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Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism
Some years ago I had occasion to closely study Thomas Taylor the Platonist. He was active in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The bulk of his work consists of translations of Plato and the Neoplatonist; for the later Neoplatonists his was the only translation available of these works into the 1990s. He worked at a time when interest in these authors was at its nadir because the Enlightenment rejected them as so much superstition (Gibbon has a damming chapter on them). But the Romantics were interested in them for precisely that reason. They had a mixed opinion of Taylor. Blake promoted him, but Wordsowrth and Shelley criticized him for his bad Greek (although Dillon and Hershbell et al. had good things to say about Taylor’s Greek, my own comparison of his translations with many passages of Porphyry and Iamblichus indicated that he often had no idea what was going on in the text; the fact that the quality of his translation was better for texts where it would have been possible to work from Ficino’s older Latin translations I considered particularly damning of his Graecism). What little opinion he had in contemporary culture at large painted him as a buffoon, preferring ancient superstition to modern science and rationality—the rumor was widely circulated that he performed animal sacrifice.
Although that doesn’t seem to be true, he was by his own admission a believer in traditional Greek religion as opposed to Christianity (he dropped out of a Dissenter seminary). There’s the rub. It is impossible to be a ‘pagan’ in isolation. That form of religion could only function as a means of binding together the whole society in a common identity. The idea of adopting ‘paganism’ in lone defiance of Christianity inherently serves an entirely different purpose than the practice of ancient religion. What he really objected to was the Enlightenment. He agreed with the romantics that the Enlightenment represented a fundamental shift in human consciousness that alienated man from his naive unitary state that had existed in antiquity and was first disturbed by Christianity (a proposition that I would think difficult to maintain after close reading of Cicero). Rather than simply accepting the modern alienated condition, or seeking to reconcile the modern and the ancient in a Hegelian synthesis to produce something wholly new that would transcend both (the unfulillable Romantic project), he made the decision to simply abandon modernity and, not restore antiquity, but to think exactly as if nothing after antiquity existed. To do this he focused exactly on the elements of ancient thought that were most at odds with modernity: hence ‘paganism’ instead of Christianity. But, more incisively, he sought ancient writings (especially the Platonists) that were mythological or even metaphorical, and which were most at odds with modern science, and insisted, against everything I understand about the way Plato’s mind worked, that they were literally true. For instance, Plato begins the creation myth in the Timaeus with his usual disclaimer that he is going to talk now about things that cannot be expressed in human language or understood by embodied human minds and therefore is going to suggest through metaphor a superhuman reality. “But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible.” Yet Taylor insists on taking every word as literally and precisely true. In particular he takes Plato as evidence against what was then known as the plurality of worlds (the idea that the stars are bodies like the sun, but quite far away) and even heliocentrism; he vociferously insisted on geocentrism. But he went further and found Plato’s silence as positive evidence against scientific discoveries. For example, Plato says nothing whatsoever about the Jovian moons, but for that reason Taylor insists they cannot exist. He dismisses the fact that one can easily see them through a telescope on the premise that it will one day be discovered that lenses inherently deceive the eye. He purports to have read Newton’s Principia and dismisses it as gibberish (perhaps it was to him).
In short, Taylor dismisses modernity as something irrelevant to his chosen world view based on a clearly defined ancient corpus of literature he considered to be divinely inspired, which was not only true, but which contained all possible truth. Counterclaims against the corpus that might be made by modern structures such as science don’t really interest him and he is satisfied either to ignore them, refute them by mere gainsaying (Plato says the sun goes around the earth, so that is the way it is, thank you very much), or at most used very flawed rhetorical methods against them. This is justified by assuming that modernity, Christianity, and science are in fact hostile to the ‘Truth’ of Plato and so don’t need to be considered seriously.
For these reasons it occurred to me that Taylor was the first fundamentalist, and that fundamentalism was in its essence a reaction to the Enlightenment. Indeed, it would be tedious to rehearse now the parallels of fundamentalist Christianity with Taylor’s thought as outline above, since they appear identical except for the chosen ancient corpus.
