quote:

Please try to avoid painting any group with a broad brush.

Having grown up in a Fundamentalist Pentecostal church in the very buckle of the bible belt, having degrees in Philosophy and Theology, and having Fundamentalist relations who are otherwise fantastic people, I would say I'm entitled to paint with whatever damn brush I want.

I'm sorry; it's too late in the game, too much is at stake to fall back on the, "but some of these people are very nice" argument. I'm sure some Segregationists were very nice people too.

They were also wrong. And their support, tacit or explicit, fucked up or ended a lot of lives. I think everyone has the right to believe any fool thing they want, but their right to act upon those beliefs ends when when it becomes dangerous to other people.

So the fact that our Dweller is a libertarian who is actively against many of the current policies of this administration jibes how, exactly, with your declaration that all Fundamentalist Christians are bad?

When you create an "other", declare that there is only black and only white, no in-between, you are perpetuating the same behavior that you are decrying.

quote:

'm sorry; it's too late in the game, too much is at stake to fall back on the, "but some of these people are very nice" argument. I'm sure some Segregationists were very nice people too.

No, I'm sorry. I didn't make my argument clear enough. I am not implying that you should make exceptions for "nice" or "harmless" Christian Fundamentalists. I am saying that you are lumping Fundamentalism into a category of radicalism, and that is dangerous generalization to make.

There IS a distinction (and, as a theology major I'm sure you are well aware of such, but I'm clarifying for the sake of public discourse):

Fundamentalism is a system of belief. A system of belief in and of itself is not harmful, it is the actions of those who have the belief that can do harm to others.

RADICAL or MILITANT fundamentalism, be it Christian or Muslim or Zionist, is a system of action whereby those that carry the belief seek to force society to conform to their beliefs.

Paint away, but please, for the sake of fair-minded, intelligent discourse, be mindful of the picture you are painting.

Firstly - I don't think anyone should be using someone on here as an example if the person haven't said that's okay - if they have, then that's cool, but it seems a bit dodgy to me otherwise.

Second, are we falling into that thing again of the difference between the coloquial and technical definitions of fundamentalist Christianity? Which is an actual thing, as opposed to fundamentalist as a description of that other religions which is a description, rather than a branch.

edit: that's what happens when you get slow, slow internet!

I personally don't think this has anything to do with the definition of Fundamentalist Christian, it has to do with the difference between those who identify themselves as such and those who use that designation to push their own hatred/bigotry/what have you on to others. Declaring that Fundamentalist Christians are what's wrong with our current government is the same as the people in this country who are convinced that all Muslims are terrorists, which is the point I was trying to make in my earlier post.

I used Bee. for the same reason everybody and their dead relatives are using LFT. It's shorter. Get a grip, there was no imlpied disrespect, unlike this message!

we quite often have discussions sparked from particular comments. The board does not, fortunately, revolve around you.


Does anyone know if there's any contemporary research on the lines of comaparing ratings of appearence/percieved compietence in the debate? I'm thinking of the Nixon/Kennedy one, and wondering if there's been anyone looking at that in realtion to these more recent ones.

quote:

I used Bee. for the same reason everybody and their dead relatives are using LFT. It's shorter. Get a grip, there was no imlpied disrespect, unlike this message!

*looks around*
I'm quite sure i stil have mine. And very few people have more of a grip on politeness, politics and economics than our Munk. I'm sure you didn't mean the implied the quotation-marks, LuckyFurTrapper.

quote:
Which brings us to 'woe is the day', which to me is a catch-22( great movie).


it was originally a book.


Was it not a movie?
All I said is it was a great movie!!

Calm the BLANK down , don't I give you enough material to work with than for you to spout off in this fashion?

That was in reference to Silver.

<\8

quote:

Calm the BLANK down , don't I give you enough material to work with than for you to spout off in this fashion?

No, i apologise, but no you don't.
I'm unsure whether it's my not being a native speaker, or -admittedly- ambivalent over a lot of current issues that i spend a lot of thought over. But no, I'm afraid i still don't understand a lot of what you're saying, and i'm reticent of drawing my conclusions based on my own speculation.
You -as well as anyone here- have the freedom to make your point. But if i don't understand it, why shouldn't i ask, before interpreting -perhaps wrongly- your political beliefs?

quote:

Originally posted by luckyfurtrapper:
quote:
Which brings us to 'woe is the day', which to me is a catch-22( great movie).


it was originally a book.


Was it not a movie?
All I said is it was a great movie!!

Calm the BLANK down , don't I give you enough material to work with than for you to spout off in this fashion?

BWAHAHA! *snort*

You have not seen me "spout off." When you see me "spout off" you will surely fucking know it. Likewise with "loosing my grip."

wait... what does that "Hide Post" button up here in the corner do...?

I debated not following up on this, but I feel kinda guilty now, like I tossed a rhetorical hand grenade into the thread. So I'll try to explain.

