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Is believing abortion is murder a "fundamentalist" view?
I personally don't take a stance on abortion, but calling it murder seems like a defensible view. I don't know a lot about this topic, but I do know that moderates can hold this view as well. I think it's the "fire and brimstone" part that is fundamentalism.
In any case; I was never a fundamentalist when I was a Christian. My brother is a fundamentalist and he'll occasionally say things that really baffle me. On one hand Christians claim to be the bearers of the one true objective morality; on the other hand God is justified in murdering all the Egyptian's firstborns because the Pharaoh was being "immoral". Is this really the God we want to get our morality from?
I definitely understand this. Even after I became atheist, I still held Christian sort of views for a while until I really analyzed why I thought some things were 'wrong'.
It is a REQUIREMENT--one can NEVER be SAVED if one accepts a woman's health care choice as being OK.
It is a REQUIREMENT--one can NEVER be SAVED if one accepts a woman's health care choice as being OK.
My point was that it seems out of place as something you regret from your "fundamentalist" days as it's just as easily a moderate view as a fundamentalist view.
1. I used to actually listen to Bob Larson (BARF!)
2. I sucked up Mike Warnke's story (which turned out to be a lie)
3. There was a brief moment in my life when charlatans like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland were heroes
4. I believed the bible was the PERFECT word of a perfect god
5. I used to mumbled some nonsense and claimed I was speaking in tongues. I an still do it today with ease.
6. I wasted a good chunk of my life sitting in a pew on Sunday thinking I was actually doing something productive.
7. I believed there was some deity out there interested the most mundane items in my life
8. I believed there was a boogeyman known as Satan out to get me
9. I believed the Jews were God's special flowers.
10. I believed the Soviet Union was going to invade Israel and usher in Armageddon.
11. I wasted thousand of dollars buying Christian material (concordances, bible dictionaries, lexicons, chain reference bibles, Christian books by Christian authors and Christian apologetic books)
12. I used to pray, an exercise in futility.
13. I believed Christians were being persecuted
14. I thought heavy metal rock music was all about Satan worship and that backmasking was evidence. LOL
On the bright side, I never used to tithed so I don't feel too bad about giving thousands to anyone's church over that time period in my life.
So Christian bashing is now a productive use of your time?
I not only listened to, but BOUGHT James Dobson books!!
Yeah, I used to listen that guy with his "Focus on the Family" show. Is he still alive?
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I would have on my schedule the times for listing to John MacArthur on the radio during the day.
Tony Evans for me too.
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In fact, I ONLY listened to christian mind washing radio 24/7.
I was pretty much like this too. Moody and Christian radio in SOuth Florida.
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I sent money to Jews for Jesus...
I attended their services. Was weird being the only black guy there.
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Once, while at the mega church I was participating in, there were a series of christian concerts--One concert was PETRA--prior to the concert starting, the sanctuary was filled with 20-somethings--the senior pastor came on stage to remind us that that we had to be mindful of others so as not to make them feel uncomfortable--It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. ROMANS 14:21
So there will be NO DANCING, FLAILING OF ARMS or HALLELUJAHS lest we cause one of our visitors to "stumble."
Three of us promptly proceeded to do all three as soon as Petra came out--then the Nazi enforcers came for us..
Before I left my super fundy church, I used to visit a more sublime church in the evenings where women could wear pants, jewelry and the likes. My church used to send spies to keep and eye on me and to see what I was over there listening to.
I was never a fundamentalist, but as a good little Catholic boy I recall being somewhat obnoxious in my faith. First there was the "Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus" part of the mass where you are supposed to strike your breast three times, once each time the priest said "sanctus." I would pound away with fervor, all the while eyeballing those around me to see if anyone was doing it half heartedly, which most were. I counted myself in superior grace to these pansies.
In 8th grade I very much wanted to win the Archbishop's Medal for best altar boy in the diocese. To that end I volunteered to serve at the masses they always had trouble finding altar boys for, the 6 am daily mass, and the 7 am Sunday mass. I would go for months rising early to cover these unwanted events where I would be performing in front of tiny crowds. All the altar boys wanted to serve at weekday funerals because that got you out of school for several hours. No one wanted to serve at weekend funerals, so I took all of those.
