[geeks] What is a Fundamentalist (was Re: Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro] )

[Mike Meredith]

On Thu, 29 May 2008 08:27:21 -0500, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> Ah - perhaps we have a definitions problem: what is a fundie?

A kind of ice cream ? Perhaps a sundae with the most sinful bits
removed ... like the cherries. Need to be careful about cherries ...
might give the children ideas and start them thinking about S-E-X !!

(Sorry: Just been in a weird mood all afternoon. Groan as much as you
need to)

I always thought "Fundamentalist" was a christian who believed that the
bible[0] was the literal word of god. And nothing but the bible reveals
the mind of god.

> Say 'fundie' and I think you're talking about snake handlers,
> itty-bitty Baptist churches along the back roads in Texas (First
> Baptist Church of the Holy Fire Water and Salvation, Reformed) and so
> on.

Doing a bit of casual reading (that damn Wikipedia again) seems to show
that the fundamentalists christians don't like the word because it
seems to have been taken over to refer to the lunatic fringe of
christianity. 

> Say 'Christian Right' and I get the image of my neighbor - a pretty

To be honest I'd be more than a little worried if the Christian Right
'took over' (or influenced heavily) the UK government[1]. Particularly
if they start insisting that schools teach that god created the world in
4,000 (or so) BC with fake evidence indicating it's older. Or that
creationist bullshit.

> nice Lutheran who votes Republican and believes that abortion is a
> sin.

Ah! But does he believe abortion should be illegal? My fascist granny
who is a bit of a fundie herself, believes that abortion is a sin but
making it illegal would do far more harm that good. After all she
remembers a time when it was illegal in the UK and regularly saw the
harm that backstreet abortions caused.

[0]: Which one though? There's so many to choose from. Most of 'em
     contain various mistranslations such as "Thou shalt not suffer a
     witch to live" which is supposed to refer to poisoners rather than
     batty old women who live alone with a cat for company. Way back
     that bunch of notorious bleeding hearts the spanish inquisition
     were asked to investigate alleged witchcraft in the Basque country
     and concluded that it was a case of mass hysteria.

[1]: Blair might have been a closet catholic but certainly wasn't one of
     the Christian Right.


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