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I'm not doing that. I'm referring to those that are completely unwilling to consider what others say, and automatically label those that disagree as wrong.
You have actually demonstrated your willingness to have a conversation. I would not call you a "fundamentalist".
...
Again....the fundamentalist atheist here....would be the one that disagrees with whatever a Christian believes.
Thanks for the kind words, but ... I do not see how these two statements here are not in opposition, as I certainly disagree with much of what Christians believe, and with virtually all of their reasons for believing it.
Let's put this into a different context ... some 30-something guy tries to date your teenage daughter. Maybe his name is Roy. Roy sees it as entirely normal and where you live, perhaps there's even some marginal social support for the notion. You completely disagree with Roy and forbid your daughter to see him. In fact, you report him to the authorities, who eventually ban him at the local mall, where he first accosted your daughter and her friends.
Are you, because of this, a fundamentalist? Because you have a strong disagreement with someone else's view?
I am sincerely trying to get at what constitutes, in your thinking, a valid charge of rigid ideological thinking. It has to be something other than strong, broad and/or deep disagreement.
Except that they are quite argumentative about anything and anyone that disagrees with them. The "creed" or "dogma" may not be defined, except that it's anything they disagree with.
Of course - anything ought to be open to discussion and debate. That is reasoning, free thought and even democracy. It's part of being human. What makes for fundamentalism is forbidding talk and discussion because something is posited to be true and there needs to be no discussion.
That is why atheism and evolution science, and indeed a humanist worldview is accused of being Fundy - because they are shown as claiming to be right on faith and no discussion allowed. It is the ongoing debate and discussion that shows that talking about it nothing to do with Fundamentalism, so you have it quite wrong - just grabbing anything the Seems to support the claim you want to pin on us.
The Fundy -claim comes down to what is claimed and on what basis and how forbidden discussion is about it. I say that Humanism is the winner because it works, dudes, and that it why all but the Fundy theocracies or Dogmatic dictatorships use it.
Science and evolution encourage debate and question. new information and correction is how it gets to be more right and moves on. It doesn't claim to be totally right and no questioning is allowed.
Questioning of anything is allowed (1) , even nonsense can question science and science must answer - it did spend too long in the ivory tower and "Chariots of the Gods" caught it pants down dozing on its ivory throne. Fortunately the wake up call came in time to counter creationism. But the non -science is not science. It does not use the scientific method. That is why the debate must be in the general debate area - not in the science class. That is not being Fundy. To insist on teaching it and rubbishing science (and we have seen that 'teaching the controversy' does just that) just because the believers take over the education council - that's Fundy.
And that's why atheism is not Fundy. I needn't go into the absurd attempts of the religious to find similarities of behaviour of atheists to religions to claim it is a faith -based religion ("They walk, they talk, they publish books.") In actual fact, atheism is merely a branch of rationalism, applied soley to the god -claim. If it has to make a case, it is in showing up the evidence that the believers are logically obliged to present (despite persistent and determined attempts to reverse the rules of logic, the burden of proof is on the god -believer) in support of their God -Bible-and -Jesus claim as not being good enough to merit credibility, never mind the hard unquestionable Faith of the Fundy.
(1) a good place for a debunk of the misrepresentations (at least!) that go to make up Ben Stein's "Expelled" film.
Just go back through the threads and you can recognize fundamentalists on here with comparative ease. All one has to do is use the ten identifiers above. It makes no difference whether the fundamentalist is Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist. They are one and the same with regard to the majority of these characteristics.
And I haven't preached in a Southern Baptist Church for nearly 30 years now. I attend a small start up Methodist church that has the following as it's "mission" to people:
Our church fails to meet most of the tenets of fundamentalism above. We have a gay bishop (lesbian) and women hold pastorate positions within our larger denomination. We are not without difficulties in this open and accepting position (some have left because of our bishop), but our morality is GROWING, something that one never sees from fundamentalists.
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Originally Posted by Wardendresden
Big difference, fundie. I used to hold to virtually ALL of current Christian fundamentalist beliefs---such as God can do anything He wants and (including genocide) because He is "god." God was a "do as I say, not as I do" Superpower. I believed in young earth Creationism. I believed all except those accepting Jesus as "Lord" we're going to hell. I preached on street corners on Okinawa telling young servicemen they would go to hell if they died in Vietnam. I personally led a number of them to make confessions of faith (playing on their uncertainty regarding heading "South" as we called it.
Yet my time in Vietnam, followed by my collegiate days in an SBC school where I had a kindly and knowledgeable NT professor began to change my views. In other words I did what you and pinacled have not---I grew in Spirit and understanding. The love of God became visible in people I previously believed were bound for hell.
Do you realize why recovering alcoholics have pity on those still entrapped by the bottle? It's because they have been there.
What you misinterpret as disdain is my pity that you haven't sought to go from where you are to where you should be.
We left slavery behind because a few people, not the religious in the south, had a vision for a new future. Fundamentalists then had to be drug kicking and screaming into that future. And still we aren't there as just this summer old line Southern Baptists refused to accept a resolution by a black pastor that the SBC call sinful the white supremacy racism in this country. It had to be watered down to become "allowable" by the good Baptist Convention.
