Why Christian Fundamentalism is dying

[Must_B_Free]

it's the internet stupid. Check out wikipedia - you can learn more there in a few hours than you could in a semester of study for a particular course. My take is that TV and the internet have created technological learning revolution. No longer do people have to settle for mystic sophistry for answers, they can go out and get the answers themselves quickly.

So I think this great reich on the right is an dying gasp to hold on to these old structures of power. They know they are losing it so they are trying to rekindle the fires of days gone by.

In this day and age of technology, there is no reason not to provide a base level of social services above poverty to every citizen. The only way to hold on to the spoils of the inequity is to perpetuate inequity the only way they know how - terror; in the form of the vehicles with which it is traditionally delivered. Think about it - terror has held us in its sway since the days of human sacrifice.

Anyway, 911 is terror, crucifixion is terror, torture at abu graib is terror, beheading is terror. This stuff is breathing a deep dying breath, you can tell the world just isn't having it anymore.

The past will be put behind us and we will move on.

[WildClarySage]

1. Amen to that. The tide is turning

[Eric J in MN]

2. The fact that information is more easily accessible, doesn't

mean the public is better informed.

Many people who watch Fox News think Saddam Hussein planned 9/11 and the US found wmd in Iraq.

[Must_B_Free]

4. give it a few generations

right wingers I know are getting bored with their propaganda shows - they know they are being lied too...

WHere it falls apart is when they have satisfying social relations with progressives - their "enemies", and they realize that we're really all just people who essentially want the same things.

[laheina]

8. And besides

Religion is not generally concerned with facts. It is surrender to the un-factual.

[rwenos]

3. Unfortunately, You Overstate

I think the fundies are just getting going. They capitalize on the fear of the unknown, fear of the new, fear of change, fear of the complex.

The world has changed more in the last 10 years than from 1945-1994. People either love it or hate and fear it. The fundies are on the march with the ones who hate it or fear it.

"Technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic." The fundies see our high tech world as black magic, just as Muslim fundamentalists do. Comforting, eh?

[anitar1]

6. Fear of Change

One thing I know.Many people hate change. They dream of a world that never existed and want it back again.They rearrange the past in their minds and look back on "the good old days". It is an exercise in futility to try and change their minds. Maybe the Bush World will wake them up , when it starts effecting their pocketbooks.

[laheina]

9. Good point anitar1

and welcome to DU :hi:

[bliss_eternal]

10. Welcome to DU anitar1!

:hi:

[rwenos]

12. Bienvenue, Anitar1

You and the other posters are right -- the base emotions are the raw materials of demagoguery. The RW's are FABULOUS at exploiting people's fear.

And the Muslim fundamentalist crazies are objectively just scary enough to scare just enough people into electing superficial idiots like George W. Bush President.

FDR's "Four Freedoms" included Freedom from Fear.

[AndyTiedye]

5. If Fundamentalism is Dying They Have a Strange Way of Showing It

With a small fraction of the nations population, they have control of
the entire Federal government and many state governments, the media,
and the voting machinez.

The rest of have, uh....

[laheina]

11. That's mixing two issues though.

Really, it's the repugs (who incidentally are using the fundies right now) that have control of the government. That doesn't say much about the state of the fundie movement, which is a complicated issue.

There are lots of factors that contribute to any kind of reading of the status of the fundies that we could work up, but there are a few basic principles in religious studies that we can look at. One is that religions that don't change over time are usually doomed to die. This is because they can't adjust to changes in society-- and times they are a changing. Fundamentalism by nature is static, although not as static as their membership would have us believe.

The second factor is that highly emotional movements that draw large scale movements in a short period of time, tend to burn themselves out just as quickly. They are usually catalyzed by a strong leader or an incident, and once that flash point is over, so is the craziness.

[rwenos]

13. Fundies Static?

I'd like to think you're right about the Fundies being a static movement, caught in a single moment in time. But they've been growing rapidly since they came out from under a rock in 1976.

You're dead on correct about emotional movements -- their shelf-life is short. It'll be interesting to see how long this emotional swing lasts.

