To Christian fundamentalism in the US

Dear fundamentalists Christian brothers from the new world. For long I have wondered where do our differences come from. Where does your fear, your anxiety, your judgmental attitude, your aversion for sciences originate from? Sorry to be blunt, but when the heck did you start to be even more catholic than the pope, to embody everything that is less desirable in religion and to make it a new norm? When have you started losing sight of the light?

Where is the love? Where is the humility? Where is the forgiveness? Where is the Spirit?



When did this

become this?



When did this

become this?



When did this

become this?



When did this

become this?



When did this

become this?






What the f* happened to you my dear brothers, that you would inflict so much anger over your soul? What can we do to heal your wounds?

a reply to: JUhrman

Answer: When this

Became about this

Religion is no longer about Faith. When you have TV preachers making millions, living in mansions and selling salvation to the highest donor, what do you expect? Pretty sure God never said, "Send me $20 and I'll tell Peter to let you in".

originally posted by: doompornjunkie
a reply to: JUhrman

Answer: When this

Became about this

The Vatican has always been extremely wealthy and yet there is no mandatory tithing in Europe and no rise of religious fundamentalism neither.

So I guess, wrong answer.

originally posted by: DAVID64
Religion is no longer about Faith. When you have TV preachers making millions, living in mansions and selling salvation to the highest donor, what do you expect? Pretty sure God never said, "Send me $20 and I'll tell Peter to let you in".

When did it started to become like that?

Honest question there is almost 0 Christian fundamentalism here, no TV preachers, no tithing, no rejection of sciences, no hate of other cultures.

Seriously, what happened specifically in the US to give birth to Christian fundamentalism like never seen before?

a reply to: JUhrman

It all happened when the love for ones neighbour became the need to feel superior to them...

Just so you know...

Why else do you think europe tossed them out ... people started becoming aware of the fraud thats organised religion and started to see beyond the sectarian violence.. thus all the riffraf ended up in america ...

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: JUhrman

It all happened when the love for ones neighbour became the need to feel superior to them...

Just so you know...

Is it because of the American Dream and culture? Because of the focus on personal success and individual mindset? I think we have these all over the world too, and yet no Christian fundamentalism...

Could it be something older? Something from the time of the pilgrim fathers?

originally posted by: Expat888
Why else do you think europe tossed them out ... people started becoming aware of the fraud thats organised religion and started to see beyond the sectarian violence.. thus all the riffraf ended up in america ...

Why did organised religion in the US go in a completely different direction than in Europe?

That's the heart of my question.

a reply to: JUhrman
It's too early in the day for responses from the new world, so I'll make two suggestions about the differences.
One is that churches in the U.S. are more "private enterprise", because they deliberately rejected the European model of an "established" church. This liberates them from control and inspires competition.
Also I see signs on ATS of the way literalism leads into legalism.

originally posted by: JUhrman

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: JUhrman

It all happened when the love for ones neighbour became the need to feel superior to them...

Just so you know...

Is it because of the American Dream and culture? Because of the focus on personal success and individual mindset? I think we have these all over the world too, and yet no Christian fundamentalism...

Could it be something older? Something from the time of the pilgrim fathers?

its people who take the entire bible as the literal inerrant word of God...

And its been happening since the average person could read... because the first thing more people read back then was the bible...

the only difference is, back then the bible was one of the only things that was widely available...

and now, mostly everyone can read, but the general public are stupid...

go figure...

a reply to: JUhrman

I can remember when I was young, there were preachers on the radio and on TV, but only on Sunday. Some people were just too frail to go to church, so it was a good thing for them. Then, they started asking for donations. When the shysters, I mean preachers, saw that folks would send money to them if they asked [ and more than hinted that God would be happy about it ] money started pouring in. Some of these "messengers of God" are worth upwards of $25 - $50 million dollars. All from donations. It all started when folks decided the extent of God's love was connected to the size of their bank account.

originally posted by: Akragon

its people who take the entire bible as the literal inerrant word of God...

And its been happening since the average person could read... because the first thing more people read back then was the bible...

Now we are getting somewhere. But it's not something that has been "happening since the average person could read"

The high regard for religious scriptures in the Judeo-Christian tradition seems to relate in part to a process of canonization of the Hebrew Bible which occurred over the course of a few centuries from approximately 200 BCE to 200 CE. In the Jewish tradition, the highly regarded written word represented a direct conduit to the mind of God, and the later Rabbinical School of Judaism encouraged the attendant scholarship that accompanied a literary religion. Similarly, the canonization of the New Testament by the Early Christian Church became an important aspect in the formation of the separate religious identity for Christianity. Ecclesiastical authorities used the acceptance or rejection of specific scriptural books as a major indicator of group identity, and it played a role in the determination of excommunications in Christianity and in cherem in the Jewish tradition.
Church father Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote of the need for reason in interpreting Jewish and Christian scripture, and of much of the Book of Genesis being an extended metaphor. But Augustine also implicitly accepted the literalism of the creation of Adam and Eve, and explicitly accepted the literalism of the virginity of Jesus's mother Mary.
In the Reformation, Martin Luther (1483-1546) separated the biblical apocrypha from the rest of the Old Testament books, and the Westminster Confession of 1646 demoted them to a status that denied their canonicity. American Protestant literalists and biblical inerrantists have adopted this truncated Protestant Bible as a work not merely inspired by God but, in fact, representing the Word of God without possibility of error or contradiction.
Biblical literalism first became an issue in the 18th century. Karen Armstrong sees "[p]reoccupation with literal truth" as "a product of the scientific revolution".