I confess I have yet to look at any historical or sociological treatments of Christian fundamentalism (except for the minority and especially vicious movement of Christian Identity), nevertheless, I say this as preamble to a brief discussion of Christian fundamentalism. Everyone wastes idle moments on the web. Lately my wastage has been spent perusing the writings of Christian fundamentalists. I will quote some of it below to illustrate my points about Taylor. Yet, I hardly see the need to refute Fundamentalists’ arguments as many seem to think ought urgently to be done, since, arising as I have described it, it operates outside any system or argument or evidence that would make refutation possible and no dialog with fundamentalism is possible that I can see. Just how could one engage the sentiment that evolution would be true if scientists could produce a single fossil, or that Islam would be true if it could be shown that Mohammed had actually existed (both arguments that I have recently seen advanced in the confident belief that no such demonstration is possible), or, more comically, that the teeth of the tyrannosaurus rex served in the Garden of Eden to crack open watermelons? Leaving aside outrageous solicitations of schadenfreude (I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive! and just plain mean-spirited idiocy ([about a girl being born with mental disabilities] This girl is like a leper so what she needs to do is try and find god. if she really believes she can be healed from this state, she will be healed from this state. Most afflictions like this are caused by sins committed while still inside the womb. If she can repent for what she did god will embrace her and make her as human as you or me but if she chooses not to she'll always be like this. god tests every one of us), I will quote and briefly discuss below some texts which seem to support my argument. Hardly a sound scholarly procedure on its own, but I have to justify the time wasted on this in some way.
Much effort is made on the web to refute and even ridicule fundamentalists, but more often they and their writings are simply dismissed as being stupid (and one can often find an appalling ignorance of scripture and lack of reasoned argument in the smug dismissals). But that is not necessarily the case. They seem to conform to a different logic and different world view.
Make sure your answer uses Scripture, not logic.
This line wasn’t written for comedy, and no one could be stupid enough to have written it as we might be inclined to read it. Instead it represents a privileging of the Biblical corpus that is not to be found even in the middle ages which in many ways was the golden age of logic, when the scholastics held that scripture could only be understood when interpreted through logic. The author doesn’t reject logic because he is too stupid to understand it, rather, he has made an existential decision (I can’t thing of any other term to describe it although he obviously wouldn’t accept it as a valid description) to treat the Bible as the sole source of meaning. That can only be done in a modern context which makes it plain that the Bible is not the sole source of meaning. He expects reason and Scripture to be at odds because he is at odds with the world produced by reason, whereas Aquinas and even Abelard knew that faith and reason were one.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" No one. Since God is truth, then when we Christians agree with the bible, we will be right every which way you look at it. Therefore it's not possible to prove God's word wrong.
This shows the degree to which the text is privileged by the fundamentalist world view. The circular reasoning makes perfect sense once reason is abandoned and truth is judged solely by reference to the privileged text. It would be impossible to invalidate it, whatever the evidence, since anything that disagrees with the text is wrong by definition.
I'm not sure what this Hebrew stuff is supposed to prove. If your original Hebrew disagrees with my original King James --- your original Hebrew is wrong. If your original Hebrew agrees with my original King James, your original Hebrew is right.
This sentiment that the King James Version in particular, rather even than the text in the original ancient languages is the priviliged text, though not universal in fundamentalism, is surprisingly widespread. I could have chosen other quotes which asserted that the KJV is what is meant by ‘In the beginning was the word’ and that Christians the world over ought to be required to read the KJV in English because translating it into French, or Russian, or other languages might introduce errors and heresy. Partly this is due to an incredible parochialism, but that parochialism is a self-conscious choice of fundamentalism—the chosen text is clung to so fiercely that the very nature of translation has to be denied; or rather it is the self-conciseness of it that has to be denied: once the text is privileged it would (pardon the expression) stand to reason that anything which disagrees with it (including the Masoretic text or Nestle-Aland) has to be discounted.
Taylor, for all or his isolation—or perhaps because of it—was not an especially bitter man. He did not believe that the truth he had discovered had been suppressed by any conspiracy, or by any particular group within society. Though he mocks Newton and denied any specific discoveries of science that he considered disagreed with Plato, he was not mean-spirited about it. Rather he seemed to find a certain elation and self-satisfaction in the conviction of his own beliefs against those of the world. Christian Fundamentalists, however, feel compelled by their understanding of their text to attribute their isolation from ordinary culture to the machination of the devil and is human agents that control that culture. Some them can become very nasty about it:
I mean, since Atheists have no value whatsoever as human
beings (they're not even human, but only inhuman animals),
since Atheists are nothing but miserable Liars, Cowards
and Murderers, after all, why would anybody in their
right mind weep over the dead rotting corpse, or bone
chips and ashes (that get mixed together with those of
others from the crematory) of a worthless dead Atheist?
And what epitaph do you engrave on an Atheist's grave
marker? "Here lies the only good Atheist, which is a
dead Atheist". What else is there say? Nothing at all.
No last words, no last rites, no flowers, no anything.
Every time an Atheist dies, the world is better off as
a result of that dead Atheist being dead, & its damned
God-forsaken soul burning in the fiery pits of Hades. :)
Which begs another related question, do Atheists cry at
funerals? If so, why? Since Atheists hate God, and they
hate Family, and they hate Country, who are they crying
for? It is true: The only good Atheist is a dead Atheist.
I pray that every Atheist in America attend a funeral for
a loved one this year, and every year until they are dead
and their filthy God-hating souls are roasting in Hellfire.
