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Originally posted by chavos
but when outsiders accept the claims that fundamentalists rule Christianity, it just makes the problem worse. adn it results in a lack of respect for moderates. i'm not saying that fundamentalists don't exist, or that you shouldn't talk about them. I'm saying that because a person is Christian doesn't make them anything else.
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OK, here's the point I'm trying to make about Fundamentalists: They're not Christians; they're Old Testament fetishists who have mistaken symbol for substance. HOWEVER, they loudly, stridently even, proclaim that they are the only real Christians. Now, your post is a step in the right direction. What Chrisians across the spectrum need to do to avoid being associated with these non-Christians in all but name is to publicly rebuke them. When I see the Pope (going to have to be the next one) on CNN saying that Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, and their followers are not Christians, and really need to stop their hijacking of Christ's good name, then my problems with Christianity as a whole will decrease by about a third.
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I will rebuke them, but from with in the community...not in an attempt to throw them out. its big, happy, dysfunctional family...and so i'm simply asking for folks to not do guilt by association. its a logical fallacy, rude, and unfitting of debate here. all i ask.
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It is a big, dysfunctional family with an armed, drunk, weird old uncle in the room, who is shooting holes in the walls and who no one seems to be able to admit needs to be locked up for the evening at least, for the long haul most likely. You've got a black sheep in the flock. It's making a terrible racket. Please don't be upset with the neighbors for calling the cops, and undersand that if you get bent out of shape at the cops for not controlling what goes on in you're house, you're likely to get hauled away too. (Now how's that for a dreadfully mixed metaphor? Opus grade!)
So you can call it guilt by association if you like, but guilt <u>of</u> association would be more accurate. Look, if I start putting dark beer in Coca Cola bottles and selling it to grade schoolers, not only would they lock me up, but Coca Cola would sue the bejeezus out of me for defaming their brand. Jesus is your brand. He's your trademark, and he is being diluted, deleted, and deranged every day by walking hairspray ads with televison cameras. If you (all Christians) don't do something about this, daily, vigorously, effectively, until that brand is yours and yours alone again, then you cannot justly complain that you are being unfairly accused.
Things are done in the name of your brand, your religion, like it or not, and if you don't disown the acts and repudiate publicly the actors, then you share their guilt. An undefended trademark belongs to no one.
Look, Fundamentalists are Dangerous. They are willfully ignorant, unable to separate metaphor from reality, and positively hostile to the manifest truth that their holy book is, just as much as a sacred writing, a political document compiled by men for political reasons 1600 years old. These people do not deserve respect. They deserve ridicule at best, perhaps with a measure of pity. That they can behave that way in the name of Christ without massive derision from Christians is nothing less than negligent on the part of believing Christians everywhere. They are clowns and it is as much or more your responsibility as it is mine to make people know that. I am not a Christian. (I believe in universal personal divinity) I can only be taken so seriously when I tell people that the fundies must be reduced to the status of Juggalos or this country and the world are in trouble but goot. Cast your eyes to the whitehouse and know fear that I am right. When Christians - church going, cross wearing, believing by God Christians - start constantly and consistently repudiating, mocking, disavowing, disowning, and otherwise opposing fundamentalism, then we can all rest easy again.
All Christians own Christianity. It is their responsibility to keep non-Christians from claim jumping.
Chavos, it's a good post. It's a start. Take responsibility for your religion, even if you won't take responsibility for your own godhood (there's my quirky religion). It doesn't need to be holy war. All you need is love and laughter to drive these delusional people back into their holes.