Secular fundies thus love the liberal Christians, because by the time you believe that God is just a feeling and Jesus was just a hippy goofing up the Roman Empire by indulging in the ultimate act of Civil Disobedience, you're really no Christian at all.
Secular fundies love to point to how intolerant and anti-reason those they call "Christian fundies" are, but really, from where I've sat, I've seen no intellectual difference. If anything, I've found they are usually worse and more intolerant and less prone to reason than most Christian fundamentalists I've met.
I encountered this type of ignorant bigotry just yesterday, online, where one of them had posted up a copy of a child's homework. It was from a Christian mother who was upset over how the public school tried to indoctrinate her child with notions and viewpoints of Islam that she found offensive and inappropriate.
These secular zealots thought they were safe in mocking her, calling her "dope" and just having a great time in general at how stupid she was to want to home school her child. They no doubt figured they were safe, as they were unaware that a Christian Fundamentalist was around.
Yeah, me.
Boo!
Which is a surprise to most secularists, as I'm college educated, well read, have forgot more Bertram Russell and Ayn Rand then most of them are likely to learn, and share some politically liberal positions.
I looked at the paper the Christian mom had been concerned about. I knew the game. Teach the kid all about Islam, not in an overtly "pro" way, but by simply speaking "not critically" of it, like it was no big thing and as valid for that culture as Christianity for ours and see how their history was so intellectual and see this accomplishment and that accomplishment - no, they'd never overtly tell a child "be Islamic", but this type of thing would go far to making the child "not so Christian".
Particularly "not so Fundamentalist Christian". "Liberal Christians" have no trouble with their kids learning about how great Islam is at all. The typically liberal Christian will, in fact, look for almost any thing that let's their child see how many other ways that there are, all equally valid, of course.
This is why liberal Christianity - such as the Methodists - have seen their numbers falling since the 1960s, while the fundamentalist faiths have held steadier. You don't persuade your kid to your beliefs by letting him know they aren't that big a deal.
Now, such teachings of Islam will, at the least, put the mother's dislike, even hatred, of Islam in question. And if old fuddy duddy mom was wrong on that, what else would she be wrong on? And since church might be boring to the kid anyway, and uncool, and none of the other kids have to go, this would be just another reason to not want to go. Etc. Thus a non-Christian, or at least a more wishy-washy Christian is born.
Or so some strongly Christian parents might reasonably think. While others might think that such is an over-reaction and all the public school was trying to do was teach the essentials of a faith that plays large in the history and affairs of the world. But notice what the mother wrote on the paper at the bottom - where is the homework where they are testing children on their knowledge of Christianity?
No where.
The "Five Pillars of Islam", yes, but the "Apostles Creed"? No. Explain the beliefs of Islam, yes. Explain the purpose of Christ's sacrifice? No.
Kind of makes the propaganda explanation even more credible. Unless Islam is of more significance in American history than Christianity.
So. She's been called a "dope" online, not where she can see, the paper she put up in concern and as a warning to other parents, they've seized on and are using as a thing to show that she's a fool. In their eyes, anyway. I wrote the following:
"It doesn't count as being a 'dope' not wanting your kid to be taught that your beliefs are wrong. She's not asking that the school change, and other kids be made to learn how she believes, she is simply noting that one view is being taught, but not hers, and pulling her own child out so as to teach him as she thinks best. How does any of that make her a dope?"
The name caller, who had personally attacked a woman who he did not even know, immediately ducked with a "I should know better than to comment on any religious post." The implication being that his opinion of the woman was okay, but his expressing it where a fundy could see it was his error, me being the "fundy" simply for having stuck up for her.
I pointed that out. That it was my experience that secularists and skeptics did not wish to discuss reasonably the blindingly obvious issue of "who's kid is it?" and thus "who has the right to teach the child?"
This got another jumping in, and this woman, the original poster, sanctimoniously pointed out that she just believes that all kids have a right to an education. The implication being that I, and Christian Fundamentalists, do not believe that.