This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to incite genocide. Distasteful as it is (the use of the smiley emoticon could scarcely have been created as satire, it is so dreadful), a rhetorical analysis helps us to understand it a bit better. The enemy of the fundamentalist Christian is here cast as the ‘Atheist.’ In other texts he is the ‘Jesuit’ and even still today the ‘Jew.’ The name scarcely matters. The important thing is that the enemy hates ‘God’ and ‘Family,’ and ‘Country.’ He is the antithesis of the fundamentalist’s self-conception; it could hardly be clearer that the author of this piece does not know any atheists or anything about atheism. What he knows is that his artificial version of the truth is good and anything that disagrees with it is its polar opposite evil. It need hardly be said that this is probably the main danger of fundamentalist thinking, the reduction of the non-fundamentalist to a straw-man suitable for burning. But the creation of such rhetorical structures that have no referents in the real world seems to be an inherent feature of fundamentalism because no reality outside of the privileged text has any value, or lacks value to the degree it contradicts the text, which amounts to the same thing.
It is especially difficult to come to grips with the fundamentalist’s conception of science. The following is an admittedly extreme, but by no means unfair, sample of the fundamentalist attitude to science. I think everyone by now (at least in the US) is familiar with the fundamentalist refutation of evolution by simply gain-saying it or arguing no further than saying it disagrees with the literal understanding of the Bible (nor should we expect them to argue further). But the real objection is with science itself because it is perceived as a threat to the literal understating of the privileged text.
Gravity: Doesn't exist. If items of mass had any impact of others, then mountains should have people orbiting them. Or the space shuttle in space should have the astronauts orbiting it. Of course, that's just the tip of the gravity myth. Think about it. Scientists want us to believe that the sun has a gravitation pull strong enough to keep a planet like neptune or pluto in orbit, but then it's not strong enough to keep the moon in orbit? Why is that? What I believe is going on here is this: These objects in space have yet to receive mans touch, and thus have no sin to weigh them down. This isn't the case for earth, where we see the impact of transfered sin to material objects. The more sin, the heavier something is.
Evolution: Very obvious, first of all we know that a "change in allele frequency" doesn't exist, and furthermore that humans cannot possible come from "Apelike" anscestors.
Global Warming: 30 years ago, evolutionists were saying "global cooling", they're just flip flopping again. They don't know what's going on with the climate. Reality is that it is quite stable, and has remained the same since the past 6000 years of its existance.
Plate Techonics: Continents do not move. The earth has only been in existance for roughly 6000 years, this is another one of the "package theories" that evolutionists try to have us believe. Its really simple. If you accept Evolution, then you must accept an old earth. If you accept an old earth, then you must accept an old universe. Before you know it, you're waste deep in nonsense without any empirical evidence to support any of it. You end up with this: (1)evolution-->(2)plate techtonics-->(3)big bang
Atomic Theory: We are simple unable to manipulate objects that are so small. Physics in of itself is a very sketchy field of "science", because its so uncertain of itself and always incapable of replicating their hypothesis or experimentation.
* * *
Newton's theory went down the toilet with Einstein. And einstein's theory is in the process of going down the toilet today. That's the thing with these scientists, their ideas are always exchanged down the road for something better and more accurate. Nothing they say right now is an accurate representation on the natural world.
* * *
It boils down to this.
Scientists 1 says Y.
Scientist 2 disproves Y and suggests Z.
Scientist 3 disprovez Z and suggests T.
Scientist 4 disproves T and suggests W.
It's a never ending cycle. Their theories and ideas are perpetual failures, one after another.
* * *
Is it better to be closed minded - secure in the knowledge that God has told you everything that you need to know? YES
Science causes confustion and makes things complicated. Everytime there is a new discovery the old discoveries and old wisdom are discarded! And theories get more and more complex. Science makes people confused and complicates things. Who is the author of confusion? Satan of course. The bible it the opposite of science. Biblical wisdom NEVER CHANGES, and anyone can get it. Scientific wisdom is always changing and contradicting itself, and really nobody gets it.
It’s hard to make sense of writing like this because the author insists over and over again on ‘facts’ that seem self-evident to him, but which in fact are rather fantastic rhetorical constructs. But it is important to not that one of the main objections to science (i.e. modernity) is that it is always changing, in contrast to the ‘Word of God’ which is eternal and unchanging.
Regardless, your idea of the "difference" between science and religion is just flat-out incorrect. The reality is that science presents itself as a conclusion, and attempts to draw its evidence after it invents a ridiculous idea. Whereas the notion behind religion is to use the evidence available(The Bible, Church, a global flood) and come to a conclusion based off of those variables.
* * *
What is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory-theology... nothing good has ever come from 'science' --- In fact, technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth!
* * *
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."--Pat Robertson, 1993 interview with Molly Ivins
These are nearly perfect examples of projection. The authors present the world in precisely the same terms the world sees them, or else imageine the world views them in the same way they view the world.
