Category: Let's talk
Ok now that making new board topics works again, I wanted to make this its own topic,
instead of it being in the cluttered Ethics discussion:
This probably won't make the debaters very happy, but I have been thinking of late about
how we don't separate fundamentalism from fundamentalists.
I'm not suggesting we stop doing anything: we have to restrain zealous groups from
instituting dominionist reconstructionist laws in the United States and possibly elsewhere.
And where we can, I think we need to keep certain groups from making trouble for
everyone else.
But I think it's helpful to examine their experience and remember their humanity. Even if
we have to restrain their efforts to compromise the rights of others at times.
In short, they really are afraid of the rest of us, and they are afraid we're going to burn
for all eternity. Sometimes, they're even afraid that they are going to burn, or at least
pay, for having not converted us. I'll say the hardest hit are most often multigenerational
fundamentalists. I mean people who grew up in families that held to these teachings.
These were spanked if they questioned certain things or said they didn't believe in any
sorts of miracles, or thought hell was silly. Or any number of other seemingly minor
infractions. And a fundamentalist parent who refuses to enact corporal punishment or
refuses to do so often enough, frequently endures scrutiny and judgment.
I knew a mom once who was actually afraid Jesus would come back, find her kids in some
kind of error, and she would be in trouble. I asked what kind of error we're talking about
here, and it was clear these are pretty minor infractions. Her kids were good kids, by the
way.
Speaking of good kids, they refer to this as the 'primrose path' or other terms meaning,
looks good but ends up a terrible mess at the end, going to Hell. Part of the reason they
are so opposed to social reforms is they are afraid of making the world a better place.
After all, according to them, this is supposed to be temporary, and the only goal worth
mentioning is securing as many souls for the next life as possible.
Contrary to popular mythology, most of the ones I've known at least, are not as
concerned about notches in their belt. They are literally terrorized by the idea of their
acquaintances, friends and families burning for all eternity. And these fundies are normal,
average, people. They may wax eloquent about gun owners' rights, but a good many of
them could not even shoot someone, let alone burn them. Imagine if you really thought
your brother or friend was going to burn forever.
If you ever see one after a 'unsaved' person has died, you will pity them immensely.
They're ravaged with torments themselves about what they could or couldn't have said,
were they too human and maybe slipped up somewhere, and caused this person's
downfall. But worse, they are tormented with the idea of where their leaders tell them this
person now is. The worst affected are the multigenerational ones, but all of them
experience this hell when one of the rest of us bites it.
And on the flip side, when one of their own dies and presumably goes to heaven, some of
them are guilted into not expressing adequate joy because of where their loved one
supposedly is. It's tragic.
I could go on and on, and so could many others on here.
But honestly, I hhope this makes all of us, myself included, do diligence in separating the
person from the belief system, even if the person doesn't.
Because these are not free, they are not really joyful. I can tell you from experience that
many in their circles are as I was: assented for a time but in all honesty could not
reconcile these horrific aspects to reality. At 3 in the morning, when nobody's looking, and
nobody's judging, the preposterous and monstrous nature of it all rears its head. It always
does.
If you haven't done so, and you want a window into what terrorizes them, go to
BibleGateway.com and select a modern version in the drop down box, maybe the New
International or New Living. Both of those are done by reputable modern publishers. And
look up two passages:
Luke 16, and I believe the second is Revelation 21.
Do as they are instructed, and visualize someone you know in the evil antagonist's
position. The rich man in Luke 16, for instance.
They live with this daily. Like proper victims, they are reinforced that they are free and
everyone else is bound. But let me tell you: they carry an excruciatingly heavy load.
At this point in life, I'm not even sure it's their fault. We do not, for instance, blame the
battered woman for the bruises and broken bones 'lovingly' bestowed on her by her
aggressor. And court case after court case demonstrates that in the U.S., at least, we
don't even blame her for crimes committed against her kids.
I'm not saying they're right. I think they need to be restrained from dominionist and
reconstructionist or Sharia laws in free nations like the U.S., European nations, the UK,
Canada and Australia.
