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The first part of the following is my personal observations from Christian groups I have belonged to with a large number of fundamentalists and articles in a fundamentalist newsletter I use to get. They are not statistically rigorous.
According to Lionel Caplan, Studies in Religious Fundamentalism (1987): The recent fundamentalist movement has been/is lead by people like Pat Robertson (Christian Coalition and The 700 Club) and Ralph Reed (Christian Coalition), Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell (Moral majority) and to some extent evangelicals like Bill Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ) and James Dobson (Focus on the Family). I couldn't find reliable estimates for the number of fundamental christians, partially I expect, because of the loose definition of fundamental. According to an article on the 2000 primaries: "In Michigan, fundamentalist Christians are far less of a force than in South Carolina. About 13 to 17 percent of the population considers itself part of the Christian right, compared to more than a third in South Carolina. In a 2004 CPANDA (Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive Princeton University) study 19% described themselves as fundamentalist or evangelical Christians.
The German Partei Bibeltreuer Christen (PBC) estimated 20 to 30 percent of Americans can be described as fundamental Christians. Some common fundamentalist positions:
Politics:
This is reflected in the politics of abortion, gay rights, environmental issues and more.
Science: They use examples like atheist Carl Segan to show scientists are against religion. Actually scientists are more than 4:1 people of faith. See scientists of faith. The Environment in general (conservation, clean air & water, etc):
Forty-five senators and 186 representatives in 2003 earned 80- to 100-percent approval ratings from the nation's three most influential Christian right advocacy groups -- the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Research Council. Many of those same lawmakers also got flunking grades - less than 10 percent, on average - from the League of Conservation Voters last year. Others use [Genesis 1:29-30], Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.as justification.
At Home:
Most fundamentalists support corporal (spanking, etc.) punishment of children in school and at home.
At school: They also believe in corporal punishment to maintain discipline.
Divorce:
In my view, fundamentalists are overly concerned about fighting people with a different worldview (Muslims, socialists [e.g. progressive political issues such as universal healthcare, welfare], homosexuals, pro-choicers, scientists [paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, stem cell researchers, climate researchers, ...], environmentalists ...).
One explanation is the need for enemies is evolutionary. Primitive tribes which survived were those who could slay their enemies; Xenophobia is a natural outcome. In his 1975, book "Sociobiology", popularized the idea that social behavior derives from genes. I maintain that groups in developed countries today are no longer tribes who live together and provide for the common defense, but groups defined by social and ethical ideals, the haves and have-nots, conservatives and liberals, ...
However, in "Fundamentalists are just like us", at NewScientist.com Michael Brooks says No. Sara Savage, who researches the psychology of religion at the University of Cambridge says: Secular western culture doesn't provide a "grand narrative" to participate in. It offers multiple options for making sense of the world around us - a mess that most human minds struggle to deal with.
Scott Atran, who studies group dynamics at the University of Michigan, says: "They are nice people. I certainly find very little hatred; they act out of love," he says. Part of the answer lies in fundamentalists' need to bolster group identity by reframing their beliefs in the terms of the dominant culture. In a secular, scientific culture, Savage points out, a certain level of evidence is generally required in order for knowledge to count and for individuals to act on it. Fundamentalists respond by attempting to "prove" their core beliefs: they "science-up" their faith, framing it in a way that they think ought to make sense to a scientific culture. Their claims then become, in their eyes at least, as valid as science's claims. No wonder scientists find fundamentalists' claims so infuriating: they are operating on patently false credentials.
According to James Barr, professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and author of a number of books critical of Christian fundamentalism, these false credentials have produced a "deep intellectual self-distrust" that shows itself in an insatiable craving for intellectual credibility. Christian groups/people wich promote intolerance.