Finally, how can I resist comparing this gem to by beloved Lactantius (though I would bet a great deal that its author had never heard of Lactantius)?
The Fact the Earth is Flat is not my opinion, it is a Proved Fact! While all we need to know is that the Bible says the Earth is flat (Is.40:22, Ez.7:2, Dn.2:35; 4:10-11,20, Mt.4:8)... but for a second can you imagine what these so-called 'scientists would have us believe --- If the earth really was round, that would mean there arre people who are HANGING DOWN, HEAD DOWNWARDS while we are standing head up? But since the theory allows to travel to those parts of the earth where the people are said to hand head downward, and still to fancy ourselves to be heads upwards, and our friends whom we have left behind us to be heads downwards! LOL! What foolishness! TheWHOLE THING IS A MYTH - A DREAM - A DELUSION - and a snare, and, instead of there being any evidence at all in this direction to substantiate this popular theory, it is plain proof that the Earth is Not A Globe!
Also, be sure to know the Sun and Moon are about 3,000 miles away are both 32 miles across. The Planets are 'tiny.' Sun and Moon do Move, earth does NOT move, whirl, spin or gyrate (1 Sam.2:8, 1 Chr.16:30; Job 9:6, 38:4-6; Ps.96:10, 104:5, Is.13:10, Mic.6:2). Australians do NOT hang by their feet under the world... this is a FACT, not a theory! Also a Fact the Spinning, Whirling, Gyrating Ball World Planet, Globe Idea is Entirely 100% now and at all times in the Past, a RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE... a Blind Dogmatic Article of Faith in the Religion for the Blind unreasoning beast of prey. No earthly reason for a Sane, Upright Member of the Elite True Christians to subscribe to it. Also a Fact, today the Elite of Earth ALL live on the Flat World. Only the illogical, unreasoning "herd"... prefers the way-out occult weird theology of the old Greek superstitution earth a spinning ball! Both Copernecious and Newton, the inventors of the "modern" superstitions (400 year OLD modern) have said: "It is not possible for a Sane reasonable person to ever really believe these Theories." Thus sayeth Newton-Copernecious. What sayeth THOU?
Divine Institutes CHAP. XXIV.—OF THE ANTIPODES, THE HEAVEN, AND THE STARS.
How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes468 opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? that the crops and trees grow downwards? that the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens are mentioned among the seven wonders of the world, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains? The origin of this error must also be set forth by us. For they are always deceived in the same manner. For when they have assumed anything false in the
commencement of their investigations, led by the resemblance of the truth, they necessarily fall into those things which are its consequences. Thus they fall into many ridiculous things; because those things which are in agreement with false things, must themselves be false. But since they placed confidence in the first, they do not consider the character of those things which follow, but defend them in every way; whereas they ought to judge from those which follow, whether the first are true or false.
What course of argument, therefore, led them to the idea of the antipodes? They saw the courses of the stars travelling towards the west; they saw that the sun and the moon always set towards the same quarter, and rise from the same. But since they did not perceive what contrivance regulated their courses, nor how they returned from the west to the east, but supposed that the heaven itself sloped downwards in every direction, which appearance it must present on account of its immense breadth, they thought that the world is round like a ball, and they fancied that the heaven revolves in accordance with the motion of the heavenly bodies; and thus that the stars and sun, when they have set, by the very rapidity of the motion of the world470 are borne back to the east. Therefore they both constructed brazen orbs, as though after the figure of the world, and engraved upon them certain monstrous images, which they said were constellations. It followed, therefore, from this rotundity of the heaven, that the earth was enclosed in the midst of its curved surface. But if this were so, the earth also itself must be like a globe; for that could not possibly be anything but round, which was held enclosed by that which was round. But if the earth also were round, it must necessarily happen that it should present the same appearance to all parts of the heaven; that is, that it should raise aloft mountains, extend plains, and have level seas. And if this were so, that last consequence also followed, that there would be no part of the earth uninhabited by men and the other animals. Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes.
But if you inquire from those who defend these marvellous fictions, why all things do not fall into that lower part of the heaven, they reply that such is the nature of things, that heavy bodies are borne to the middle, and that they are all joined together towards the middle, as we see spokes in a wheel; but that the bodies which are light, as mist, smoke, and fire, are borne away from the middle, so as to seek the heaven. I am at a loss what to say respecting those who, when they have.once erred, consistently persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another; but that I sometimes imagine that they either discuss philosophy for the sake of a jest, or purposely and knowingly undertake to defend falsehoods, as if to exercise or display their talents on false subjects. But I should be able to prove by many arguments that it is impossible for the heaven to be lower than the earth, were is not that this book must now be concluded, and that some things still remain, which are more necessary for the present work.