And damn if I didn't win. Got the medal presented by the archbishop in a special ceremony. It was about a year later that I began my departure from the whole god program and eventually felt like a prize horse's ass for all the effort I had put into winning that stupid chunk of tin.
3. There was a brief moment in my life when charlatans like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland were heroes
Curious..when Copeland was your hero, did you fail to notice that the man never completed a thought, never reached a conclusion, that his sermons wandered all over the galaxy without Copeland ever coming to the point of whatever it was he was rambling on about?
Copeland held a certain fascination for me in the '80's because I could never understand what the audience could possibly be getting out of his scattergun presentations. Even if you were deeply religious, it seemed to me that eventually you would notice that Copeland never actually said anything.
1. I used to actually listen to Bob Larson (BARF!)
Same here, but in my own defense, I must say that he was not as bonkers in the 1970s and early 80s as he is now.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
2. I sucked up Mike Warnke's story (which turned out to be a lie)
Ditto
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
3. There was a brief moment in my life when charlatans like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland were heroes
You're on your own with that one.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
4. I believed the bible was the PERFECT word of a perfect god
Yep
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
5. I used to mumbled some nonsense and claimed I was speaking in tongues. I an still do it today with ease.
Managed to evade the charismatic movement. My late wife however was briefly in the orbit of the shepherding movement before I met her.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
6. I wasted a good chunk of my life sitting in a pew on Sunday thinking I was actually doing something productive.
Ditto
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
7. I believed there was some deity out there interested the most mundane items in my life
Ditto at first but increasingly realized there was zero actual intervention.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
8. I believed there was a boogeyman known as Satan out to get me
At a low level -- again, because I wasn't raised in the charismatic movement. I always thought that many charismatics were far too impressed with Satan and feared him more than god, honestly.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
9. I believed the Jews were God's special flowers.
Yep
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
10. I believed the Soviet Union was going to invade Israel and usher in Armageddon.
That WAS the standard line.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
11. I wasted thousand of dollars buying Christian material (concordances, bible dictionaries, lexicons, chain reference bibles, Christian books by Christian authors and Christian apologetic books)
I was going to say no, but then remembered my year at Bible Institute. Probably about $2500 in tuition and housing plus books, so yeah.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
12. I used to pray, an exercise in futility.
Yep
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
13. I believed Christians were being persecuted
Never personally felt that way but swam with those who did.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
14. I thought heavy metal rock music was all about Satan worship and that backmasking was evidence. LOL
Didn't really care for rock of any kind so didn't really pay much personal attention to these arguments. Didn't challenge them either, though.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
On the bright side, I never used to tithed so I don't feel too bad about giving thousands to anyone's church over that time period in my life.
I was too poor to tithe during the period in my life when I was being hectored to. But I did better than five bucks in the plate, on the other hand.
1. I used to actually listen to Bob Larson (BARF!)
2. I sucked up Mike Warnke's story (which turned out to be a lie)
3. There was a brief moment in my life when charlatans like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland were heroes
4. I believed the bible was the PERFECT word of a perfect god
5. I used to mumbled some nonsense and claimed I was speaking in tongues. I an still do it today with ease.
6. I wasted a good chunk of my life sitting in a pew on Sunday thinking I was actually doing something productive.
7. I believed there was some deity out there interested the most mundane items in my life
8. I believed there was a boogeyman known as Satan out to get me
9. I believed the Jews were God's special flowers.
10. I believed the Soviet Union was going to invade Israel and usher in Armageddon.
11. I wasted thousand of dollars buying Christian material (concordances, bible dictionaries, lexicons, chain reference bibles, Christian books by Christian authors and Christian apologetic books)
12. I used to pray, an exercise in futility.
13. I believed Christians were being persecuted
14. I thought heavy metal rock music was all about Satan worship and that backmasking was evidence. LOL
On the bright side, I never used to tithed so I don't feel too bad about giving thousands to anyone's church over that time period in my life.
I get a kick out of narcissistic football players thanking God personally for the touchdown. Because he was listening of course.
Meanwhile down the road three kids are dying of leukemia, and across the sea 10,000 babes are starving to death. Plus the earth he created is being burnt, polluted, littered and desecrated - while people all over pray for those things not to happen. But God listened to and gave your touchdown.
Uh huh.
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