What's with the uptick in religious fundamentalism on ATS

reply to post by kenochs


Kenochs - I feel your pain.

Many of the more vociferous atheists and agnostics have been driven from ATS because of these moronic 'fundies'. They're like ants, they get everywhere, and make a disgusting mess when you trample on them cranially.

But this is the net - 'the great unrestricted'. These people come to places like this to reinforce their self-delusion, to identify the 'heathen', the 'enemy' and the 'holy' in their skewed and quite frankly unhealthy view. I would say that the lions share of them are crazy American Baptists, with a good measure of Mormons and JW's mixed in. It's great fun playing 'Spot the Muslim' they're that rare! Then you've got the usual measure of new-age spiritualists and general 'stargods' types. 'There's nought so queer as folk.'

I have made threads like this before, as well as commented on the fundies, and usually, I get shot down or shut up / censored by moderators. We can't bash the fundies - they make up too large a demographic of visitors to the site! We cant alienate a key demographic now can we? (CoughCough Atheists CoughCough)

Good to meet another fan of empiricism and rationality on the site!

Parallex.

Originally posted by Parallex
I have made threads like this before, as well as commented on the fundies, and usually, I get shot down or shut up / censored by moderators. We can't bash the fundies

As an agnostic within the group you mention, I must take umbrage with the statement quoted. There is a wide mix of personal belief within the staff and no one staffer acts on their own without the rest being in the know of what went down.

Yes. There are a lot of threads and posts concerning religious issues which pepper the forums. That's to be expected when the majority of humankind has religion. That it winds up being discussed on a board which promotes social commentary is no surprise to me.

Debate and critical thinking is the proper way to debate such issues, either pro or con.

There's only one real BIG problem with today's so-called right wing christian 'fundamentalists' especially in the US - they purport to 'believe every word of the bible' but 99.9% of these persons cannot read a single word of Koine Greek, Unpointed Paleo-Hebrew and have even less Galilean Aramaic under their belts.

Also, the vast majority have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE as to how the books that form their 'bible' came to be voted into the 'bible' by all those raucous councils in antiquity (most of whom were casting aspersions at other councils who were casting aspersions at them) and harldy any of them are conversant with the hand-copied (and therefore 'hand-manipulated') manuscript mess of both the so-called 'old' and 'new' testaments of their 'bible' in different places and different times before c. the year 400 CE-- and all the deliberate changes that occured to the texts over time in different places, especially at the very very earliest stages of their written transmission (even more so from the oral to the written stages).

Added to this, very very very few of modern day persons who style themeselves as 'fundamentalist Christians' have any kind of working knowledge of the actual contents of the Dead Sea Scroll material found in Caves 1-11 at Qumran (beisdes not being able to read them for themselves, that is !) or the very very very very sticky contradictory MSS Old Testament situation unravelled by Origen in his Hexapla of the various versions of the Greek 'Old Testaments' that were circulating from around 150BCE to his own time in the early 3rd century (e.g. Symmachus, Aquilla, Theodotion and others)--which was further compounded when Caves 1, 4 and 11 were re-opened beginning in Nov of 1946 at Qumran (despite the Ecole Biblique's plan to keeping these facts a secret away from the prying eyes of the masses for more than 40 years)...

Even more serious is the fact that most of today's 'fundamentalist Christians' have little working knowledge of the 1st century Judaean Messianic movements that sprouted up over time in Palestine during successive waves of Occupation (Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman) and the brief periods of political Liberation in places (i.e. the Macabbean revolt which freed Jerusalem from the Syrian Greeks in 140BCE ) and the reaction to those events as they played out in the arrest and execution for 'armed sedition against Rome' ('Luke' 22:35-40) of their purported founder during the 'Insurrection' in 36 CE (see 'Mark' 14:53-56)

One 'originally-fundamentalist Christian' scholar--(Dr Bart Erhman, resident now in North Carolina)--once he got deep into the textual weeds of the NT by studying all the contradictory new testament texts (5446 Greek MSS, no two alike), eventually had a near nervous breakdown and threw up his hands after 10 years of soul searching and became....(shock and awe !) an 'agnostic'.

So technically, unless all these uneducated modern fundamentalist
'Christians' can get under their own belt the literary and historical tools they need actually to READ & UNDERSTAND THE VERY TEXTS they PURPORT TO BELIEVE EVERY WORD OF, they are just so much HOT AIR 'blowin in the wind...'





[edit on 14-1-2010 by Sigismundus]

reply to post by Sigismundus


Well,it says God will use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise!

People don't have to be Bible scholars to see the hand of God in the world around them

The Bible states that believers are to keep watch. I understand how people could have mistaken the End of Days coming years ago,but that doesn't mean they were wrong to be watching!