Some years ago I had occasion to closely study Thomas Taylor the Platonist. He was active in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The bulk of his work consists of translations of Plato and the Neoplatonist; for the later Neoplatonists his was the only translation available of these works into the 1990s. He worked at a time when interest in these authors was at its nadir because the Enlightenment rejected them as so much superstition (Gibbon has a damming chapter on them). But the Romantics were interested in them for precisely that reason. They had a mixed opinion of Taylor. Blake promoted him, but Wordsowrth and Shelley criticized him for his bad Greek (although Dillon and Hershbell et al. had good things to say about Taylor’s Greek, my own comparison of his translations with many passages of Porphyry and Iamblichus indicated that he often had no idea what was going on in the text; the fact that the quality of his translation was better for texts where it would have been possible to work from Ficino’s older Latin translations I considered particularly damning of his Graecism). What little opinion he had in contemporary culture at large painted him as a buffoon, preferring ancient superstition to modern science and rationality—the rumor was widely circulated that he performed animal sacrifice.
Although that doesn’t seem to be true, he was by his own admission a believer in traditional Greek religion as opposed to Christianity (he dropped out of a Dissenter seminary). There’s the rub. It is impossible to be a ‘pagan’ in isolation. That form of religion could only function as a means of binding together the whole society in a common identity. The idea of adopting ‘paganism’ in lone defiance of Christianity inherently serves an entirely different purpose than the practice of ancient religion. What he really objected to was the Enlightenment. He agreed with the romantics that the Enlightenment represented a fundamental shift in human consciousness that alienated man from his naive unitary state that had existed in antiquity and was first disturbed by Christianity (a proposition that I would think difficult to maintain after close reading of Cicero). Rather than simply accepting the modern alienated condition, or seeking to reconcile the modern and the ancient in a Hegelian synthesis to produce something wholly new that would transcend both (the unfulillable Romantic project), he made the decision to simply abandon modernity and, not restore antiquity, but to think exactly as if nothing after antiquity existed. To do this he focused exactly on the elements of ancient thought that were most at odds with modernity: hence ‘paganism’ instead of Christianity. But, more incisively, he sought ancient writings (especially the Platonists) that were mythological or even metaphorical, and which were most at odds with modern science, and insisted, against everything I understand about the way Plato’s mind worked, that they were literally true. For instance, Plato begins the creation myth in the Timaeus with his usual disclaimer that he is going to talk now about things that cannot be expressed in human language or understood by embodied human minds and therefore is going to suggest through metaphor a superhuman reality. “But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible.” Yet Taylor insists on taking every word as literally and precisely true. In particular he takes Plato as evidence against what was then known as the plurality of worlds (the idea that the stars are bodies like the sun, but quite far away) and even heliocentrism; he vociferously insisted on geocentrism. But he went further and found Plato’s silence as positive evidence against scientific discoveries. For example, Plato says nothing whatsoever about the Jovian moons, but for that reason Taylor insists they cannot exist. He dismisses the fact that one can easily see them through a telescope on the premise that it will one day be discovered that lenses inherently deceive the eye. He purports to have read Newton’s Principia and dismisses it as gibberish (perhaps it was to him).
In short, Taylor dismisses modernity as something irrelevant to his chosen world view based on a clearly defined ancient corpus of literature he considered to be divinely inspired, which was not only true, but which contained all possible truth. Counterclaims against the corpus that might be made by modern structures such as science don’t really interest him and he is satisfied either to ignore them, refute them by mere gainsaying (Plato says the sun goes around the earth, so that is the way it is, thank you very much), or at most used very flawed rhetorical methods against them. This is justified by assuming that modernity, Christianity, and science are in fact hostile to the ‘Truth’ of Plato and so don’t need to be considered seriously.
For these reasons it occurred to me that Taylor was the first fundamentalist, and that fundamentalism was in its essence a reaction to the Enlightenment. Indeed, it would be tedious to rehearse now the parallels of fundamentalist Christianity with Taylor’s thought as outline above, since they appear identical except for the chosen ancient corpus.
I confess I have yet to look at any historical or sociological treatments of Christian fundamentalism (except for the minority and especially vicious movement of Christian Identity), nevertheless, I say this as preamble to a brief discussion of Christian fundamentalism. Everyone wastes idle moments on the web. Lately my wastage has been spent perusing the writings of Christian fundamentalists. I will quote some of it below to illustrate my points about Taylor. Yet, I hardly see the need to refute Fundamentalists’ arguments as many seem to think ought urgently to be done, since, arising as I have described it, it operates outside any system or argument or evidence that would make refutation possible and no dialog with fundamentalism is possible that I can see. Just how could one engage the sentiment that evolution would be true if scientists could produce a single fossil, or that Islam would be true if it could be shown that Mohammed had actually existed (both arguments that I have recently seen advanced in the confident belief that no such demonstration is possible), or, more comically, that the teeth of the tyrannosaurus rex served in the Garden of Eden to crack open watermelons? Leaving aside outrageous solicitations of schadenfreude (I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive! and just plain mean-spirited idiocy ([about a girl being born with mental disabilities] This girl is like a leper so what she needs to do is try and find god. if she really believes she can be healed from this state, she will be healed from this state. Most afflictions like this are caused by sins committed while still inside the womb. If she can repent for what she did god will embrace her and make her as human as you or me but if she chooses not to she'll always be like this. god tests every one of us), I will quote and briefly discuss below some texts which seem to support my argument. Hardly a sound scholarly procedure on its own, but I have to justify the time wasted on this in some way.
