Jeez and I though Fundamentalist christians had no sense of humour.
They're both the no-fundamentalists....
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Atheist
by BurnTheShips 61 Replies latest watchtower bible
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changeling
Hi Burns! It's me, changeling, your long lost, warm and fuzzy atheist buddy!
I rarely come to JWN and seldom post, but your thread caught my eye.
I wanted to share with you a book you may find interesting: The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, by Mark A. Noll (a christian scholar). Noll makes a very interesting study of the religious sentiment for and against slavery in the US during and leading up to the CW. He shows how both sides of the issue were fueled by Christians trying to use the scriptures to prove their point. Interestingly, he also includes publications from European newspapers and other publications to show how most Europeans (America was behind Europe in abollishing slavery) felt slavery was morally wrong and did not know why the silly Americans were trying to use the Bible to debate the issue.
He includes a wealth of historical documentation to prove his points. It's truly eye opening. And yes, one comes away feeling that the Civil War was, in large extent, a religious war.
I agree with you that there are extremists on both sides of the god issue. For me, a "fundie" Christian takes a literal view of the Bible and rejects the very notion that it may, at least in part, be allegorical, or just plain wrong.
A "fundie" atheist would be one that, as you mentioned in #1, denies categorically the existance of "god". No one can prove or disprove the existance of what some call god; a powerful being of some sort that caused the universe to exist.
Me, I don't deny the possibility that some unknown force caused what we know as the universe, but I don't call this possible entity "god" because the concept of "god" and owing it worship is a human construct based on the ignorance and fear of early man. I also don't feel this entiy would require devotion or worship or draws lines in the sand to decide who gets treats and who gets spankings. Therefore, I'm an "a-theist".
Most atheists will aknowledge they don't have all the answers, and therefore, I would not consider them "fundies".
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wobble
Wanna know the difference between christian fundies and atheist fundies ?
JW's and other loonie christian groups put the "mental" in fundamentalist.
Atheists put the" fun" in .
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mindmelda
There isn't an absence of religious influence in legal process. It's well documented that some of the underlying principles of the American legal system are based in part on Judeo Christian ethic. Not entirely, of course, there are many other influences, but anyone who believes that Western culture, including our judicial and political processes hasn't been influenced by Judeo Christian ethic hasn't been reading the same history books I have.
Not saying it's terrific, just that it's a fact of history.
From Wiki:
Western thought as we think of it today, is shaped by ideas of the 1900s and 1800s, originating mainly in Europe. What we think of as Western thought today is defined as Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian culture, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and colonialism. As a result, the term "Western thought" is, at times, unhelpful and vague, because it can define separate, though related, sets of traditions and values:
- The Christian moral tradition and respective set of religious values;
- The humanist tradition and set of secular values, often with rationalist, anti-clerical beliefs;
Several ideas in the Constitution were new, and a large number were drawn from the literature of Republicanism in the United States, the experiences of the 13 states, and the British experience with mixed government. The most important influence from the European continent was from Montesquieu, who emphasized the need to have balanced forces pushing against each other to prevent tyranny. (This in itself reflects the influence of Polybius's 2nd century BC treatise on the checks and balances of the constitution of the Roman Republic.) British political philosopher John Locke was a major influence, and the due process clause of the Constitution was partly based on common law stretching back to Magna Carta (1215). [ 10 ]
I'd like to point out that one of the reasons that the Magna Carta was drawn up in the first place was to try to control the election of the Archbishop of Canterbury because as the Pope's representative in England, he had authority over the King himself.
So, the conflict of whether religious authority supercedes secular has been around as long as human government itself. Some forms of governance attempted to solve the conflict by simply declaring the human entities in control as the representatives of God or the gods, or making them deities themselves.
It's only been in more recent times that there was some attempt to secularize government...but I'm sure it will take more time for government to become completely secular, if ever. I'm just not sure we're there yet as a culture. There are still a majority in most countries who while perhaps not as church oriented as in the past, still give a nod to the religious or have spiritual beliefs that they want acknowledged by government in some respect.
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jaguarbass
Thats a good post burn.
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d
I personally ,I am not a fanatical atheist, but I see religion and a belief in God as a delusion.I often think of a quote that goes "When one person believes in a delusion that person is called insane, but when a group of people believe in a delusion it is called religon.That is what is wrong with religion people believing in something that is not real and irrational and calling it truth,
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mkr32208
Isn't this like the third time this dumb list has been put on here? It's stooooopid... Stop responding to it and it will go away. (for now...)
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Simon
What a load of religious-inspired drivel.
You insist that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", then claim that Jesus never existed
Erm ... the ones making the claim that have something to prove are the ones claiming that he existed. We don't have to prove anything.
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bohm
simon: I would say its a bit of a strawman, the statement you quoted is worded very carefully.
It is by no means extraordinary to claim a guy was crucified in ancient israel for claiming to be a prophet, and there are few who would deny that.
But it IS extraordinary to claim he was Gods son.
Funny how the person who wrote the list only address the first claim :-).
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leavingwt
Some may enjoy this. . .
Unbelief by Default and Selective Credulity
Recently, Victor Reppert claimed that, “as the OTF [Outsider Test for Faith] is typically presented, it attempts to give a kind of special default status to the denial of religion, and in doing so it starts to engage in anti-religious special pleading.”
This sounds like a fair criticism… but it misses the point that unbelief by default is already the attitude many Christians have to most religions.
To be more specific: many Christians, when they hear non-Christian supernatural claims–or even Christian supernatural claims made outside the Christian canon–are skeptical by default. Some even say so explicitly.
For example: one of my cousins, an Evangelical Christian, once told me that “As a Christian, I believe God sometimes communicates with people and miracles can happen, but if someone claims to be talking to God, they had better perform miracles in front of me, and I had better be able to make sure they aren’t tricking me.”
That attitude doesn’t seem obviously problematic. In fact, it seems obviously right. What’s problematic is that these same Christians are selectively credulous with respect to the supernatural claims of the Bible–more credulous than they ever are with respect to any other supernatural claims.
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http://www.uncrediblehallq.net/2010/11/22/unbelief-by-default-and-selective-credulity/