American Family Association (AFA) founder, Donald Wildmon, has suggested that obscene content on television and in the movies is largely due to the media being controlled by Jews. After 9-11, evangelist, Jerry Falwell, an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, said on Rev. Pat Robertson's "700 Club" that America probably got what we deserve; The ACLU, pagans, Abortionists, Feminists, Gays, Lesbians and the People for the American Way helped make the world trade center attacks happen. On the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks controversial Florida pastor, Terry Jones, dubbed the day International Burn a Koran Day. He was severely criticized by religious and political leaders and eventually baked down.
The Christian Patriot movement promotes various interpretations of history and law with the common theme that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and individual rights behind the American Revolution, and America's Christian heritage.
It grew during the 1990s after the Ruby Ridge incident and the Waco Siege and maintained ties with the militia movement. Mitch Albom's book "Tuesdays with Morrie" talks about life's lessons learned from his former college professor who was dying with Lou Gehrig's disease. Morrie says: "The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves." Fundamentalism is a way people can see themselves as better with God on their side. I recently saw a PBS special about Chimpanzees which pointed out that Chimps and Humans are the only two species who systematically gang up (wars, terrorism) to kill members of their own species. In "The Faith Instinct", Nicholas Wade says "Societies whose members embraced such beliefs (God(s) closely follow events in the world and can be swayed by prayer, sacrifice and appropriate rituals) would have been more cohesive and united in attaining difficult goals, wheather in peace or in warfare." Michael Gerson an evangelical and conservative speech writer for George W. Bush and later a Washington Post columnist., published the following: Opinion | White evangelical Protestants are fully disrobed. And it is an embarrassing sight 2019 Opinion Trump should fill Christians with rage. How come he doesn’t?, 2022 Strangely, evangelicals have broadly chosen the company of Trump supporters who deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue. In the place of integrity, the Trump movement has elevated a warped kind of authenticity — the authenticity of unfiltered abuse, imperious ignorance, untamed egotism and reflexive bigotry. This is inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure. Yet the discontent, prejudices and delusions of religious conservatives helped swell the populist wave that lapped up on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During that assault, Christian banners mixed with the iconography of white supremacy, in a manner that should have choked Christian participants with rage. But it didn’t.
In an interview with Amna Nawaz of PBS, he said,
Evolution and Hate:
I guess I should feel sorry for them. Their traditional enemies Blacks, Catholics, Jews, ... are now off limits and it is considered politically incorrect to attack them, although many still do. Some practical observations: On several occasions I was involved in when volunteers were needed to help those (other Christians) in need the people who volunteered were the moderates not the fundamentalists. Violence and Anger: In addition to religious wars there has been a lot of violence and anger associated with the religious right. A few are:
It is the same right wing groups which oppose minorities, who also spread the anti-government rhetoric which has become popular.
In January of 2011 A 22-year-old Tucson man, Jared Lee Loughner, shot nineteen people, six of them fatally, during an open meeting held by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a jewish democrat. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, who claimed 168 lives, was probably influenced by this anti-government talk also. In Violence and the Sacred by René Girard, 1972, he links mimetic desire (The deliberate imitation of the behavior of one group of people by another as a factor in social change.), our tendency to marginalize and scapegoat those who are "different," our tendency toward violence, and our experience of ultimate otherness (the sacred). Girard is a Christian, and has progressed from literary criticism to critical theory to active efforts to promote methods of constructive, peaceful conflict resolution. See also Is there a link between religious proselytizing and hate crimes? at ReligiousTolerance.org
For or Against - Love vs Hate:
"You ask me before of my point of view about religion, and I told you I am very religious. It means that before I fight against something, I try to fight in favour of something. It is not Christian to go against someone. I am in favour of life. And, of course, personally I do not share the idea of being able to interrupt life arbitrarily."
Personality Types: One reason people take extreme views is to find personal significance.
books - Articles: Culture Warrior, Bill O'Riley, 2006 "Personality and charismatic experience among adult christians", Francis and Jones, Pastoral Psychology, Vol 45, Num 6, Jan. 1997 Nicholas Wade, The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures,
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