Much effort is made on the web to refute and even ridicule fundamentalists, but more often they and their writings are simply dismissed as being stupid (and one can often find an appalling ignorance of scripture and lack of reasoned argument in the smug dismissals). But that is not necessarily the case. They seem to conform to a different logic and different world view.
Make sure your answer uses Scripture, not logic.
This line wasn’t written for comedy, and no one could be stupid enough to have written it as we might be inclined to read it. Instead it represents a privileging of the Biblical corpus that is not to be found even in the middle ages which in many ways was the golden age of logic, when the scholastics held that scripture could only be understood when interpreted through logic. The author doesn’t reject logic because he is too stupid to understand it, rather, he has made an existential decision (I can’t thing of any other term to describe it although he obviously wouldn’t accept it as a valid description) to treat the Bible as the sole source of meaning. That can only be done in a modern context which makes it plain that the Bible is not the sole source of meaning. He expects reason and Scripture to be at odds because he is at odds with the world produced by reason, whereas Aquinas and even Abelard knew that faith and reason were one.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" No one. Since God is truth, then when we Christians agree with the bible, we will be right every which way you look at it. Therefore it's not possible to prove God's word wrong.
This shows the degree to which the text is privileged by the fundamentalist world view. The circular reasoning makes perfect sense once reason is abandoned and truth is judged solely by reference to the privileged text. It would be impossible to invalidate it, whatever the evidence, since anything that disagrees with the text is wrong by definition.
I'm not sure what this Hebrew stuff is supposed to prove. If your original Hebrew disagrees with my original King James --- your original Hebrew is wrong. If your original Hebrew agrees with my original King James, your original Hebrew is right.
This sentiment that the King James Version in particular, rather even than the text in the original ancient languages is the priviliged text, though not universal in fundamentalism, is surprisingly widespread. I could have chosen other quotes which asserted that the KJV is what is meant by ‘In the beginning was the word’ and that Christians the world over ought to be required to read the KJV in English because translating it into French, or Russian, or other languages might introduce errors and heresy. Partly this is due to an incredible parochialism, but that parochialism is a self-conscious choice of fundamentalism—the chosen text is clung to so fiercely that the very nature of translation has to be denied; or rather it is the self-conciseness of it that has to be denied: once the text is privileged it would (pardon the expression) stand to reason that anything which disagrees with it (including the Masoretic text or Nestle-Aland) has to be discounted.
Taylor, for all or his isolation—or perhaps because of it—was not an especially bitter man. He did not believe that the truth he had discovered had been suppressed by any conspiracy, or by any particular group within society. Though he mocks Newton and denied any specific discoveries of science that he considered disagreed with Plato, he was not mean-spirited about it. Rather he seemed to find a certain elation and self-satisfaction in the conviction of his own beliefs against those of the world. Christian Fundamentalists, however, feel compelled by their understanding of their text to attribute their isolation from ordinary culture to the machination of the devil and is human agents that control that culture. Some them can become very nasty about it:
I mean, since Atheists have no value whatsoever as human
beings (they're not even human, but only inhuman animals),
since Atheists are nothing but miserable Liars, Cowards
and Murderers, after all, why would anybody in their
right mind weep over the dead rotting corpse, or bone
chips and ashes (that get mixed together with those of
others from the crematory) of a worthless dead Atheist?
And what epitaph do you engrave on an Atheist's grave
marker? "Here lies the only good Atheist, which is a
dead Atheist". What else is there say? Nothing at all.
No last words, no last rites, no flowers, no anything.
Every time an Atheist dies, the world is better off as
a result of that dead Atheist being dead, & its damned
God-forsaken soul burning in the fiery pits of Hades. :)
Which begs another related question, do Atheists cry at
funerals? If so, why? Since Atheists hate God, and they
hate Family, and they hate Country, who are they crying
for? It is true: The only good Atheist is a dead Atheist.
I pray that every Atheist in America attend a funeral for
a loved one this year, and every year until they are dead
and their filthy God-hating souls are roasting in Hellfire.
