christians and fundamentalism

Oh fuck off. That's the most ludicrous thing I ever heard. Following that logic, we'd never have opposed facism in case we were seen to be seperatists!

Quite aside from which, where do I talk about "seperating" them? Do I advocate hating them? Or oppressing them? Or passing laws against them? Or judging them? Criticising a religion for its beliefs is hardly the same thing as "seperating out people", whatever the fuck that means.

 

fundamentalism (n.) A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

So, an attempt to "go back to the Bible and what it originally meant" is by definition fundamentalist, as opposed to progressive. That's the thing that scares me most about fundamentalist Christianty - the idea that things can never change, that we are strictly to obey some fairly obscure rules written when human society was so very different. It represents total closure to the possibility of discovering new things about ourselves and about our society.

 

ok thank you. it IS returning to fundamental principles, and also living by it....
well, it's gonna be opposed to secularism, it's a faith, you believe what's in the faith, and yeah, i believe it's right, but thats because its my faith. Dok, science is a faith, too, and they believe that THEY'RE right, it's still a faith, most of the time, they don't have evidence that what they say is actually happening, it's just a belief, it's taught as a fact, but it's still a belief.

 

I totally aree, dude. For a start, science cn never be absolute, because it can never prove that the phyiscal universe as its measured today won't disappear in a puff of smoke tomorrow. So at its best, science is an informed guess, and an act of faith in the laws of physics always remaining stable!

However, science doesn't attempt to make moral judgements that people are expected to live by.

 

you edited!

no, the Bible IS about progressing. Gods not stupid, they're many places in there that would help us progress, doesn't mean we have to throw it out the window to be able to progress - the answer to the AIDS crisis in africa is in the Bible, the current crisis! if people actually followed what it said, then there WOULD be less suffering and death, i know what you said about it being like "two" different Gods, and i can see where you're coming from, in the Old Testament, God punished. simple, if people did stuff wrong, or sinned, then he punished them, often by death. the turning point was where he sent Jesus, and then he didn't punish people anymore, because all the punishment for sinning was put onto Jesus instead of us, thats why it seemed like he changed, he was a vengeful God. It was still only cos he loved his creation though.
If you had created something as wonderful as the earth, wouldn't you get annoyed at people screwing it up?

 

In the South, where I'm from, preachers pride themselves in promoting fundamentalist Christian ideals. It is kinda like Lemmings running off a cliff... what a great analogy.

 

Sorry, bad habit:&

 

thas ok

no, it doesn't, it shouldn't, anyway. it strives to love the people that aren't saved, like i said before, heaven is for sinners. i'm a sinner. i'm only saved by the grace of god, i didn't deserve that! there shouldn't be a division - the Bible says God loves EVERYONE.

 

awww, c'mon! You could solve the aids crisis by cutting off everyone's dicks. Doesn't make it a good idea.

Allegedly.

So god learned from his mistake? Changed his mind?

Woohoo! Respect due to the psycopathic deity in the corner! Yes, the one wiping out the first born children of the whole of Egypt!

I wouldn't generally smite them though. And hang on..... you saying god can't control his temper now???

 

Only if they repent of their sins, thereby accepting that your definition of sin is in fact correct. You therefore have a division between repenters and non-repenters.

 

no i wasn't saying that. ..course he can control his temper, where did you get that from?
i didn't say god jus randomly lashes out at people - he punished the people who sinned against him... i'm goin out now, i'll come back later.

 

i also said God loves everyone

 

You said god punished people in the old testament because he got annoyed at them for fucking things up. Personally, I don't tend to smite people when I get annoyed at them. That would be the sign of a bad temper.

 

And he loves non-repenters so much that he'll allow them to burn in hell for eternity. Yay god's love!

 

He also created people, and is omniscient! So punishing people for doing things he gave them the propensity to do .... now that's just cruel. It's like calmly sitting by and watching as a baby crawls over a cliff - then smacking it for being so naughty.

 

And let's not forget that it took him millions of years to get around to sending JC (although to be fair, his divine sperm count might've been low ). During that time, all non-Jews didn't have the option of salvation (allegedly).

 

Wow I think you people are reading into things way too much. In the New testament God sent us his only son Jesus so that we all could be forgiven. God wouldn't punish people if we would have listened to him in the first place. It was Adam and Eve's decision that they ate from the tree, hence there is pain, suffering, and punishment. I don't know why people take things in the Bible out of context.

 

LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Irony ain't your thang, is it?

 

Going back to the original topic though, are there any moderate, progressive christians on these boards? Not every christian you hear from preaches at you, there are tolerant and liberal ones who do not believe that homosexuality is something you will burn in hell for, that women should have equal rights within the clergy, etc. I wonder if it's just because the fundamentalists are so much more vocal and feel the need to shout their message louder.

 

I'd just like to point out that I'm very aware of this, and only refer to god as male because this is the gender that christians believe him to be.