But I think we who know better, especially those of us who have been exposed to the
inside, really need to treat them with gentleness and respect. I know for me at least,
when I look deep inside, or late at night when thoughts come, I really do pity their squalid
state.
Curious what you all think of this, whatever your persuasion.
In a lot of ways I see what you mean. We really should have more compassion toward those held hostage by fundamentalism of any stripe. I’ve already told the story of the guy I roomed with at the Carroll Center, with whom I had a discussion about his particular brand of evangelical Christianity. Everyone, in his view, who did not accept Christ unconditionally and unthinkingly as their lord and savior, was going to hell whether they’d ever heard of him or not, and no matter how otherwise saintly their lives were overall. A couple days later, he threatened suicide. Maybe it was the conversation we had where I accused his brand of Christianity of being particularly vindictive and cruel? Maybe more than a few of such people question these beliefs. Whatever your view of death and any afterlife is, one cannot deny, if one logics it out, that it is pretty cruel to condemn billions of souls to hell, if it exists, for no other reason than that they believe differently than you. And I see where succeeding generations are also worthy of pity. I knew a family years ago who home-schooled their children because they quite literally did not want them “converted” into homosexuality. They taught the kids that the earth was 10,000 years old, that man once lived with dinosaurs, and that carbon dating was a myth. Birth control, you know, is sinful because you’re disobeying God’s first commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Also, if you were fortunate to be born with a penis, you were superior to those who did not have one. I pity those children when they get out into the real world and are finally allowed to grow up, assuming they’re ever allowed to venture out into the wider world and realize what a crock of shit they were fed for years. But my compassion is not limitless. I cannot idly stand by and allow those that I call Christofascists to impose their worldview on me or mine. They are free to hate if they wish and to even preach it, I suppose, for we have this thing called the First Amendment that allows them so to do. But they should not be allowed to impose their politics on the rest of us and create a less free world than we have now. They should not be allowed to use religious freedom to impose my right to marry the guy of my choice, if I’m ever so lucky. They should not be allowed to bully schoolboards into accepting myth and legend over reason. And they should not be allowed to impose their will on my female friends or family members into bearing a child of rape if it should ever happen. Somebody’s agenda has to prevail here, and frankly, I’d rather it be mine.
So would I. I look at it like schizophrenics or others with delusions and bouts of raving.
We have compassion for such people but we do not allow them to run things.
Many who come out of there express a lot of abused tendencies, and those people do
need our help.
But ironically, if more people saw fundamentalism as institutionalized madness, it would
also have a lot less power. And those who want out but are confused could get help from
the rest of us.
But the guy you mentioned? His madness killed him, not you.
He’s not dead as far as I know; he just threatened it. As for fundamentalism being madness, I think that’s a tough call. Can it be? Probably, but the other guy I told you about? The one who turned his wife into a brood mare and his kids into happy little fundamentalist Baptist inquisitors? Apparently he bewilders his parents and sibs because they’re not like that. So, if it’s madness, I think there’s a part of some people that actively choose to be mad. The rest of us may not know the answers, but we know that we don’t know. I believe I have my answer, but I don’t know it to be real. I hope it is. But the last thing I’d want to do is impose it on others because like I’ve said in other postings, everything regarding metaphysical questions is theory, not knowledge. That is my belief. Besides, I waiver in my beliefs because I don’t know.
And then if you were born with a penis you have to cut off the very tip of it because god commands it. I've always found the Christian god's obscession with penises just a bit creepy.
There are the ones who were raised in it. Then there are the ones drawn to it because they were lacking something in their lives. These often overlook the darker inside aspects of what is going on under there, because they really need to belong and find their own way, as it were. This is also what I heard from a woman who escaped the Raj Niche group our here in Oregon in the 1980s. There's not a lot of difference between fundamentalism and other cults. The difference is, fundamentalism has social sanction and other cult groups do not. But they all exercise the same type of control, fear of leaving, micromanagement of activities and so on.
Just like Raj Niche and other cults, they even hanve accountability systems to keep people's thought from going heretical, and to check up on each other's lives. It is all couched in sweetness and light but it is neither of these.