This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to incite genocide. Distasteful as it is (the use of the smiley emoticon could scarcely have been created as satire, it is so dreadful), a rhetorical analysis helps us to understand it a bit better. The enemy of the fundamentalist Christian is here cast as the ‘Atheist.’ In other texts he is the ‘Jesuit’ and even still today the ‘Jew.’ The name scarcely matters. The important thing is that the enemy hates ‘God’ and ‘Family,’ and ‘Country.’ He is the antithesis of the fundamentalist’s self-conception; it could hardly be clearer that the author of this piece does not know any atheists or anything about atheism. What he knows is that his artificial version of the truth is good and anything that disagrees with it is its polar opposite evil. It need hardly be said that this is probably the main danger of fundamentalist thinking, the reduction of the non-fundamentalist to a straw-man suitable for burning. But the creation of such rhetorical structures that have no referents in the real world seems to be an inherent feature of fundamentalism because no reality outside of the privileged text has any value, or lacks value to the degree it contradicts the text, which amounts to the same thing.
It is especially difficult to come to grips with the fundamentalist’s conception of science. The following is an admittedly extreme, but by no means unfair, sample of the fundamentalist attitude to science. I think everyone by now (at least in the US) is familiar with the fundamentalist refutation of evolution by simply gain-saying it or arguing no further than saying it disagrees with the literal understanding of the Bible (nor should we expect them to argue further). But the real objection is with science itself because it is perceived as a threat to the literal understating of the privileged text.
Gravity: Doesn't exist. If items of mass had any impact of others, then mountains should have people orbiting them. Or the space shuttle in space should have the astronauts orbiting it. Of course, that's just the tip of the gravity myth. Think about it. Scientists want us to believe that the sun has a gravitation pull strong enough to keep a planet like neptune or pluto in orbit, but then it's not strong enough to keep the moon in orbit? Why is that? What I believe is going on here is this: These objects in space have yet to receive mans touch, and thus have no sin to weigh them down. This isn't the case for earth, where we see the impact of transfered sin to material objects. The more sin, the heavier something is.
Evolution: Very obvious, first of all we know that a "change in allele frequency" doesn't exist, and furthermore that humans cannot possible come from "Apelike" anscestors.
Global Warming: 30 years ago, evolutionists were saying "global cooling", they're just flip flopping again. They don't know what's going on with the climate. Reality is that it is quite stable, and has remained the same since the past 6000 years of its existance.
Plate Techonics: Continents do not move. The earth has only been in existance for roughly 6000 years, this is another one of the "package theories" that evolutionists try to have us believe. Its really simple. If you accept Evolution, then you must accept an old earth. If you accept an old earth, then you must accept an old universe. Before you know it, you're waste deep in nonsense without any empirical evidence to support any of it. You end up with this: (1)evolution-->(2)plate techtonics-->(3)big bang
Atomic Theory: We are simple unable to manipulate objects that are so small. Physics in of itself is a very sketchy field of "science", because its so uncertain of itself and always incapable of replicating their hypothesis or experimentation.
* * *
Newton's theory went down the toilet with Einstein. And einstein's theory is in the process of going down the toilet today. That's the thing with these scientists, their ideas are always exchanged down the road for something better and more accurate. Nothing they say right now is an accurate representation on the natural world.
* * *
It boils down to this.
Scientists 1 says Y.
Scientist 2 disproves Y and suggests Z.
Scientist 3 disprovez Z and suggests T.
Scientist 4 disproves T and suggests W.
It's a never ending cycle. Their theories and ideas are perpetual failures, one after another.
* * *
Is it better to be closed minded - secure in the knowledge that God has told you everything that you need to know? YES
Science causes confustion and makes things complicated. Everytime there is a new discovery the old discoveries and old wisdom are discarded! And theories get more and more complex. Science makes people confused and complicates things. Who is the author of confusion? Satan of course. The bible it the opposite of science. Biblical wisdom NEVER CHANGES, and anyone can get it. Scientific wisdom is always changing and contradicting itself, and really nobody gets it.
It’s hard to make sense of writing like this because the author insists over and over again on ‘facts’ that seem self-evident to him, but which in fact are rather fantastic rhetorical constructs. But it is important to not that one of the main objections to science (i.e. modernity) is that it is always changing, in contrast to the ‘Word of God’ which is eternal and unchanging.
Regardless, your idea of the "difference" between science and religion is just flat-out incorrect. The reality is that science presents itself as a conclusion, and attempts to draw its evidence after it invents a ridiculous idea. Whereas the notion behind religion is to use the evidence available(The Bible, Church, a global flood) and come to a conclusion based off of those variables.
* * *
What is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory-theology... nothing good has ever come from 'science' --- In fact, technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth!
* * *
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."--Pat Robertson, 1993 interview with Molly Ivins
These are nearly perfect examples of projection. The authors present the world in precisely the same terms the world sees them, or else imageine the world views them in the same way they view the world.
