T or F: Fundamentalists have bad morals

[BurtWorm]

Discuss.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. They got lost

when they stopped following the teachings of Jesus.

Most fundies follow the OT and Paul of Tarsus who dominates the NT.

[benburch]

2. True, because ALL Morals are bad.

Morals are received fossilizations of ethical decisions made long ago. They not only insensitive to situations, but they become taboos to be imposed upon others who do not share the same "faith" as the fundamentalists.

And since there is no evidence of any god whatsoever, no received set of fossilized ethics could possibly have any actual authority.

[Finder]

3. No different than the rest of the population, except...

there are a small percentage that take the "saved" part to the extreme in thinking they can do anything and be forgiven. Blaming their sins on demonic attacks and such allows them to avoid personal responsibility.

[EVDebs]

4. Father forgive them for they know not what they do...eom

[Turbineguy]

5. "In case of Rapture

this car will have no driver"

2 tons of uncontrolled metal going 65 mph on a crowded road. That pretty well sums it up for me.

[Proud_Democratt]

28. Where is the word "Rapture" in the Bible? The word "Rapture"

was made up by early 20th century evangelists used as a scare tactic to convert more non-thinking folks.

[saltpoint]

6. Often, they assert a "special" relationship with their god or savior,

whether Christian or Muslim or you name it, which serves the purpose of elevating them on the moral plain above non-believers. For many, it's a free pass to look down their noses at others.

"I have something you don't have."

It's smug and anti-intellectual and anti-social, and comes close to immoral.

[Ezlivin]

7. I don't know, I'm too busy coveting my neighbor's ass

My...my...my.

[napi21]

8. Not bad morals, but different than others, and they are not willing

to accept the fact that everyone has the right to their own beliefs and morals. They believe they have a duty to convert everyone to THEIRS!

[mntleo2]

9. True

They often ignore the core teachings of Jesus and instead concentrate on things he never mentioned, such as homosexuality. They think being rich is being loved more by God when in reality Jesus told them that it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. They build mega-churches and do not serve anyone but their own when Jesus told them in the story of the Good Samaritan, that that man was by far more God's child than the Jews who passed by their wounded brother. Jesus told us, not that HE was the way, the truth and the life, but that the teachings he spoke about were, while fundies think they are the *only* ones blessed by God because they believe in Jesus as a god. The idea of the apocalypse was introduced in the mid-1800s and before then, it was not a concept in the Christian world, yet not only do fundies believe in it, they are actively trying to create it ~ even though the so-called "Whore Of Babylon" mentioned in Revelations, behaved just like they do with their preacher's private jets and mansions bought from widow's mite money. Oh. And BTW, that whore comes from Iraq.

I could go on, but, need I? Suffice it to say, you can be as faithful to your wife, but if you steal from the poor and give to the rich, you are by far a worse sinner, IMO. And while all of us at one time or the other are hypocritical about what we say versus what we do, these people are blind to it and have no intentions of seeing what they promote, using God as their excuse. Suffice it to say, they are blatant hypocrites!

Cat In Seattle

[Homer Wells]

10. Lost is the correct word.

Although there are many on the Fundamentalist side who are indeed using the great social crises of the time to build up their own power, and exhibiting all of the seven deadly sins, I think a great majority of the so called Fundamentalists are "lost at sea". They see the society changing so fast around them, so much of the change seeming to be leveled against all they have been taught to believe by their parents and grand-parents. Those who lead the Fundies offer them a plan to avenge themselves on these "heathen" people.
It also seems to me that the fundamentalists are quite mentally and morally lazy or perhaps "willfully ignorant" (i.e stupid). They believe their path to salvation is one of following the directions of those in charge. Fundamentalists appear to have their own interpretation of Christianity. It is a bizarre amalgam of Old Testament Judaism (with the angry ands spiteful God (Jehovah) running rampant over all enemies), married to an angry and avenging Jesus Christ, encouraging his followers to kill all sinners in His name. Now, I am no Bible scholar by any means, but My JESUS taught love, compassion, hope, and peace. There is no excuse for their type of behavior.
I think Fundies see themselves as "moral", but do not appear to have the depth of spirituality to even conceive of what true morality is.
Again, I prefer to think of them as foolish and petty, rather than as pure evil. The truly evil ones are those who encourage and applaud this behavior, all the time following their own evil agenda.
So my answer to the original question, is Yes and No. It is impossible to paint this complex movement with one over all color.
"Of course, this is my opinion, I could be wrong!"- Dennis Miller
:shrug: :dilemma: :hippie: PEACE

[ktlyon]

11. If they don't follow the "Golden Rule" the answer is true.

see Karen Armstrong's new book "The Great Tranformation".... very interesting

[BurtWorm]

18. That's the best answer so far.

But I'm very impressed with how well my fellow DUers handled this question.

:applause:

[iamahaingttta]

12. The root of the word Fundamentalist...

... is Fundament.

Which basically means Ass. As in where they pull their "morals" out of. Their Asses. 'Cause it's all a bunch of made up shit. Their "morals" that is...