You can look up the black pastor's New York Times editorial of July 17, 2017 entitled "Why I Am Leaving the Southern Baptist Convention." Part of his comment read:
"During the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, Dwight McKissic, a prominent black pastor in Arlington, Tex., introduced a resolution that denounced white supremacy and the “retrograde ideologies, xenophobic biases and racial bigotries of the so-called alt-right.” The resolution should have been immediately adopted. It was not."
While many churches now have women pastors, the SBC still stands in the way, unable to look from the past and into the future. Wouldn't that be considered oppression of women?Likewise with gays, most SBC and Pentecostal churches won't even allow a known gay into their church to worship. Again it is about the past, not where God is calling us to move towards.
A line from the movie Wonder sticks in my head. "The heart is a roadmap to the future. The face is a map of where we've been." If you haven't a heart that is looking to the future rather than an image of the past (Bible), God will never be able to use you beyond your own small shrinking circle of acquaintances.
"All of the current Fundamentalist beliefs" again one has to define that word as to what it means to them. (we really need to get out of the M.E. conflicts as we haven't a clue about any of it)
For me it is the teaching of Christ's love and sacrifice He made for 'all' people. It is the ultimate that no matter who we are, we are equal and perfect in Christ's eyes. When we move away from that, (stop teaching that) we have stolen baby Jesus from the Nativity scene (the dream I had); from the world.
I was raised in a Fundamental Baptist church, that most often utilized the words of Christ to share in the message He left for us. He even left for us, how to pray in His absence. You know the words I'm sure. (think about them now; say them in your head)
When I was 17 and started smoking pot and my parents stuck me in a Baptist School. (a fundamental one) Oh, I was angry. In that time (1970s) there use to be a Wednesday after school special on tv. It was kind of like the Hallmark shows we see today. I could write one of those stories, using my experience for a story line.
We, at the first of each month were given a verse to memorize. I only remember the first one and I've carried it with me forever ... (Galations 6:1 KJV) I told some one about it once, how I thought that to be odd, that out of all of them, that is the one in my heart to remember verbatim. And he told me, that is the verse God gave to you as it is to mean something to you in a message from Him. (one can not get much more fundamental than that)
I have not seen inside a brick and mortar church, since 1980 except on occasion when some one would invite me to their's.
When I was a teenager, there was something happening in the house between my brother and my parents which cause me to write a letter. That darn thing still exist. My sister has it in the family Bible. I wrote the letter to God, telling Him at if any time I began to doubt, to please knock me upside the head with a brick. Just so you know ...
I didn't find God in a church or in a book ... and I really shouldn't have wrote that letter. Because my life experience in my doubts as to what I was taught came into being; I haven't doubted since 1985 and I am 56 years old, reborn in the spirit age 9.
Christ wasn't any more political then as He is now. It is man, that has turned Him into such.
"If I speak to you of physical things Christ told His disciples, and you do not understand, how is it you will understand that of the spirit in what I say to you?"
Quote:
If you haven't a heart that is looking to the future
The heart is of the spirit, it is only then one can be of use to God. There are 7 churches mentioned in the book of Revelations and none of them are of brick and mortar.
Politics has made its way into a spiritual forum, imagine that. Just as it made its way in the church and in the church Martin Luther saw corruption, just as Christ did, before him ...
If one has found a church in which they can grow in the spirit, stay there. I have yet to find one. As for as the situation with the SBC, Galations 6:1 KJV seems applicable to me.
Last edited by Ellis Bell; 12-02-2017 at 01:18 PM..
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Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
It isn't in the secret societies, but in the not very secret one. it is "One nation under God" which was put in the oath, on the money, and is being pushed to become a reality. It surfaced alarmingly in Obama's term of office where the religious Right clearly regarded the government as not to Real government of America but a bunch of godless traitors that had got into power. The symblism of the Christian flag hoisted over the national flag was not lost on those who saw the massive agenda of a Christian - and a fundamentalist Christian - America as breaking the surface.
God left for us a compass, that points to our true North. When as a nation we loose the ability to find true North, we will loose our way and will become vulnerable to our rivals. (our rivals know this and they lay in wait)
When up is down, and down is up; right is wrong, and wrong is right?
It has always been said that a nation will destroy itself from within, long before the rivals arrive on the scene.
God left for us a compass, that points to our true North. When as a nation we loose the ability to find true North, we will loose our way and will become vulnerable to our rivals. (our rivals know this and they lay in wait)
Except that Bible believers have used the Bible to point straight south in many cases. Such as the "justifications" for slavery, and, later, Jim Crow. For making persons of color (or with different sexual orientation, or otherwise Not One Of Us), "less than".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Bell
When up is down, and down is up; right is wrong, and wrong is right?