God does say in the last days He would pour out His spirit,and I think that is also something we are witnessing. He also said there would be scoffers,people who refuse to listen.(Nothing terribly new about that!)

As for science,it is useful in studying what is,but when the agenda is used to debunk the existence of God,then I lose respect for what they say.(That's my perogative.)

Just look at the Global Warming situation,and how scientists all over the world have been paid to espouse a false doctrine because of the hidden agenda of it's aim.

So,I'm a fundamentalist Christian,but by seeing all points of view,it only serves to solidify my own beliefs and give me a better picture of what is going on in the world.

What is going on in the world of Science,Politics, and"Spirituality" has only enforced my belief in the End-Times being the times we are in now. I like to observe all aspects and beliefs and see how they converge to form the "bigger picture".

If I am wrong,it won't stop me from watching for the signs! I know if God has said it,then it will happen. For those who don't believe in God,why should what believers say even matter to you?(Or does it bother you that they are taking up space in your otherwise intellectual conversations?)

By the way,have you ever heard that to God a day can be as a thousand years? (So you could rework that "Creation in six days" angle,if you like.)

Trust me,not all Christians have a hidden agenda! Maybe the ones on television do($$$),but people like me are just doing what our Lord tells us to do,share the message of the Lord's return,etc...

There's no force or violence involved,just a message that maybe God is using us to alert others so they will turn to seek answers in Him.

We'll all know the truth in the end,either way. Just watch it play out and let everyone have their say.

The OP has a point.

There are a LOT of uneducated folk on this forum.

Maybe that goes with the territory? Maybe people think that the conspiracies they hear must all be true, and since centers of education don't address things like the "nwo" and such, they must not "have the answers," and should therefore be avoided.

Just a thought.

Originally posted by masqua

Originally posted by Parallex
I have made threads like this before, as well as commented on the fundies, and usually, I get shot down or shut up / censored by moderators. We can't bash the fundies

As an agnostic within the group you mention, I must take umbrage with the statement quoted. There is a wide mix of personal belief within the staff and no one staffer acts on their own without the rest being in the know of what went down.

Yes. There are a lot of threads and posts concerning religious issues which pepper the forums. That's to be expected when the majority of humankind has religion. That it winds up being discussed on a board which promotes social commentary is no surprise to me.

Debate and critical thinking is the proper way to debate such issues, either pro or con.

I couldn't agree more. May I also add that my comments weren't an attack on the moderator team as such - more of a commentary on the system in place to deal with the 'religion' issue on ATS.

It appears, that your last sentence above is something I shall have to hold you and the moderator team to. The next time a fundie posts nothing but 'doomsaying' and scripture in a thread, or commits an adhom attack on someone for not being a Christian (these things do not contribute to discussion, they only promote Christianity virally) - I fully expect the moderators to do their duty and delete or edit the post. Is that fair?

Once this starts happening consistently, I will be happy to eat my hat, words, and anything else within reach. I dont blame the people, I blame the system.

Parallex.

[edit on 14-1-2010 by Parallex]

reply to post by Parallex


In other words,you'd like to see Free Speech apply to anyone but "fundies"?


Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Originally posted by Parallex
The next time a fundie posts nothing but 'doomsaying' and scripture in a thread, or commits an adhom attack on someone for not being a Christian (these things do not contribute to discussion, they only promote Christianity virally) - I fully expect the moderators to do their duty and delete or edit the post. Is that fair?

No. It isn't.

Doomsaying is allowed. After all, I'm the author of the Seven Fires thread, which, while not completely doomish still is a frightening prophecy.

Posting only scripture isn't really helpful without some commentary attached. But that depends on how relevant the scripture is to the topic at hand. In other words, such posts might or might not be helpful to the debate.

As far as 'adhom attacks' go, alert the post and if staff agree, they're gone soon enough.

You mentioned promoting Christianity virally... isn't that what just about every religion or sect does? Personally speaking, it's a large part of why I'm agnostic... I don't like to run with the pack like Disney's lemmings. There's a cliff out there somewhere.

Originally posted by kenochs
I'm a journalist by trade... But I have always hoped, and used to see more posters adhering to at least the basic principles of scientific inquiry, on this site. What I am seeing now is a complete abandonment of those rules and more and more posters whose skepticism swings towards an abandonment of science altogether. What that means to me is a flood of people who throw evolution, and climate change and 'scientists' into their over-arching vision of a nightmarish conspiracy against the everyman.
To me that's a bit like saying 'gravity is a conspiracy to keep us all down'. It takes away from what I have always thought is a wonderful venue to examine the fringes of 'scientific' thinking.
I find it sad.