[PublicWrath]

14. I noticed that, too. Speaks volumes....... n/t

[PublicWrath]

13. According to studies, Christian fundamentalism in the family is second

only to paternal drug abuse as a predictor of child sexual abuse.

Another fact: In the larger population, familial child sexual abuse is most commonly perpetrated by stepfathers. However, incest is so common in fundamentalist families that in this subgroup natural fathers sexually abuse at higher rates than stepfathers.

[okasha]

19. PublicWrath, I'd like to follow up on that.

Could you post a link or other source?

Thanks.

[PublicWrath]

22. Sure.

Also, there are several websites dedicated to helping the survivors of sex abuse in fundy homes. One in particular has several pages of insights by a psychologist who has worked with many perpetrators of this stripe. His views are very interesting. I'll try to find it for you. In the meantime, here's a passage (it was posted on a personal webpage, but it was the quickest grab in context that I could find for you), from a recent book widely quoted on this subject. It is by no means the only book dealing with this connection. I've heard the same claim made omitting alcohol in the first category, but it might just be a misquote of this particular research.

"A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if you want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their father, the second most significant clue is *whether or not the parents belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs and rigid sexual attitudes*. (Brown and Bohn, 1989; Finkelhor, 1986; Fortune, 1983; Goldstein et al, 1973; Van Leeuwen, 1990). (emphasis in original)


<"Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches", by Carolyn Holderread Heggen, Herald Press, Scotdale, PA, 1993 p. 73>

[PublicWrath]

24. Here's something else......

www.humiliationstudies.org

Humiliation in the Home
by Miriam H. Marton

http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/MartonBerlin05meeting3.pdf

[Crunchy Frog]

15. During my period of listening to Fundie radio,

one of the main themes that I picked up on was a complete lack of belief in, or practice of, personal responsibility.

The basic line seemed to be that we are all sinners; that the sin of all of us is equally offensive to God ( the person who feels anger towards his brother, equal in the sight of the LORD to the serial killer); that it was impossible to avoid sinning and offending said LORD, that the main purpose of any system of rules, ethics or morality in the Bible was simply to show us how inadaquate we were, and how incapable of not sinning.

The main upshot of it seemed to be, that it was impossible to take personal responsibility, but that it didn't matter anyway, since the Fundies were absolved of everything by the death of Jesus. Morality didn't seem to play much of a role in their own identities (although they did still obsess about other people's immorality, usually sexual). Their own bad behavior (when acknowledged) was usually attributed to the Devil making them do it.

On the basis of those observations, I would say yes, they do have bad morals. Having some sort of notion of "right and wrong" that encompasses more than "offensive to God" is, IMHO a prerequisite for morality, as is a sense of personal responsibility. I think statistics tend to bear this feeling out.

[PublicWrath]

16. That is exactly the point made by professionals who work with

fundamentalists who have sexually abused their kids. Fundy perpetrators tend to have an extremely shallow notion of the mechanism of forgiveness and consider themselves instantly forgiven for whatever they've done. Or will do. Another observation by the same professionals connect reliance on Old Testament themes to the perpetrator's sense of ownership of his wife and children.

[Crunchy Frog]

17. The truth is, that when all sin is regarded as equally heinous

(and Fundie view of sin is that you practically can't breathe without sinning) then in effect, no sin is heinous. For many of them therefore, raping your daughter is fundamentally no worse than violating some arcane, Old Testament dietary restriction.

Using Fundie logic, you can let yourself off the hook for anything at all. If everything is a sin, then nothing is a sin, especially if you've already been forgiven.

[okasha]

21. There is a subset of fundamentalists

who seem to believe that once "saved," they literally can't sin--not so much that they lose the desire to sin, but that nothing they do can be a sin. That's scary.

[sinkingfeeling]

20. True: fundies, to use an historical term, cop-out. They never look

at their personal failings as their lack of morals, judgement, or ethics, but as a sin they were tempted to by the devil. Then they cry a few tears and proclaim they've been 'saved' because Jesus is their personal savior.

[PublicWrath]

23. It certainly does seem like a hollow sort of 'morality', doesn't it? ..n/t

[Proud_Democratt]

25. Fundamentalistic leaders are morely likely to lack morality ...

than their followers. The leaders are the deceptive ones.

[Random_Australian]

26. Fundamentalists have incorrect morals.

(Caution: This uses the definition of morals as part of a shared reality and culture that we learn to facilitate particular reactions and interactions when confronted with certain stimuli or sets of information)

[NMMNG]

27. To fundamentalists, morality is all about sex

And sex is bad, period. Homosexuality, sex before marriage, sex outside of marriage, sex for anything but procreation, sex in the media, etc. They want to make anything and everything related to sex shameful if not illegal, taking us back to the days of Puritanism. Pornography, racy literature, television and movies, comprehensive sex-education, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, abortion, birth control and more.

But war-mongering, xenophobia, racism, sexism, classism, imperialism and the like don't bother them at all. In fact, they thrive on them, instill these "values" into their children and ensure that they will continue generation after generation.