A Frustrating Exchange with a Fundamentalist Blogger

I don't even know why I bother reading fundamentalist blogs sometimes. Self hatred, perhaps? 

I don't understand why I have a compulsion to read blogs I know are going to make my blood boil, like William Lane Craig's "Reasonable Faith" website, or John Piper's Desiring God. I don't fully understand why I get in debates with fundamentalists online either, but I keep getting drawn into it, even though most of the time, the fundamentalist at the end, will choose this as their debating tactic:

Having an obsessive personality is a pain sometimes....

Well, today, I run across a fundamentalist blogger saying that the reason fundamentalism is losing people is because churches, because wait for it..... churches are trying to be too modern.

Yes, you read that right, and for those of you who have never been fundamentalists, it seems like a strange argument to make, but I have hear it many times. Here's a quote from the post:

Back to the link. The church is too normal and mainstream to mean anything to young people. Such a great insight. The church just continues to adopt cultural norms and expects to have an effect on society. Today's church reacts to pop culture by...wait for it...becoming more pop culture.  The Bible doesn't do that. It is the Truth. God's Word doesn't care about Sodom and Gomorrah's practices. The Truth is not democratic. A church cannot possibly hope to reach young adults by appearing no different than the rave they went to Saturday night.

It's Time For a Rant.....

Parents in mourning outside the school

I wasn't wanting to talk about the recent school shooting in Connecticut, but I feel that some rumors, and the behavior of people recently needs to be addressed on this blog.

First of all, the people using this tragedy to further their beliefs make me highly uncomfortable. I don't care if you are pro-gun ownership or hate guns with a passion, I think it's inappropriate to use a situation like this to further your political beliefs. It feels to me like people are too eager to exploit these tragic deaths to make a point, and I think it's not right.


People have even been trying to use this tragedy to further their religious beliefs, like politician turned commentator Mike Huckabee. He blamed the shooting on separation of church and state. There have also been fundamentalists on social media repeating arguments along the same lines.

I'll admit, I have been sucked into the debates myself, and in fact, as I am typing this, I'm in the middle a of discussion on the very topic of gun ownership. I just wish that people wouldn't have started the discussions in the first place, at least not so soon after the killings. It shows a complete lack of respect for those who died, almost is if they are using their deaths for their own personal political benefit.

Why I Love Google +

Google + is like no other social network out there, and it's been great for promoting my blog, most of my early readers probably wouldn't even be reading the blog had they not found out about it on Google +.

I love how it's such an open format, and it's easy to share posts, and add people, with Google + "circles", you can send an invite to up to 500 people from a shared circle with two clicks.

What I really enjoy about Google + is the variety of people, and the fun I have interacting with them about the blog, anything I re-share from popular posts, and even my own personal rants in status lines.

Case in point is this, I put up a status ranting about the fact some of my followers were getting hit by what I like to call "report Nazis" , an obnoxious group of people who have nothing people to do than to get overly offended by people's post, and report them for it, causing Google to censor their posts. These people don't have the decency to simply remove people from following and/or block them if they don't like their posts, instead of reporting, and they're too cowardly to admit it was them when it happened.

Well, one Google + follower decided to be offensive as she could be, out of spite of these cowardly reporters, and the resulting conversation took a hilarious turn, with several other people joining in.

Eventually the post ended with a serious discussion on religion, but before it did, the content though funny, is not for the easily offended.....

I love my Google + followers! :)

I Actually Don't Hate Religion. Surprised? Let Me Explain

Hi, you may have noticed that I use the term "fundamentalist" occasionally  OK, often, all right, I give up, I use the term in almost every post ;) I don't know if you have wondered why I use that term instead of "Christianity" or "religion".

There's two reasons for this, one there is a difference between religion and fundamentalism, and two, I don't necessarily have a problem with general, but I definitely have a problem with fundamentalism.

Yes, there is a difference between religion and fundamentalism. Both often go together, but they don't necessarily have to be one and the same. First, I'll define the two, in my own way. Religion typically involves a belief in a deity or deities and a holy text. Often there is a prophet who followers of the religion see as the messenger of the deity, or as a deity himself. Depending on what the religion teaches, that in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, though more often that not, because of the religion's teachings, and/or the actions of it's followers, it becomes destructive.

Religion in and of itself, though I disagree with it, I often have no problems with it, but when belief in a religion becomes a form of fundamentalism, that's when I have a problem. Fundamentalism is the combination of ignorance and intolerance with religion. Fundamentalism in religion is the most common among those who believe that their faith and holy text are infallible (without error), and believe that their faith is the only way to achieve a positive outcome in the afterlife (all those who don't believe, regardless of how morally they lived their life).

Fundamentalism is deliberately isolating yourself from the outside world, because you feel it is too evil, and rejecting anyone as evil because they don't look, act, think, or worship the same deity as you (or refuse to believe in one at all), and forcing your children to do the same, and making it much harder for them to function when they become adults. Fundamentalism is feeling that you and your congregation are more morally superior to others, and putting on a veneer of holiness, when in reality you are no better than everyone else, or are using your act of self-righteous to cover up horrible evil done by yourself or your leaders. Check out my archive of posts on the IFB movement to see what can happen when a group isolates them themselves, and puts on an act of holiness like that.

Fundamentalism is also believing that  you have the right to use the force of law or social pressure to force others to live the same way that you do, and to persecute those who don't look, act or think you do, which happens on a daily basis in the US.

That is what I reject, and despise, not religion itself. I admire those people who still believe in a faith, but are open minded people, and reject fundamentalism. People who believe in loving others, no matter who they are. Some great examples are liberal Christians, I like reading bloggers like John Shore, or Lewis of the anti-fundamentalism blog, Commandments of Men. I enjoy seeing people like St. Louis minister Larry Rice, who has made it the sole mission of his church to help the desperately poor and homeless of the city of St. Louis, and has clashed repeatedly with city government over the treatment of the homeless by the police department of St. Louis.

I also admire Wiccans, all of the Wiccans I have ever encountered in person or online have been very open minded people, one of good friends is a Wiccan, and when I first met her (I met her when I was in the process of getting out of fundamentalism), I was surprised at how she lived out a live of loving and accepting others, more so than the Christians surrounding me who are supposed to be followers of Jesus, who told people to love others as yourself.

See, I don't hate religion, though my rants may lead you to think that sometimes, my real issue is fundamentalism...