[laheina]

14. I would label the last 225 years

of American Protestant thought a little *different*, but by Fundamentalist, I'm thinking primarily of the last one hundred some odd years since Schofield and Moody. (The literalists that swear that the rapture is gonna happen any moment and they need to "save" everybody.)

[AndyTiedye]

16. It is FUNDIES Who Own the Voting Machinez

Not just any Repubs. Fundies. They stole the election for Boosh**.
Everyone in Washington knows that now, so all bow before them.

Fundies are getting the Cabinet appointments. Not just any Repubs. Fundies.
Fundies will be all of Booosh**'s Supreme Court nominees, and the few remaining moderates in the party have been cowed into submission,
so they will not oppose the Fundie takeover of the judiciary.

[knight_of_the_star]

7. Doubt it

Religious fundementalism won't die so long as people still have their base emotions and functions, like fear and hate. As long as there is fight or flight, you won't be able to kill those people off.

[VOX]

15. Fundamentalism can only die when fear and ignorance do...

And maybe I'm looking at the world through a cloud of post-election shit-mist, but unfortunately, I see a sick government and a **very** cooperative media bent on keeping as many people as fearful and as ignorant as possible.

If not for fear and ignorance, why else would a very large segment of the American population vote against its own economic interest? Why else would it elect, albeit by a close margin, a clearly inferior person and candidate? Why else would there be no public outcry against the out-and-out incompentence displayed time and again by this utterly inept administration?

Fear and ignorance -- Karl Rove's two best friends.

[artemisia1]

17. Facts don't matter with these people

You could point out a biblical contradiction directly to a fundie and they would disregard it - even such factual ones as to whether Judas purchased Potter's Field with his 30 pieces of silver or threw them down and immediately committed suicide (the two are mutually exclusive). This does not mean that the gospels are not inspired just that believing THE ABSOLUTE LITERALNESS AND INERRANCY OF EVERY FREAKING THING IN THE BIBLE is a matter of course with these people. You are dealing with far greater motivators than truth, such as; the feeling of community the church gives, a belief in being one of the elect, the certainty that comes with surrendering your critical faculties to dogma, etc. No contest.

[orpupilofnature57]

18. excuse me,who put shrub in again,wake up smell the hypocrisy

[Bridget Burke]

19. Old time Fundamentalism--perhaps....

But they're being used by the Dominionists, who are very close to success. I've posted this in two other threads, but it's not spam. It's quite relevant to much of what we're facing.

www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

The years 1982-1986 marked the period Pat Robertson and radio and televangelists urgently broadcast appeals that rallied Christian followers to accept a new political religion that would turn millions of Christians into an army of political operatives. It was the period when the militant church raised itself from centuries of sleep and once again eyed power.

At the time, most Americans were completely unaware of the militant agenda being preached on a daily basis across the breadth and width of America. Although it was called “Christianity” it can barely be recognized as Christian. It in fact was and is a wolf parading in sheep’s clothing: It was and is a political scheme to take over the government of the United States and then turn that government into an aggressor nation that will forcibly establish the United States as the ruling empire of the twenty-first century. It is subversive, seditious, secretive, and dangerous.

Dominionism is a natural if unintended extension of Social Darwinism and is frequently called “Christian Reconstructionism.” Its doctrines are shocking to ordinary Christian believers and to most Americans. Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written extensively on the subject, warned in 1994 that Dominionism “seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of ‘Biblical Law.’” He described the ulterior motive of Dominionism is to eliminate “…labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.”

[xchrom]

20. two things

internet or no -- i find people less sophisticated, educated and more scary as a result.
even if your scenario is true -- the damage caused on the way out{re:fundies} can be extraordinary -- and profound.
contemporary society -- to distinguish from post modern -- is made up of incredibly small minded people with small horizons.
the great books are left unread, philosophy is dead and the mc-culture is venerated by all.
the future ain't pretty.

[SpiralHawk]

21. "The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."

- Your local DU Mystic Sophist