Author Topic: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?  (Read 15978 times)

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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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I feel like "fundamentalist" is a bit of an inaccurate term for Christian extremists. The fundamentals of Christianity are "believe in Jesus and you're saved eternally". "Fundamentalist" Christians are the ones who reject those fundamental ideals, saying that you have to go through all sorts of extra things or else you won't be saved. There's a reason why al-Qaeda are referred to as "extremists": they take simple guidelines to their logical extremes, outright rejecting other ones. That's essentially what fundamentalist Christians do, but for some reason they get a different label.

Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Should Fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2014, 05:05:56 pm »
Sorry, accidentally posted this on the wrong board.  Could a mod please move this to the religion forums?
« Last Edit: April 27, 2014, 08:02:02 pm by Ultimate Paragon »

Offline fancy_kitten

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2014, 05:20:31 pm »
I did always find it a little weird that the term 'fundamentalist' just sort of stuck when referring to the more crazy/harmful members of various faiths, and I can see why the kinder, more level-headed members of religious groups would be kind of offended that being a dick is apparently seen as being fundamental to their faith.  I don't know, maybe we should propose a new term for them.
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Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2014, 06:21:02 pm »
We used to distinguish between "fundie" and "fundamentalist" but then that kinda fell by the wayside (it was more because fundies describe themselves as fundamentalists, hence why we turned that word into a negative word)

A better word I've heard was "rigorist", coined by someone who wanted to refer to the fundamentalists of spiritualities that didn't have "fundamentals" to begin with.
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Offline Id82

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2014, 08:02:52 pm »
It is kind of true. Seeing as a lot of Christians tend to follow the words of Paul instead of Jesus.
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Offline fancy_kitten

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2014, 08:05:10 pm »
Even then, they tend to do a pretty shoddy job of it.  Verses like "God gave us faith hope and love, and the greatest of those three things is love P.S. Kitten doesn't feel like looking up the exact verse but come on you know it's in there" don't exactly lend themselves well to the "God Hates Fags" movement.
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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2014, 10:09:07 pm »
It is kind of true. Seeing as a lot of Christians tend to follow the words of Paul instead of Jesus.
Actually, they may not even be following Paul's words.

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are three short books included in the New Testament.  They're purportedly written by St. Paul, but nearly 100% of scripture scholars doubt that - the writing style doesn't match Paul's other work (lots of writers at the time signed their work with well-known names so that it would get read).  However, it appears that the three books were composed by the same guy, who was writing with the objective of establishing a male-dominated hierarchy in the early church.  It's some deeply misogynist shit.

Throw out those books, and the New Testament is remarkably egalitarian on gender given that most of it was written in the first century.  If only they hadn't ended up in the canon...

Offline fancy_kitten

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #7 on: April 27, 2014, 10:14:29 pm »
I wish the Gospel of Thomas had ended up in canon, it was so cool.
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Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #8 on: April 27, 2014, 10:18:05 pm »
I feel like "fundamentalist" is a bit of an inaccurate term for Christian extremists. The fundamentals of Christianity are "believe in Jesus and you're saved eternally". "Fundamentalist" Christians are the ones who reject those fundamental ideals, saying that you have to go through all sorts of extra things or else you won't be saved.

See, the problem is that there is no general agreement on what  the fundamentals of Christianity are. Can you really say that it is "believe in Jesus and you're saved eternally" when the Catholic Church (i.e. the  institution which in theory determines dogma for about half of all Christians) doesn't accept sola fide?

Fundamentalists originally called themselves that because they believed they were the ones going back to the true fundamentals of Christianity, which were under attack by modern liberal Christians. And I'm sure liberal Christians think that's all backwards and they are the ones who really understand the fundamentals, and either group could've claimed the name. But it's the other group that did, and now the phrase "fundamentalist Christian" has come to be associated with them. Language is shaped by that sort of historical accident all the time.
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Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2014, 10:28:36 pm »
It is kind of true. Seeing as a lot of Christians tend to follow the words of Paul instead of Jesus.
Actually, they may not even be following Paul's words.

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are three short books included in the New Testament.  They're purportedly written by St. Paul, but nearly 100% of scripture scholars doubt that - the writing style doesn't match Paul's other work (lots of writers at the time signed their work with well-known names so that it would get read).  However, it appears that the three books were composed by the same guy, who was writing with the objective of establishing a male-dominated hierarchy in the early church.  It's some deeply misogynist shit.

Throw out those books, and the New Testament is remarkably egalitarian on gender given that most of it was written in the first century.  If only they hadn't ended up in the canon...

It's interesting to note that, aside from Acts (which was written by a different author as well), it becomes apparent that Paul (the real one... supposedly) didn't believe in a literal Jesus Christ, and instead was a proponent of Gnosticism, which was a prevailing... I wanna say "cult" during the time period, if only to refer to the size of the constituents rather than the mentality.

And also, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John were written by vastly different people who lived long after the eponymous apostles.  Matt/Mark/Luke were based off of one supposed account, and John was based off of a different account.

And a lot of things in the Bible (specifically the New Testament) are more like annotations of what was already written there, that ended up being rolled into what was actually written.

In short, half the book is a clusterfuck upon clutserfock.  And then the other half was stolen from Judaism, so... yeah.

Apologies if I offended, but I've done some hefty research on the subject myself.
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Offline Barbarella

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2014, 10:51:07 pm »
That's why I stopped using "Fundie" and started using "Frummer" or variations thereof (Frum, Frummie, Frumster, etc.). Frummer is yiddish for "Overly religious fanatic nutso".