You say "climate change"? From what I hear this is the diversion to move attention away from the "scientific" debacle formerly "global warming". "Climate change": is that like sometimes it's hot and sometimes it's cold? Not just warming like they said last year? Not just warming like Prince Chalres and Al Gore said would end the world in a couple years? In a holy crusade of "scientific" zealotry to force a sanctified UN treaty down the world's throat that would have destroyed economies, shifted wealth, and destroyed populations?

As a journalist, did you miss the fact that the biggest fundamental religious event that occurred over the past two years was a farce called global warming? Or perhaps you are referring to the "scientific inquiry" that led us down the H1N1 vaccine campaign. And that wasn't another zealously sold debacle based on farce, stopped short largely by non-scientists?

What indeed the so-called "principles of scientific inquiry" that you so dearly honor about all else and miss here on ATS?

reply to post by pumpkinorange


"...biggest fundamental religious event that occurred over the past two years was a farce called global warming?"....

How did religious fundamentalism get mixed up with that?!

That was more of an Environmentalist/Gaia/Government idea,if you ask me.

(If you were only kidding,sorry if I didn't catch it!)

[edit on 14-1-2010 by On the Edge]

Originally posted by On the Edge
"...biggest fundamental religious event that occurred over the past two years was a farce called global warming?"....
How did religious fundamentalism get mixed up with that?!
(If you were only kidding,sorry if I didn't catch it!)

Kidding if I wasn't so serious. Watch some Al Gore clips and get back to me if you still think I'm wrong.

reply to post by kenochs


To tell you the truth, the conspiracy in religions forum is for that conspiracies but once in while the mods forget to patrol the forum and its taken over by the fundamentalist Bible pushers and preachers to be use for their end of time propaganda.

You are right we are falling again under the take over.

No thread should be allowed in that forum that doesn't have a conspiracy angle.

plain and simple

reply to post by pumpkinorange


Well,considering I never listen to Al Gore....

I can say with some confidence though that he does not speak for those who profess to follow Jesus Christ!(This man makes millions off of lying!)

Many people will speak as though they are speaking to or for Christians,just to try and get them on their side. Politicians do it all the time!

And if he did mention "God",I can only remind you that not everyone's idea of God is the same!

Gee, as a Christian, I was feeling quite the opposite...that there was a great falling away. In fact, rarely is there an honest and sincere attempt at a discussion of religion, when suddenly an emphatic and vocal army of atheists,skeptics, and immature detractors fall upon us. Many times hurling insults along with scientific data and theories, they try very hard to disprove something that, in their minds, doesn't exist.
Further, when you have forums and threads that include discussions of one-world governments and rulers, devestation from space object impacts, one-world currencies, wars in the Middle East, implants of chips,world wide disease-epidemics, massive hunger, all of which are part of Biblical prophecy... don't be suprised when the Christians show up.
I do understand why it is hard for many to accept the idea of God, and yet the idea of alien reptillians that eat babies running our government seems perfectly reasonable... yeah right.

Originally posted by kenochs
I'm a journalist by trade, and when I originally began reading a year or two ago I found this to be a site to get a lead on interesting events going on terrestrially and otherwise and to read some reasonably intelligent scientific discussion of events that don't get a whole lot of press.

I'm a trained skeptic and used to really enjoy the give and take with those far more credulous and generally it's been a lot of fun.

But lately I can't open any thread, especially threads related to Obama or 2012 without someone telling me the end times are coming and Obama is the Anti-Christ and that I need to get right with God. And as we all know, it is impossible to have a scientific discussion about faith, its counterintuitive, and counterproductive.

Faith... is, and if you believe, well, generally I find that's that. I got no problem with accepting the great unknowable.

But I have always hoped, and used to see more posters adhering to at least the basic principles of scientific inquiry, on this site. What I am seeing now is a complete abandonment of those rules and more and more posters whose skepticism swings towards an abandonment of science altogether. What that means to me is a flood of people who throw evolution, and climate change and 'scientists' into their over-arching vision of a nightmarish conspiracy against the everyman.
To me that's a bit like saying 'gravity is a conspiracy to keep us all down'. It takes away from what I have always thought is a wonderful venue to examine the fringes of 'scientific' thinking.
I find it sad. Any thoughts?


[edit on 14-1-2010 by kenochs]

So very very true. My wife studied Journalism as a part of her degree and like you (and i) has a skeptical mind. Skepticism is healthy and is what keeps fiction and fact seperate.

I can't add anymore to what you said becuase you hit the proverbial nail on the head.

Good Work Mate.

Originally posted by Sigismundus
There's only one real BIG problem with today's so-called right wing christian 'fundamentalists' especially in the US - they purport to 'believe every word of the bible' but 99.9% of these persons cannot read a single word of Koine Greek, Unpointed Paleo-Hebrew and have even less Galilean Aramaic under their belts.