I do think it's extremely important to see it from their point of view. But that's easier said than done. I know some might see this as being extreme, and I know not everyone is like this, but try treating someone shouting and holding up a sign saying "God hates fags" with gentleness and respect.
And on a sidenote, here's something for anyone who might be interested. Here in Southern California, several radio stations carry broadcasts from L.A. Theater Works. (I think some out of state stations also run these plays.) Anyway, they did a play a couple years back called End Days. It follows a woman who believes the end of the world is coming, her rebellious teenage daughter, and her husband who was injured during the 9-11 terrorist attacks. I thought it was a really interesting play because it provided the perspective of the mother and her thoughts and beliefs, complete with an actor as the voice of Jesus in her head. They have a rerun every now and then, and the play can also be purchased at www.latw.org.
Very interesting. Now, I don't think we need to treat with kid gloves those who are out waving the signs and desecrating funerals. The Supreme Court went too far on that one, in my opinion.
However, when I wrote this, I was only referring to the groupthink adherents, those who go along with it and are maybe convinced, but not yet primed to blow up buildings or conduct protests at funerals or similar events.
I think you have to cross a line to psychopathy to do that. Where that line is and what it looks like, is beyond my ability to say.
Interesting about this play you found: reminds me of a woman who, after 9/11, had a reconversion experience. Her daughter joined her and her son aged 11 or so, was still not interested.
so, they hid behind the couches when he came home from school so as to mimmick the rapture having happened to scare him into conversion.
Now, I can't blame her specifically: she was a vulnerable human being taken advantage of by this movement. But this so-called truth-telling movement must use deception? Faith is, as I have often said, such a pitiable and frail thing. It even needs deception to uphold it.
You have that poor person shaken into acting this way, all the way up to intellectuals who should know better, like the infamous Ken Ham, curator of the so-called Creation Museum, fraught with half-truths and outright lies about biological and geological processes, complete with stunning statistics and misapplied formulas up on Powerpoint presentations and a lot of special effects.
Look at another of their famous Christian Republican apologists, Dinesh D'Souza, infamous commentator and host of the show "Let My People Think." This is an assent to some form of intellectualism flashing with anecdotal findings and straw man arguments. One of his better ones is his argument about us atheists. Knowing he cannot argue the relativist and other drivel he uses against the new age and similar types, he turns to accusation of our fidelity. I paraphrase, but he says we are atheists not in our minds but our sex organs: that the law to not commit adultery is what causes us to not believe in God, particularly his god.
I suppose he calls those poor ignorant polytheistic primitive peoples atheists then? They engage in far more frequent sex outside of a monogamous relationship than anybody does in the West. But, I suppose, he has to turn to such an argument, since his actual arguments have no merit. He is at least consistent in ignoring facts, however: fidelity is a foundational aspect to societies, human as well as other primates. What agreements get made depends on the group in question, but fidelity to said agreements is what hold a social species together. Of course, since faith is such a weak and frail thing, his real effort is to dehumanize us. Is it sour grapes, or just plain old ingroup/outgroup bias?
I separate the garden variety fundie on the street from the likes of Fred Phelps, Dinesh D'Souza, Ken Ham, and others.
Funny then that D'Souza made illegal campaign contributions...through his mistress.
Anyway, I saw once a clip on Youtube from some talk show where one of the Phelps girls who left the church met the family of one of the soldiers who's funeral they picketed it. It was heartbreaking to hear how genuinely sorry she was about what she'd done. I think I remember you, LeoGuardian, on another board saying something along the lines of we need to give some space to those who have just left their religion to avoid overwhelming them. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would see what the WBC has done as unforgivable, or at the least difficult to overlook, but I think it's incredibly important to treat people like her with the gentleness and respect you mentioned.
Finally, there's a great video on Youtube of Nate Phelps speaking at some festival. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBBC87vMQRY
He talks about his childhood and what led him to leave the church. At the very least, this should give some insight into what's going on in their heads.