Likewise, I invented terms like "ethnicist" & "ethnibigot" to replace "racism/racist". Race is a stupid term. "Ethnicity" is more accurate & needs to have it's meaning expanded. "Race" only adds division & implies "different species" or "subspecies". There's only one human race.....HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS.

Offline fancy_kitten

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2014, 11:42:28 pm »
It is kind of true. Seeing as a lot of Christians tend to follow the words of Paul instead of Jesus.
Actually, they may not even be following Paul's words.

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are three short books included in the New Testament.  They're purportedly written by St. Paul, but nearly 100% of scripture scholars doubt that - the writing style doesn't match Paul's other work (lots of writers at the time signed their work with well-known names so that it would get read).  However, it appears that the three books were composed by the same guy, who was writing with the objective of establishing a male-dominated hierarchy in the early church.  It's some deeply misogynist shit.

Throw out those books, and the New Testament is remarkably egalitarian on gender given that most of it was written in the first century.  If only they hadn't ended up in the canon...

It's interesting to note that, aside from Acts (which was written by a different author as well), it becomes apparent that Paul (the real one... supposedly) didn't believe in a literal Jesus Christ, and instead was a proponent of Gnosticism, which was a prevailing... I wanna say "cult" during the time period, if only to refer to the size of the constituents rather than the mentality.

And also, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John were written by vastly different people who lived long after the eponymous apostles.  Matt/Mark/Luke were based off of one supposed account, and John was based off of a different account.

And a lot of things in the Bible (specifically the New Testament) are more like annotations of what was already written there, that ended up being rolled into what was actually written.

In short, half the book is a clusterfuck upon clutserfock.  And then the other half was stolen from Judaism, so... yeah.

Apologies if I offended, but I've done some hefty research on the subject myself.

Huh, I never heard that before but that's really interesting.  Where did you learn all that?
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Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #12 on: April 27, 2014, 11:51:59 pm »
It is kind of true. Seeing as a lot of Christians tend to follow the words of Paul instead of Jesus.
Actually, they may not even be following Paul's words.

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are three short books included in the New Testament.  They're purportedly written by St. Paul, but nearly 100% of scripture scholars doubt that - the writing style doesn't match Paul's other work (lots of writers at the time signed their work with well-known names so that it would get read).  However, it appears that the three books were composed by the same guy, who was writing with the objective of establishing a male-dominated hierarchy in the early church.  It's some deeply misogynist shit.

Throw out those books, and the New Testament is remarkably egalitarian on gender given that most of it was written in the first century.  If only they hadn't ended up in the canon...

It's interesting to note that, aside from Acts (which was written by a different author as well), it becomes apparent that Paul (the real one... supposedly) didn't believe in a literal Jesus Christ, and instead was a proponent of Gnosticism, which was a prevailing... I wanna say "cult" during the time period, if only to refer to the size of the constituents rather than the mentality.

And also, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John were written by vastly different people who lived long after the eponymous apostles.  Matt/Mark/Luke were based off of one supposed account, and John was based off of a different account.

And a lot of things in the Bible (specifically the New Testament) are more like annotations of what was already written there, that ended up being rolled into what was actually written.

In short, half the book is a clusterfuck upon clutserfock.  And then the other half was stolen from Judaism, so... yeah.

Apologies if I offended, but I've done some hefty research on the subject myself.

Huh, I never heard that before but that's really interesting.  Where did you learn all that?

Oh shoot, I forget his name...

He's a researcher who did a lot of research on the history of Christianity, how it formed, the likelihood of Jesus' existence, etc.  He's also an atheist who voluntarily attends an episcopal church because he enjoys it.

Truth be told, it was all awhile ago, so take what I said with a grain of salt.

Which you should be doing anyways.
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Offline Vypernight

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #13 on: April 28, 2014, 04:46:03 am »
I just call them all Cultists.  It fits better.
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Offline Rime

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Re: Should fanatical Christians really be called "fundamentalists"?
« Reply #14 on: April 28, 2014, 07:31:20 am »
The term Fundamentalist arose from a movement in 1920's America which set about the "Five Fundaments of the Christian faith"

Quote
FIVE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE FAITH
There are five fundamentals of the faith which are essential for Christianity, and
upon which we agree:
1. The Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ
(John 1:1; John 20:28;Hebrews 1:8-9).
2. The Virgin Birth (Isaiah7:14; Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:27).
3. The Blood Atonement (Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25, 5:9; Ephesians 1:7;Hebrews 9:12-14).
4. The Bodily Resurrection (Luke 24:36-46; 1 Corinthians
15:1-4, 15:14-15).
5. The inerrancy of the scriptures themselves (Psalms 12:6-7; Romans 15:4;2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20).

And those who disagree with any of the above doctrines are not Christians at all.  Rather, they are the true heretics. So disagreements are perfectly acceptable within the confines of Christianity, because our salvation does not hinge upon doctrines other than the above five.
But if some deny even one of the five fundamentals mentioned above, they have departed from the faith, "giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils"

That last sentence is the place where Fundamentalist takes on a whole new meaning.  Because the Scriptures are inerrant, they can be used to justify anything as long as there's a Scripture to support it.  Ironically, making a Fundamentalist look a whole lot more like a Pharisee than a crazy rabbi who broke a bunch of dogmas because the Law was used to oppress as supposed to assist.  Or more bumper-stickery:

The Law was intended to give power to people, but it became power over people.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2014, 02:36:27 pm by Rime »
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