So I guess the question now becomes "Why have American Protestants started favoring biblical literalism a few hundred years ago?" And why has this never been challenged internally?

originally posted by: DAVID64
It all started when folks decided the extent of God's love was connected to the size of their bank account.

When did this start? Why?

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: JUhrman
It's too early in the day for responses from the new world, so I'll make two suggestions about the differences.
One is that churches in the U.S. are more "private enterprise", because they deliberately rejected the European model of an "established" church. This liberates them from control and inspires competition.
Also I see signs on ATS of the way literalism leads into legalism.

All good points.

Thanks!

originally posted by: JUhrman

originally posted by: doompornjunkie
a reply to: JUhrman

Answer: When this

Became about this

The Vatican has always been extremely wealthy and yet there is no mandatory tithing in Europe and no rise of religious fundamentalism neither.

So I guess, wrong answer.

Sorry but you are wrong. In Germany a percentage of your wages is automatically deducted to the church. No matter if you are a Catholic or Protestant everyone pays unless you go to city hall and sign a peice of paper stating you want to withdraw from the church and if you do that then you can not be buried in any local, state or government graveyard (which BTW are 99% of all graveyards).

originally posted by: JUhrman
So I guess the question now becomes "Why have American Protestants started favoring biblical literalism a few hundred years ago?" And why has this never been challenged internally?

The mediaeval church went overboard in looking for allegorical readings of scripture, which lead them to all sorts of weird interpretations. The Protestant demand for a more literal approach began as a reaction against that, an attempt to return to the original meanings of the text. The trouble is that the reaction has begun to take them too far in the opposite direction.
Literalism was reinforced when people rebuffed evolutionary theory by insisting on the "literal interpretation" of Genesis.

THE idea that american protestants are all fundies, is a false hood generated by media. divide and conquer strategies abound, or haven't you noticed? the idea that all fundies, are fundamental in all the exact same things is also a false hood, generated by media.

for example, i'm fundamental about premarital sex (unattached sex without investigation, concern or compassion) being dangerous and disrespectful to your own body, the body of your partner, the peace of mind of yourself and your partner, and the body of any potential offspring, as it doesn't take into account all the various ways in which premartial sexual encounters can go wrong via sexually transmitted diseases, unforeseen pregnancies, emotional damage and financial hardship.

however, i'm not fundamental about alcohol consumption in reasonable amounts (what's that saying -- "moderation").

i don't have problem with dancing (although i'm fundie against sexual dancing in public environments where the action may offend the sensibilities of others and even then, i don't feel i have the right to dictate what other people do with their bodies. there's this little thing called "free will" which you and i are equally capable of employing by turning our heads, changing the channel, so to speak, if it bothers us).

i also don't have problems with certain forms of esoterica, because i have come to believe that just because we don't find it word for word in the translated text, doesn't mean that it isn't in there. example: walking on water (levitation), healing, translocating, shape shifting (transfiguration), moving things with the mind, speaking things into existence, blessing, forecasting future events (prophecy) using symbols and objects, and so on, goes by different names and descriptions, depending on who is describing it but the description is of the exact same esoteric abilities.

as a result, i'm also not put off by faith healers, as i view them as trying to work out how the actual event (which is mostly hidden from the casual reader) is supposed to be enacted. it just seems many of them don't have all the info yet. i think magickal practitioners like high level masons and rosicrucians, view these christian faith healers (and christians in general) as weak white magicians. the full pallet of abilities are hidden in the text, deliberately, no doubt.

i'm also of the opinion that the bible is actually an ancient egyptian / sumerian text, carefully disguised so only initiates recognize the hidden info. this i find extremely frustrating.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
The mediaeval church went overboard in looking for allegorical readings of scripture, which lead them to all sorts of weird interpretations.

That sounds interesting. Do you have more about these "weird interpretations"? Personally I have always considered the symbolic reading of the Bible is the only thing which matters, since the spiritual message of the Bible is, as far as religion is concerned, more important than the historicity of the events depicted.


Also it's quite ironic that Protestants are for a literal reading of the Bible, but when it comes to the book of Revelation, they are the ones going overboard with weird interpretations

originally posted by: undo
THE idea that american protestants are all fundies, is a false hood generated by media.

That's why my thread is about Christian fundamentalism, not about protestantism!

I think Fundamentalists represent around 15% percent of the Christians worldwide, but up to 40% of the Christians in the US.

That's quite frightening when you think about it. Are the figures as bad in Muslim countries which are considered fundamentalists by the west? I don't think so.