Fun Fundy Facts
And Statements

Christian fundamentalists only make up about 15% of the population and less than one-quarter of Christians in general. These people claim to be Protestant, often attack other Christians, and their religion is a fusion of Puritan/Calvinism, 19th century occult nonsense, and their own politics.

Many of their leaders not only preach non-biblical beliefs but also reject all church scholarship and often claim direct revelations from God. Most are obsessed with End-Times mythology and don't follow Jesus outside of empty claims of “faith alone.” Over 90% even by their own estimates have never read the Bible and worship the God of the Old Testament, claiming Jesus' moral teachings are for Jews only. This is in spite of the fact that Jews won't be allowed into Heaven, by the fundamentalist line of thinking, and ignores the fact that the Old Testamant understanding of God was of a near psychotic killer and supporter of genocide. Jesus' entire message and life was lived not to change God, but communicate his understanding of what it meant to be in God's Loving Presence.

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."
-Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue
Quoted in The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 8-16-93

Fundamentalists make much of "spiritual humility," saying "we must not use our own reason to determine what is right and wrong, but only the Word of God." Yet only our own reason can tell us what is the Word of God. Am I to accept every book offered to me as Scripture? If someone takes the cover off a King James Bible and wraps it around a copy of Peyton Place, do I start trying to live by it? No, I use the sense God gave me to decide whether what I'm reading is inspired by God.

What is spiritual humility is saying "God knows the whole truth, but I don't. I will be willing to find out that anything I know is wrong, and to grow in understanding.

The purpose of religion is to teach love, both for self and for others. Indeed, living in the state of self-love is "the kingdom of heaven" that Jesus and other founding prophets talked about being "within you."

When one has self-love and self-respect, one respects others, because one sees reflected in others the empathy, compassion and love one sees in oneself. It is this insight that the founding prophets of all major religions have tried to convey to their followers. It is arriving at the point of living this ideal that has been, from the beginning of time, the goal of the sincere seeker and the true, undefiled religion.

Achieving this self-love, however, can be difficult. It requires self-examination, which at times can be intensely painful. Not everyone is up to that kind of self-discipline.

A religious leader seeking to fill the pews with contributing churchgoers at some level has to know this. Yet he must fill the pews to keep the lights on, the furnace running and the maintenance paid.

The temptation is there to do what will fill the pews. And filling the pews can be really much easier, if all you feel you have to do is make the worshipper feel good about being there.

If making the worshipper feel good is all you're after, and you don't care how you do it, the easiest way to do it is to assure him his prejudices are approved by God. Make him feel that he doesn't have to change because he's already arrived at salvation, or, as in the case of the Christian doctrine of redemption, someone else has agreed to pay for his mistakes, or you or God can make the changes for him, and you have a loyal church member. It's, oh, so much easier than telling him he has to work on himself!

Yet the founding prophets never did such things. Jesus Christ and Buddha and the prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h) and many others all knew of the fallacy of such an approach and did not advocate it. They were totally honest with themselves and their followers, that salvation requires personal effort and sacrifice.

Unfortunately, for every sincere seeker, there are a thousand people driven to religion by fear, guilt and shame. These negative emotions are then played upon by religionists who seek to fill the pews with compliant, profitable members. Many, if not most fundamentalist organizations have fallen into this trap.

 

 

 

Fundamentalists trace their roots back to the N.T., but fundamentalism really arises at the end of the 19th century. They see themselves as "keepers of both the Christian heritage of the first century and the American heritage of the Puritans and the Founding Fathers," though, the sense of religious mission associated with the Puritans disappeared even before the American Revolution. They will quote Puritans this and that as the foundation of America, but the Puritans founded some backwater English colonies, not the United States of America.

"In winning a nation to the gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used." "Democracy is a heresy against God!"
-R.J. Rushdooney, Director of the Rutherford Institute,
which was the principal funder of
Monica Lewinsky's
legal defense, and architect of "Christian Reconstructionism."

Fundamentalist religion, (Either New Age, Christian, or whatever) are social phenomena caused by the stress of social, political, and economic change. Both groups in the theological sense are mortal enemies, but in practical reality are much the same. Both reject the modern world and the use of science and logic. They feel helpless, vulnerable, and their lives have no meaning.

Both have an attitude of impending doom and the end of the world. Christian fundamentalists arrive at their doomsday traditions from ravings of 19th century cults and mystics such as William Miller (Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses), John Nelson Darby and the Scofield Bible, and Joseph Smith (Mormonism). Though their distorted view of the Biblical Book of Revelations, they see God's punishment for sin in every job loss, school shooting, or natural disaster.

A nationwide phone survey of 1,508 Roman Catholics found 56% had a favorable impression of Islam. Similar majorities had a favorable view of Mormons (54%), Buddhists (57%) and Hindus (54%), but only 46% of Catholics had a favorable view of fundamentalist Christians.

A recent survey showed that most Americans see Christian fundamentalists as one of the least likeable groups in the country. A right wing lobby group called The American Family Association did the survey to see how Americans felt about evangelical Christians. Needless to say, they were stunned by the results when they saw that born-again Christians placed tenth out of the eleven options, barely beating out prostitutes as least likeable group according to the general public.

As John Adams said, "He [God] created . . . the human species . . . with the deliberate design of making nine tenths of our species miserable for ever . . . . Pardon me, my Maker . . . . I believe no such things"
(Works, 10:66).

"Religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, . . . he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship"
Thomas Jefferson, Writings, 16:281

"Every man conducting himself as a good citizen and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience"
George Washington, Writings, 30:321

"The fundamentalist is intractable. Can you convince her to compromise in any of the tenets she holds sacred? You cannot. Even in the most benign case, she will see you as a contaminant. Your values and your ideas are not worthy of her consideration because they are wrong. The fundamentalist does not need to understand you and has no desire to try: You are of your father, the devil, the deceiver, the one who is the enemy of her soul. You are not redeemable as far as the fundamentalist is concerned. Your fate is sealed. You, in fact, are dead already."

 

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