"Made in America": Christian Fundamentalism - Dr John A Dick

[@michaelk3267]

I'm someone who lived the contrast. My first twelve years on this earth involved spending Sundays at the Presbyterian church my mother dutifully brought us to - one that taught love and living love by example and deed. I like to call this the Jimmy Carter model of Christianity. As I entered my teen-age years, my father became "born-again" and out was Presbyterianism (too liberal) and in was "independent Baptist." And "you know we are Christians by our love" was replaced with adherence to correct (fundamentalist) theology, opposing abortion, voting for Reagan, etc. Deeds as an expression of faith were replaced by prescriptive theology and politics. Thankfully, due to my "doubting Thomas" nature, I saved myself from the whole thing and am agnostic. And, as an agnostic for 30 years, every day reminds me of what a great thing it is to have escaped from fundamentalism and its politics. We are witnessing the fruits of Christian fundamentalist politics today (and for the last forty years) and it is not pretty.

[@franklinfalco9069]

I can understand why fundamentalists hate ideas like drug legalization and abortion but gay-bashing and homophobia has got to stop.

[@Amadeus1066]

Excellent talk!!!!!!!!!

[@jamesnmcdowell]

really enjoyed this, thank you for posting

[@maxdoubt5219]

Good speech...wish it could have been longer. But at the end Mr. Dick accuses fundies as sacrificing "values basic to the great religious traditions: love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and caring." But let's be honest. Hatred and intolerance played an equal role in religious traditions and can be derived from the Bible or the Koran just as easily as any maxim, and the worship of these books still causes problems today.

[@j.marshallbevil1220]

+Deacon Verter Absolutely. There's even a coined term for that: bibliolatry.

[@LAlba9]

Better than an Ambien. Couldn't make it through the whole recitation from the speaker's notes. If I had this guy for a lecture course, I'd take "shehada" and abduct him for a Sheik's ransom in Belgian euros.

[@j.marshallbevil1220]

While his stated goals for addressing fundamentalism are both valid and commendable, they have, I fear, little to no chance of success. One of the pillars of the fundamentalist position is dogged resistance to true education, as opposed to mere job training, and an attitude toward both education and educated people that ranges from distrust to virulent hatred. I often have heard people of that ilk speak the words _college_ and _professor_ in tones dripping with loathing and contempt. In their minds, one of the most pejorative words they can utter is _intellectual_. /// In the state of Texas, where I am from and where I live, one plank in the Republican Party platform is a call for removing from the public schools all instruction involving logic and critical thinking. At the national level, there are similar goals, including but not limited to the dismantling of the Department of Education. Also in numerous places throughout the nation, many fundamentalist parents who do not send their children to sectarian schools are home schooling them and even buying houses within newly-opened suburbs to form "Christian bubbles" in which their children will have friends and playmates only from among other fundamentalist homes, so that they won't be exposed to any so-called heretical or deviant ideas, situations, or practices such as other religious views (including moderate or liberal Christianity), belief in evolution, households other than "normal" - i.e., two-parent, heterosexual - ones in which the mother does not work outside the home, divorced parents, children born out of wedlock, etc. They are fond of piously and closed-mindedly proclaiming what they imagine the real world to be, while ignoring the true reality of the complex, pluralistic world in which their children ultimately will have to live and work.

[@danmiller6462]

J. Marshall Bevil so true. They claim the name of Jesus but violate everything he taught. Jesus reached out to the poor and outcasts of society back then and that included so called deviants. These phonies would hate Jesus if he was here today. He would blast them out the same way he blasted out the religious leaders of his day. Sad.

[@jordantsak7683]

The reason for their anti-intellectual mentality (and I mean their ignorance of the intellectual root of protestantism per se, the Reformation) is their anti-gospel theology (even if they don't realize it), their pietistic, revivalistic kind of theological approach to the christian message. They are self and ego centered people who think they can be saved because of their ascetic and monastic way of living. They have to read Luther and Calvin but they don't like books...

[@geirinho6071]

What is a major concern, is that fundamentalism is gaining terrain in the world. The people of intellect and reason are drowning in the noice of the ultimate stupidity. A thoughtful way of viewing the world seems to be too much to handle for a lot of people. There seems to be a need for easy solutions and "absolute" thruths. It requires too much effort of reasoning, so the wallbuilders are at the moment a head of the bridgebuilders, because we allow exclusion, screaming, violence and threats to be acceptable ways of silencing any oponent. Would it be very unpolite of me to ask people to include the neo-mammale part of the brain, and not only the reptile and a minimum the mammale part ?

[@Colin12475]

"May God Almighty give our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for ourselves but for Germany." -Adolf Hitler

[@niinja2]

to the letter

[@tsmelvin]

I wish this weren't so brief. Dick seems like a decent teacher (though not a terribly great public speaker), and the subject might have benefited quite a bit from not being truncated to fit into a half hour.

[@XSilver_WaterX]

Can other Christian sects be absorbed from Fundamentalism? If so, we're doomed.

[@tsmelvin]

So, you hope that religious people will harm him because you don't like what he says?

[@willfourth]

Keep praying then. As long as those thoughts stay in your head, we won't have a problem.

[@Neku628]

They pretty much were, but not Christian. Fundamentalism can be defined by many things not just to Christianity, even though according to the old guy that's where it originated from. And, plus I heard Hitler rewrote the Bible to where it was only Jesus as a German.

[@XSilver_WaterX]

Much of you say is true, except for German!Jesus. Occult Nazis actually immortalized Hitler, as the Idea of Genocide. Let that sink in.

[@willfourth]

Anyone know what the hell primitive Baptists are? I see those churches every so often... I realize I could just look it up but I'm lazy, and his voice and meter are really relaxing

[@earthlastdaybiblechannel]

Fundamentals.because the bible is absolute

[@LiturgicalChants]

I pray that someday his safety in Belgium promoting dissent on traditional christian doctrines will eventually be met with opposition from a newly revived orthodox interpretation of the faith amongst begliums roman catholics or any other christians for that matter.

[@swimcat2333]

True belief in Jesus is NOT a religion, having experienced, it is definitely not easy for me to explain

[@LiturgicalChants]

Once he started labeling Roman Catholics as fundamentalists, I knew the man had jumped off the deep end of the progressive /modernist swimming pool and came ashore in insanityville.

[@sistrum2112]

I believe in the literal interpretation of Howard Stern