Finally, how can I resist comparing this gem to by beloved Lactantius (though I would bet a great deal that its author had never heard of Lactantius)?
The Fact the Earth is Flat is not my opinion, it is a Proved Fact! While all we need to know is that the Bible says the Earth is flat (Is.40:22, Ez.7:2, Dn.2:35; 4:10-11,20, Mt.4:8)... but for a second can you imagine what these so-called 'scientists would have us believe --- If the earth really was round, that would mean there arre people who are HANGING DOWN, HEAD DOWNWARDS while we are standing head up? But since the theory allows to travel to those parts of the earth where the people are said to hand head downward, and still to fancy ourselves to be heads upwards, and our friends whom we have left behind us to be heads downwards! LOL! What foolishness! TheWHOLE THING IS A MYTH - A DREAM - A DELUSION - and a snare, and, instead of there being any evidence at all in this direction to substantiate this popular theory, it is plain proof that the Earth is Not A Globe!
Also, be sure to know the Sun and Moon are about 3,000 miles away are both 32 miles across. The Planets are 'tiny.' Sun and Moon do Move, earth does NOT move, whirl, spin or gyrate (1 Sam.2:8, 1 Chr.16:30; Job 9:6, 38:4-6; Ps.96:10, 104:5, Is.13:10, Mic.6:2). Australians do NOT hang by their feet under the world... this is a FACT, not a theory! Also a Fact the Spinning, Whirling, Gyrating Ball World Planet, Globe Idea is Entirely 100% now and at all times in the Past, a RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE... a Blind Dogmatic Article of Faith in the Religion for the Blind unreasoning beast of prey. No earthly reason for a Sane, Upright Member of the Elite True Christians to subscribe to it. Also a Fact, today the Elite of Earth ALL live on the Flat World. Only the illogical, unreasoning "herd"... prefers the way-out occult weird theology of the old Greek superstitution earth a spinning ball! Both Copernecious and Newton, the inventors of the "modern" superstitions (400 year OLD modern) have said: "It is not possible for a Sane reasonable person to ever really believe these Theories." Thus sayeth Newton-Copernecious. What sayeth THOU?
Divine Institutes CHAP. XXIV.—OF THE ANTIPODES, THE HEAVEN, AND THE STARS.
How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes468 opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? that the crops and trees grow downwards? that the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens are mentioned among the seven wonders of the world, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains? The origin of this error must also be set forth by us. For they are always deceived in the same manner. For when they have assumed anything false in the
commencement of their investigations, led by the resemblance of the truth, they necessarily fall into those things which are its consequences. Thus they fall into many ridiculous things; because those things which are in agreement with false things, must themselves be false. But since they placed confidence in the first, they do not consider the character of those things which follow, but defend them in every way; whereas they ought to judge from those which follow, whether the first are true or false.
What course of argument, therefore, led them to the idea of the antipodes? They saw the courses of the stars travelling towards the west; they saw that the sun and the moon always set towards the same quarter, and rise from the same. But since they did not perceive what contrivance regulated their courses, nor how they returned from the west to the east, but supposed that the heaven itself sloped downwards in every direction, which appearance it must present on account of its immense breadth, they thought that the world is round like a ball, and they fancied that the heaven revolves in accordance with the motion of the heavenly bodies; and thus that the stars and sun, when they have set, by the very rapidity of the motion of the world470 are borne back to the east. Therefore they both constructed brazen orbs, as though after the figure of the world, and engraved upon them certain monstrous images, which they said were constellations. It followed, therefore, from this rotundity of the heaven, that the earth was enclosed in the midst of its curved surface. But if this were so, the earth also itself must be like a globe; for that could not possibly be anything but round, which was held enclosed by that which was round. But if the earth also were round, it must necessarily happen that it should present the same appearance to all parts of the heaven; that is, that it should raise aloft mountains, extend plains, and have level seas. And if this were so, that last consequence also followed, that there would be no part of the earth uninhabited by men and the other animals. Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes.
But if you inquire from those who defend these marvellous fictions, why all things do not fall into that lower part of the heaven, they reply that such is the nature of things, that heavy bodies are borne to the middle, and that they are all joined together towards the middle, as we see spokes in a wheel; but that the bodies which are light, as mist, smoke, and fire, are borne away from the middle, so as to seek the heaven. I am at a loss what to say respecting those who, when they have.once erred, consistently persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another; but that I sometimes imagine that they either discuss philosophy for the sake of a jest, or purposely and knowingly undertake to defend falsehoods, as if to exercise or display their talents on false subjects. But I should be able to prove by many arguments that it is impossible for the heaven to be lower than the earth, were is not that this book must now be concluded, and that some things still remain, which are more necessary for the present work.