Stop. Stop right there. At least if you live in the US. Because Christians here would rather elect a gangster to the White House or a pedophile to the Senate so long as they get to hold onto temporal power. US Christians have sold their birthright, such as it was, for a mess of pottage. So just stop talking about your imagined moral compass and how we'd be lost without it. The fact is, we're lost WITH it. Spare me your moral compass!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Bell
It has always been said that a nation will destroy itself from within, long before the rivals arrive on the scene.
That, at least, is largely a true statement, but it has nothing to do with the faux discipline of theology.
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Originally Posted by mordant
Except that Bible believers have used the Bible to point straight south in many cases. Such as the "justifications" for slavery, and, later, Jim Crow. For making persons of color (or with different sexual orientation, or otherwise Not One Of Us), "less than".
Stop. Stop right there. At least if you live in the US. Because Christians here would rather elect a gangster to the White House or a pedophile to the Senate so long as they get to hold onto temporal power. US Christians have sold their birthright, such as it was, for a mess of pottage. So just stop talking about your imagined moral compass and how we'd be lost without it. The fact is, we're lost WITH it. Spare me your moral compass!
That, at least, is largely a true statement, but it has nothing to do with the faux discipline of theology.
Evolution happens, yet evolution does not happen overnight, it takes time; billions of years go by and yet there is no real end to it or final result, but ...
There were dinosaurs that roamed this earth and now there are not and there is nothing political about them.
What we do to each other, is what we put ourselves through in the middle of it, that really there is no rhyme of reason for any of it, yet we do it all the same. I'm not sure what that makes us, but I do know, nothing good will come from the disdain of it.
When you point to the things you referenced in the first paragraph, changes in social evolution began (before modern man) 4000 years ago, so as today, we see the development, some of which is global, some of which pertains only to the U.S.
Evolution happens, yet evolution does not happen overnight, it takes time; billions of years go by and yet there is no real end to it or final result, but ...
There were dinosaurs that roamed this earth and now there are not and there is nothing political about them.
What we do to each other, is what we put ourselves through in the middle of it, that really there is no rhyme of reason for any of it, yet we do it all the same. I'm not sure what that makes us, but I do know, nothing good will come from the disdain of it.
When you point to the things you referenced in the first paragraph, changes in social evolution began (before modern man) 4000 years ago, so as today, we see the development, some of which is global, some of which pertains only to the U.S.
I'm probably being a little hard on you as you are an iconoclast of some kind and not a cultural / official / institutional Christian in some unholy alliance with the political extreme right. But just like an evangelical, you still claim that god gives us some sort of compass that points true north, which implies that god is the source of right thinking and that there is some objective, immutable "true north" in the first place. I do not think either notion is supportable.
In any case my main point is that when theists offer up some sort of moral argument for the utility of their belief systems, increasingly I find that somewhere between hilarious and detestable. A lot of the pickle we're in here in the US and much of the West actually comes straight from such ideas, untethered as they are from reality.
The notion that Christianity sanctifies or improves anyone is, in my view, utter hogwash.
Status:
"It Can't Rain All The Time"
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
I'm probably being a little hard on you as you are an iconoclast of some kind and not a cultural / official / institutional Christian in some unholy alliance with the political extreme right. But just like an evangelical, you still claim that god gives us some sort of compass that points true north, which implies that god is the source of right thinking and that there is some objective, immutable "true north" in the first place. I do not think either notion is supportable.
In any case my main point is that when theists offer up some sort of moral argument for the utility of their belief systems, increasingly I find that somewhere between hilarious and detestable. A lot of the pickle we're in here in the US and much of the West actually comes straight from such ideas, untethered as they are from reality.
The notion that Christianity sanctifies or improves anyone is, in my view, utter hogwash.
Quote:
I'm probably being a little hard on you as you are an iconoclast of some kind and not a cultural / official / institutional Christian in some unholy alliance with the political extreme right.
The story of Moses (happened or not, let archeologists figure it out) as the Bible told it, Moses went up the mountain, to have a conversation with God. Before he left the people he was in charge of, he told them, he'd be back, it would take time, keep the faith.
When he returned he had tablets in his hands and he found the people had made a golden calf to worship. He got angry and busted those tablets over rock. (what made people angry 4000 years ago, is it still applicable today?)
Christ too, has been away for a very long time. As time goes by, what will become of people (the study of human behavior) as the studies in paleontology and the ancient cultures found patterns in people's behavior.
This nation was built (maybe compass is the wrong word) on a foundation and there is no denying the fact that foundation on which is was built, made it strong, because the people were united in that belief. The U.S. became an economic power house.
Now, within our people, not so much a power house or united ... what more needs to be said.
See I can point to the fact that Christ brought all the people together and He was not prejudice. He was an innocent person, hung for crimes He didn't commit.
Anything or anyone that can bring people together and unit them, scares the chit out of government. Just as Martin Luther took the power from the Church, we the people can come together and the government(s) have worked long and hard to keep us, divided in our beliefs and it has worked and will keep working, till the end of time.
This nation was built (maybe compass is the wrong word) on a foundation and there is no denying the fact that foundation on which is was built, made it strong, because the people were united in that belief. The U.S. became an economic power house.
What foundation was that. Deism?
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