OK, so first, my initial (admittedly heavily loaded) metaphor was more about ideology determining method; that is to say, in my first post, I tried to explain in terms our non-USAians might understand what the doctrine of "original intent" is. I think it's fair to compare it (without the aforementioned editorializing) to Christian Fundamentalism because both methods claim to try, as closely as possible, to act in accordance with what they consider to be a literal interpretation of a source document, in this case the Constitution and the Bible. The problem is, both judges who ascribe to "original intent" and Christian Fundamentalists conveniently ignore parts of their source documents they find inconvenient, and, moreover, their very method of interpretation leaves very little room for considering the effects of their decisions and determinations on individual lives. It is a legalistic, cut and dried – and conveniently anti-individualistic, pro-authoritarian – way of looking at the world.

(And don't *even* try to pull that, "Christian Fundamentalists don't really pick and choose what they want to believe," weak-ass New Covenant, Pauline neo-Platonic shit. It's not in the Gospels for a good reason: Christ was a Jew who saw himself as fulfilling - not replacing - the original Covenant, and it was only because the old men at Nicea decided to get their Greek on in order to unify control over an increasingly powerful church that we have all this neo-Platonic, misogynist, authoritarian crap in the Paul's letters. They had plenty of material to choose from, and they chose what solidified their power.)

So, now back to the actual derail at hand.

Christian Fundamentalism with a capital "F" has had a profound influence on our political process and policy decisions since the Carter administration. [deleted didacticisms about the confluence of Charismatic/Evangelical Christianity and Fundamentalism ]. From Reagan refusing to utter the word AIDS for so long to Bush the Younger claiming some divine mission, the political influence that coalesced around Fundamentalism has gotten people killed and ruined lives. From the initial Southern Strategy to Rove's machinations, the Republican party since 1980 has gained and maintained power only through the active participation of Christians of fundamentalist with a small "f" beliefs.

Whether or not you support in part or whole the Republican party's traitorous, elitist, murderous, racist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-science, American Exceptionalist agenda, if you support the vast majority of Fundamentalist churches, you're at least tacitly supporting the Republican party, for the so-called Religious Right is why Republicans win elections and spend your tax money on these abominations. Every time you express a fundamentalist (with a small "f" belief), you give the Republicans further proof that skewing hard to a Dominionist world view will help them win. Your beliefs – or at least those of whom you self-identify – have determined policy.

So, yeah, I cast them as "other." Deliberately. You can believe in a sky daddy who wrote a book all you want, but don't shirk the consequences of your beliefs. I'm no longer tolerating people who practice intolerance; sometimes you have to make a stand. I think the last 18 years is more than enough of how that plan works out. And, please, let's not pretend we don't know what we're talking about here. The fundamentalists of both capital and small "f" kinds believe in some seriously fucked up things that hurt us all. Unless of course you ascribe to the strange idea that a person can somehow be a fundamentalist of any sort whose beliefs *don't* determine their actions. I'd like to know in what sense of the word, "belief," that makes any sense at all. That's not a belief – that's hypocrisy, or perhaps a social club, or maybe just an unexamined life. But make no mistake: it gets people killed, and the time for playing nicely is over. Let's call it what it is.

You see, now, why I'm for mandatory state-funded abortion?

*looks at clothes*

*remains unbrushed*

Don't worry, y'all, he missed. They pretty much always do.

I'm only very, very loosely a fundamentalist, really only in the sense that I don't feel the need to explain away parts of the biblical canon in order to believe what I do, and yet am of the carefully considered opinion that the biblical canon doesn't do nearly as much to support misogyny and hatred as the lads at Nicea wanted it to.

I do love that even given the chance to pick the things that might consolidate their power in an iron fist, they still let through absolutely every scrap of text necessary to see faith as something that is freeing, not bound by law, that is individual, not bound by institution, and interpretive, not bound by dogma.

Oops.

And I have no degrees in religion and philosophy, I just have a lot of reading time and a life dedicated to being sensible.

And I read and continue to read posts about Christian fundamentalism and politics as referring to fundamentalists for whom their beliefs are policy. Not the case for all of us.

But from whence the tasty children?

My god man, you want to destroy thousands of years of culinary tradition?

quote:

I do love that even given the chance to pick the things that might consolidate their power in an iron fist, they still let through absolutely every scrap of text necessary to see faith as something that is freeing, not bound by law, that is individual, not bound by institution, and interpretive, not bound by dogma.

Well, you know, it's kinda hard to have a Christianity without Christ actually, you know, doing and saying stuff.

quote:

And I read and continue to read posts about Christian fundamentalism and politics as referring to fundamentalists for whom their beliefs are policy. Not the case for all of us.

So, really, all that idolatry and atheism is all cool. No, really, we mean it. Seriously, don't you fret your pretty little head over the politicians our votes support, 'cause, you know I'm not one of them, so it's all cool that I don't..

FUCKING GET MY ASS OUT IN THE STREET AND TELL THEM THEY DON'T SPEAK FOR ME.

Oh, wait, you did that part, right? I must have missed that. I should get TiVo.