The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America

The problem isn't just education. The root of the problem is indoctrination. Children are taken to churches, Sunday schools and bible studies before they can even walk.

They are taught the answer to everything is GodDidIt or God'sWill. This leads to generations of people I call simplisticans. Simplisticans believe complex issues and problems are much simpler than they really are. Simplisticans believe the solutions to complex issues and problems are much simpler than they really are.

Evolution - Complex. Adam & Eve - Simple.
Immigration - Complex. Build a wall - Simple.
Terrorism - Complex. Bomb the $hit out of them - Simple.

 

Epitome of an oxymoron: Humble Christian

 

Take a quick look into your pantry. See any canned or packaged foods? Take a look into your fridge. Did you get that milk from your cow or those eggs from your chickens? Did you slaughter your pig and smoke your bacon?

Most fundamentalists do not live on self sustaining farms. They live in the suburbs and go to same stores as anyone else.

 

I think your point in relation to Hillbillies is a good one. With the internet people are exposed to far more idea's than in the past.

In days of old those living in a smaller city were not exposed as often to ideas which conflicted with religious doctrine. The social coercion in relation to such ideas is also much greater in a small town.

 

Uh Huh.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...cs-and-demographics-of-food-stamp-recipients/

 

You do more than expect the rest of the world to think as you do. You want everyone to do as you think. As just one example...

You want deny women the right to abortion because your religion tells you to think it's wrong. You want to impose your moral views on other people.

 

Care to give some examples of liberals "suppressing citizens right to express opposition thinking".

 

Hmm, I thought the Bush who invaded Iraq to get their Middle East oil, was a conservative.

 

What's an agnostic atheist?

 

Study uncovers how brain damage increases religious fundamentalism

http://www.psypost.org/2017/05/study-uncovers-brain-lesions-increase-religious-fundamentalism-48860

 

Uh Huh
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-twoworlds/1672

http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths_14.html

Golly Gee. Sumthin musta happened.

 

Google "political correctness + campus + first amendment" and get a clue. The problem predates Ann Coulter's unfortunate recent experience at the hand of liberal lunatics at Berkeley.

 

https://cousinavi.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/christian-fundamentalists-the-village-idiots/

 

Nothing like defending the fundamentalist mentality that precludes science, history and facts in absolute faith that their interpretation of a bronze age book is the direct inerrent word of god. But, on the other side, awareness of one's own mortality is a powerful motivator of faith since many desperately wish to believe that the soliloquy that runs thru all our heads shall somehow survive our recycling.

 

The science and history in the Bible is flawed to bad. The Old Testament is Jewish poetry, more or less. The moral code of the new Testament is good. Which of the Ten Commandments do we reject? Which part of the sermon on the mount?

I think the "cast the first stone" directive is stunning in it's simplicity, brevity, and humanity.

 

The hateful bias is strong in your statement.

 

Of course you guys have the Goracle and Bill Nye the science conformity guy as your fundamentalists leaders because...science.

 

Just out of curiosity what did you present to these mud wallowers in your attempts at saving them and converting them to liberalism, and where were these alleged conversations occurring?

 

Fundamentalists take the Bible literally and say its perfect, not the way you state it, and even as moral examples like fables the OT is a huge failure in the main and the NT is only marginally better but Jesus did introduce the fire burning hell for all eternity so there is that. So when you look at the people we are discussing assume they assume the events in the Bible are 100% taken on face value except the poetic books and the proverbs.

 

I meet few to none, and those that do apparently mind their own business. I've had people, though fewer in the last 20 years, asking if I've accepted Jesus. Are these fundamentalists threatening you somehow?

 

I can imagine having such conversations in a college student union, perhaps. A state university, maybe. We used to have everything from Sister Brimstone Hawkins to David Duke (KKK) speak at a place called Free Speech Alley at LSU Baton Rouge. They were mostly ignored -- no one saw the need to burn the school down as at Berkeley when Ann coulter threatened to shatter their world.

 

Well, I'll take science over some clown telling a bunch of sheep exactly what the big guy in the sky really thinks about obamacare and climate change.

 

Actually you take talking head clowns over science because they sound sciency.

 

I reject not having the option of other gods, I like idols as decorative pieces, I take various god's names in vain, I like to shop on sunday.

OTOH, I don't steal, murder, or comit adultery and I honor my parents at every opportunity.

AS for the sermon on th emount, it seems many christians reject a goodly part of it in actual action if not in words.

 

Yeah, I can remember the article on marijuana in my parents' World book Encyclopedia in the 60's: It began: "Marijuana is an extremely addictive narcotic substance that ...."

Later editions said nothing like this (I looked it up for a school project), of course. Lesson: science evolves and gets better.

Global warming may prove to be worse (or not as bad) as we currently believe. Either way, I am happy to err on the side of caution and take the Ronald Reagan approach.

The Reagan administration was generally skeptical about costly environmental rules, but with respect to protection of the ozone layer, Reagan was an environmentalist hero. Under his leadership, the United States became the prime mover behind the Montreal Protocol, which required the phasing out of ozone-depleting chemicals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/climate-change-lessons-from-ronald-reagan.html