I answered that the mother was not denying her child education, she simply did not want that "education" to be that "she's a dope" and "Islam is cool". I asked again - who's child is it? If she doesn't have the right to decide the child's education - who does? Those here calling her a dope?
She wanted to then imply that the child needed to learn "facts" about the world, including about Islam. I asked who had the right to decide which facts, as apparently not all faiths were being discussed. I pointed out that if a secular liberal had their kid made to learn the "facts" about how unhealthy and harmful homosexuality was, that they would be quite likely to desire to take their child out of school.
I pointed out that the only difference between the Secular Fundamentalists and a Christian Fundamentalist was in which they believed - but that they BOTH would pull their kid out of a school that taught their own child that they were dopes.
She disagreed, still thinking that somehow in her case it was different, as her beliefs were "true". I asked who got to decide what was "true" for a child - the parents? Or her?
She got all wound up and angry - typical Secular Fundy response, just all-cap it, no rationality needed - and "yelled" "THE SCHOOL BOARD".
I said, "Oh, so if I bribe the School Board, or if me and my friends out number you and your friends in a vote, then it's okay to teach your kid anything we like?"
She, apparently so wound up as to not have seen my reply yet, was busy posting another comment, just a repeat. "The School Board decides it, not you or me, just them, that's fair, that's how it's done."
I calmly answered, "So back in 1934 when the Nazis taught all the kids that the Jews were inferior, that was okay because the Board said so, right? And those Native Americans who had their kids took away, and made to learn English and Christianity, you agree with that as it was decided by school boards, right?"
I clicked over to look at another group while waiting for her reply, but when I clicked back, "The page you are looking for is no longer available."
Yep. No rational discussion to be had with a fundy. Particulary the Secular Fundies!
And no, she - and that guy who called a Christian mother a "dope" - were not random exceptions. Secular Fundamentalism is a thing, where they take a set of given tenets on faith, and no reason enters into it at all. The Christian Fundamentalist - rank and file - at least know they are taking much of their beliefs on faith, and that is, with them, the whole point.
Some Christian Fundamentalists, such as myself, and a variety of others who have read the scholars like Aquinas and Locke and Kant and even C.S. Lewis, can provide rational backing to the doctrines. Rational backing that is in no way essential to faith, but handy when these Secular Fundies stroll by.
But there is little scholarly backing to Secular Fundamentalism, and such as it is comes from Marx and his heirs who believe in the Collective, and Class Consciousness and children being of the State. Most of the rank and file secularists no more know that though, any more than many sincere church goers can discuss Aquinas.
So the Secular Fundies blather. They blather their personal insults and their "argument from intimidation" where they try to imply by tone or passive aggressive comments that they hold the intellectual position, and all the Christian has is "faith".
Nope. All each side has is faith, with a bit of scholarship at the bottom, hardly known by either side. The only question then is, not, as the Secular Fundies love to think, "Reason or Faith?" with they choosing Reason, but rather, as I full well know, "Faith in God or Faith in Men?", with they choosing men.
Some may think - do I say then it is equal? Both using faith? Nope. For you see, the Christian Fundamentalist is using faith because he is supposed to, it is what God wants him to use, and when he uses his faith to discover, know and follow God, he is doing well.
But pity the poor Secular Fundies. They take faith - which according to them they are NOT supposed to use - and then in using it undercut their own position. Professing to rely on Reason, they instead rely on faith, faith in men, and violate the very Law of Reason they claim to adhere to which among other things says, "Argument from Authority" is wrong.
Thus the Christian Fundamentalist acknowledges as good the tool he uses and uses it to know his Creator who never changes. But the Secular Fundamentalist disavows the very tool he uses, and then misuses the tool he pretends to shun to believe upon men - who change each and every generation!
I don't call them "dopes", though. I call them "victims". For they are the way they are for their own poor upraising, and that for their parents having been poorly raised. Usually by public schools, sometimes by backslid parents, sometimes by a liberalized "mainstream" church, but always by a sinful world ever ready to undercut Christ's teachings, the Bible and God's will at every turn.
They are willing to be the victimizers of the next generation - but only because first they were the victims of the previous one.
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