fundamentalists could get away with it, many of them would, but the fact that the argument for fundamentalists Christianity requires the existence of something 'worse' in order to be justified.
It's like comparing rape and murder. Most people would more or less agree that murder is worse than rape, but that doesn't mean rape is somehow ok. Most reasonable people wouldn't want either of these to happen to anyone because they're awful. One may be worse, in that murder is absolutely finite, but that doesn't make the lesser evil acceptable.
I agree with most of what you say here ... but I don't think "most" fundamentalists would commit murder or acts of violence.
What I think would happen is that there would be a small subset of fundamentalists who would delight in torturing and killing anyone who strayed too far away from God's flock -- including atheists.
What MOST fundamentalists would do, however, is stand back and allow that small subset to do all of the dirty work while in their own minds they would be cheering on the murderers. They will have convinced themselves that the gays, the atheists, the intellectuals, the liberals, the Muslims, the poor, and everyone else that the fundies were taught to hate somehow deserved what they received.
I agree with most of what you say here ... but I don't think "most" fundamentalists would commit murder or acts of violence.
What I think would happen is that there would be a small subset of fundamentalists who would delight in torturing and killing anyone who strayed too far away from God's flock -- including atheists.
What MOST fundamentalists would do, however, is stand back and allow that small subset to do all of the dirty work while in their own minds they would be cheering on the murderers. They will have convinced themselves that the gays, the atheists, the intellectuals, the liberals, the Muslims, the poor, and everyone else that the fundies were taught to hate somehow deserved what they received.
In many ways, doing nothing is the same thing.
Don't take that too literally. I wouldn't say they're equally guilty for cheering on the killers, but ethically, I see no difference.
I agree with most of what you say here ... but I don't think "most" fundamentalists would commit murder or acts of violence.
What I think would happen is that there would be a small subset of fundamentalists who would delight in torturing and killing anyone who strayed too far away from God's flock -- including atheists.
What MOST fundamentalists would do, however, is stand back and allow that small subset to do all of the dirty work while in their own minds they would be cheering on the murderers. They will have convinced themselves that the gays, the atheists, the intellectuals, the liberals, the Muslims, the poor, and everyone else that the fundies were taught to hate somehow deserved what they received.
Which I think is very similar to what Islamic fundamentalism is like right now. On one end of the spectrum you have a relatively small group of muslim fanatics running around sawing people's heads off, on the other end a majority who disapprove of that sort of behavior, and in the middle you have a minority that's probably just large enough to make it possible for the lunatic fringe to get away with it.
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