I didn't know this about D'Souza, though one might have otherwise suspected. It does seem those with the greatest tendency to deride others' fidelity are likewise unfaithful themselves. We expect in others what we ourselves often do.
You probably know I am married to a Christian, one who does not identify as fundamentalist but does identify as having evangelical beliefs. You're right about us needing our space, and this was hard: I know She wanted to be more involved in the process of my decision, because for them this is not a person's decision but a group one, if that makes sense.
She actually does not identify with the apologists, nor does she want any of them from a church she attends to try and talk me into it anymore. It's important for us skeptics to demonstrate humanity by respecting the people, even if we can't abide by the beliefs. And people like Her, and some others I could name on this site, don't go along with the terrorist-friendly extremists like Fred Phelps and Dinesh D'Souza, even if their beliefs share some commonalities.
In Her case, for Her sake, I hope She dies before I do: there is nothing worse that I can imagine, than a Christian believing their loved one is in eternal torment. Of course, you and I as a couple skeptics have found the whole idea unresolvable. But I have seen real living humans who truly thought this, and it was in their cries of torment that I saw the Hell of Jonathan Edwards' orgasmic speeches. St. Thomas Aquinas was dreadfully wrong: These will not, as he claims they would, be enraptured by the screams of the damned, nor would their pleasure be made complete by watching the tortured souls in Hell. St. Thomas Aquinas, the author of the Five Proofs, a Christian patriarch himself, wrote this. And if you see A Christian who has lost a so-called unbelieving loved one, you will see the fires of hell in their expression and demeanor, and never be able to forget what you saw. The one I did see in this state, clung to me, not unlike the drowning victim I rescued as a igh school student. Only in the Christian's case, there was no way for me to provide relief or safety of dry land. It is an awful sight to behold.
The same text that is supposed to comfort them and judge us infidels, leaves them tortured while the nonbeliever quite naturally blinked out of existence. That is why I would hope that She expired before I did. And it is also why there are some who are not living with me, that I will probably never come out completely to as an atheist. I see no need for, or humanity in, contributing to their torments, from which neither their book nor their deity gives them reprieve.
I doubt that Fred Phelps or his kind actually experience any of this which is common to most of these Christians. But they will use those feelings as a way to control their movements. They are, after all, already guilt-ridden about the effects, real and imagined, of their actions and even thoughts! Not standard conscience for things real, but guilt over things imagined, and the crime of not having hindsight ahead of time.
Of course, to us skeptics it is nonsensical illusion thrust upon them. But to us humanitarians, it is awful and inhumane the way they are wrung through this constantly.
It is ironic that those of us who acknowledge we have no souls are painfully aware of what devastating consequences this belief system has on otherwise innocent people, people who did not bargain for this when they joined or had an experience.
honestly, I agree with much of your ideas in theory. But i'll admit, its really,
really, really difficult for me to find any reason to respect a particular extremist
christian on here. I just haven't found a logically sound way to respect them
yet.
I don't imply you give their ideas equal weight, or respect the beliefs. By that I mean the belief system, its apologists and its bronze-age deity I do not find respectable at all. However, in remembering their humanity, I only mean that we know, even if some of them have forgotten, that they are far more than the one-dimensionality of their beliefs.
Respect is one of those words I think we have given too much meaning to. Respecting someone's humanity / personhood is one thing. Finding a set of tenentsrespectable is something else entirely. People of a particularly narrow persuasion, whatever persuasion that may be, give off the illusion that they are one-dimensional, at times. But as humans, they and we, are multidimensional creatures. And this doesn't mean we don't become infernally frustrated with some of their antics.
But, unlike you, I have parented a teenager, and still have to give said college-age daughter of mine the occasional chewing-out for putting things off and the like, or tell her to simmer down when the drama gets too intense. At those times I could just pull my hair out, turning that little thin spot on top into a nice wide desert patch.
It is this frame of mind i'm talking about. I admit I have always been less concerned about beliefs than I have of resultant actions. Also, am unwilling to castigate a whole group for the actions of a few. This is perhaps something a whole horde of hash-tagging hipsters on Twitter could learn just a bit.