Also, the vast majority have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE as to how the books that form their 'bible' came to be voted into the 'bible' by all those raucous councils in antiquity (most of whom were casting aspersions at other councils who were casting aspersions at them) and harldy any of them are conversant with the hand-copied (and therefore 'hand-manipulated') manuscript mess of both the so-called 'old' and 'new' testaments of their 'bible' in different places and different times before c. the year 400 CE-- and all the deliberate changes that occured to the texts over time in different places, especially at the very very earliest stages of their written transmission (even more so from the oral to the written stages).

Added to this, very very very few of modern day persons who style themeselves as 'fundamentalist Christians' have any kind of working knowledge of the actual contents of the Dead Sea Scroll material found in Caves 1-11 at Qumran (beisdes not being able to read them for themselves, that is !) or the very very very very sticky contradictory MSS Old Testament situation unravelled by Origen in his Hexapla of the various versions of the Greek 'Old Testaments' that were circulating from around 150BCE to his own time in the early 3rd century (e.g. Symmachus, Aquilla, Theodotion and others)--which was further compounded when Caves 1, 4 and 11 were re-opened beginning in Nov of 1946 at Qumran (despite the Ecole Biblique's plan to keeping these facts a secret away from the prying eyes of the masses for more than 40 years)...

Even more serious is the fact that most of today's 'fundamentalist Christians' have little working knowledge of the 1st century Judaean Messianic movements that sprouted up over time in Palestine during successive waves of Occupation (Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman) and the brief periods of political Liberation in places (i.e. the Macabbean revolt which freed Jerusalem from the Syrian Greeks in 140BCE ) and the reaction to those events as they played out in the arrest and execution for 'armed sedition against Rome' ('Luke' 22:35-40) of their purported founder during the 'Insurrection' in 36 CE (see 'Mark' 14:53-56)

One 'originally-fundamentalist Christian' scholar--(Dr Bart Erhman, resident now in North Carolina)--once he got deep into the textual weeds of the NT by studying all the contradictory new testament texts (5446 Greek MSS, no two alike), eventually had a near nervous breakdown and threw up his hands after 10 years of soul searching and became....(shock and awe !) an 'agnostic'.

So technically, unless all these uneducated modern fundamentalist
'Christians' can get under their own belt the literary and historical tools they need actually to READ & UNDERSTAND THE VERY TEXTS they PURPORT TO BELIEVE EVERY WORD OF, they are just so much HOT AIR 'blowin in the wind...'

[edit on 14-1-2010 by Sigismundus]

Id be amazed if YOU could read and understand any of those languages yourself. Check your own knowledge before pointing fingers at everyone else.

Are you an archaeological anthropologist and linguist? I bet you that you aren't.

Looks like you have pie on your face buddy - im not taking any sides here - but you just made an assertion that no one here reads languages that are not in existence anymore aside from in their aincient texts..

Also, looks like more anti-religious spew from a completely biased source. That's just me being skeptical, but hey, i couldnt read the first 2 paragraphs without finding incredible prejudice against some people or religious ideologies.

Talk about closed minded

reply to post by Parallex

I see your point and ultimately my post was just a rant.
I'm certainly wouldn't suggest that any comments be banned (beyond the general demands polite discussion) so I'm not sure anything should be changed.
But, still, on a post about a haiti-shaped sunspot, I would like to see some attempt to keep the discussion on topic.
What a Haiti shaped sunspot has to do with eschatology is still beyond me, and its annoying to see things go so awry.

reply to post by On the Edge

Sigmundus,
I love it how fundamentalist Christians always believe their time is the end time.
And I know that you know that as well. If you really believe it, would you please send me all your stuff, so as not to be encumbered by earthly goods when you get taken up. Also stop driving because if you get taken up while on the road, you could cause an accident.
I hate to break it to you but the world mosies along, there is no end time. If there is an end to 'us', it seems most likely we'll either poison ourselves slowly, or blow ourselves up quickly (seems to me).
The whole Antichrist, tribulation stuff is great movie fodder, but John's book, is such an odd addition to the New Testament, and it comes so out of nowhere, that I've never been able to even consider it as anything more than allegory... like the Pentateuch.
Anyway, I know my opinion doesn't matter to you, but if you are interested in handing over all of your worldly goods to me, just to prove your devotion to the end times (which after all really only encompass a 7 year period) I'll be happy to give you my address off line.

reply to post by pumpkinorange

I don't want to get into a debate with you on global warming.
The world's best scientists say it's real, Climategate isn't at all what people hoped it would be.
Both poles are melting, glaciers are melting, Greenland and Iceland are melting. And according to the world's best scientists we are contributing to it.
It's not an agenda, it's science. Ignore it at your children's, grandchildren's peril.

reply to post by FeralMonkeyMagic

thanks for the note.