http://www.mahablog.com/category/religion/wisdom-of-doubt/

Scroll to the bottom for the first post, then read up.

I should put a link to the individual posts in chronological order on the sidebars somewhere. I’ll get to that sometime soon.

The GOP played this tune quite effectively, and cast many as irritating Volvo-driving, latte sipping, fancy pants know-it-alls….telling normal people what to do. Never mind that Volvos are not nearly so expensive as the Mercedes driven by the ruling elite. Nobody chronicles the success of this strategy better than Geoffrey Nunberg a linguist at UC Berkeley in his book “Talking Right.”

The new testament is problematic for fundamentalists but alas, there is safety in numbers. I am hard pressed to understand why fundamentalists don’t just leave Jesus out of their prescriptions for society since, after all, his teachings seem to be so often missing from their prescriptions for secular society.

My father headed an ecumenical council in a medium-sized Florida town that had a goal of uniting those of all faiths in a variety of initiatives that resonated and were in line with the tenets of all religions. I think the idea was wonderful and recognized community as a concept that transcended religious affiliation. Most Christian denominations participated including Catholics. Even the Jews counted themselves in. There is no discernable, organized Islamic presence in the town. However, it fell short due to the refusal of the more fundamentalist denominations to participate.

The arise of mega-churches is another more recent phenomenon that bears this out. A close family member was married in one ( a PCA church in Birmingham, AL). I recall quite well noting in amazement to my brother-in-law, a Methodist minister, at how many secular services were available to members of the mega-church — school, gym, social clubs etc. Those people don’t need to rub elbows with anyone outside that tightknit community of the faithful though they do have to live next to them. But by now they might have a real estate and construction service capable ot populating entire neigborhoods and shutting out the faithless.

I remarked to my bro-in-law at how Jesus himself went down to the well and hung out with prostitutes. He concurred and shared my amazement.

My how things have changed in Christendom in 2000 years. Man’s creation of God in his own image is not exactly a new thing, is it?

Sharlits quote brings back old memories from my time in Atlanta, a veritable Sodom to the residents of Cobb county, GA.

“The threats that suffuse urban centers have forced Christian conservatives to flee–to Cobb County, Georgia, to Colorado Springs. Hounded by the sins they see as rampant in the cities (homosexuality, atheistic schoolteaching, ungodly imagery), they imagine themselves to be outcasts in their own land.”

I want to be careful here. There are some great people in Cobb county and it has a bit of diversity, but not enough that the county ever passed legislation that agreed to connect to Marta the regional transportation authority, while other surrounding counties readily accepted this much-needed service on account of the needs of residents to be whisked to their downtown Atlanta jobs, high above the stalled traffic on Interstate 75.

It was no secret and commonly accepted that there was widespread fear of connection to a predominantly black downtown Atlanta, an urban area with higher crime rate. Nobody disputed this.

Sorry, I rant, but I think you have nailed it with your conclusion that this insularity and sequestering of the faithful is fear-based. Thus, the intersection which many believe exists with ethnophobia should not be surprising.

is there anywhere that you can post links to the entire series of Wisdom of Doubt blogs?

I have ostensibly intelligent members of my immediate family that are capable of persuasion by intellectually inclined rhetoric.

I’ve referenced I - III at the Bill Maher site (the wild west compared to here with posts ranging from the high-minded and intellectual to outright vulgar) and blogged orthogonally to the series.

I’ve always maintained that when we attempt to speak the unspeakable, know the unknowable and imagine the unimaginable then that is the point at which we start to get into trouble and begin to incubate nascent fundamentalism.

For several years now I have mused at what happens in Christianity when faith is insufficient for the faithful. Once that line gets crossed there can be an unfortunate series of events that can and typically does occur.

You have been so careful to point out that you speak of Christianity because you are more familiar with it. I was inculcated into Christianity but feel no need to indulge in nonsensical relativism that takes insult at analysis of Christian doctrine vs. Christian practce by justifying one wrong with another…pointing at Muslim extremism and suggesting hatred or bigotry because equal time is not given to Muslim hypocrisy.

It is disheartening to observe how such a fear has been instilled that would have people abandoning Christian ideals, trying to justify the abandonment then lashing out at anything that shines the light on this behavior.

I sincerely hope that cooler heads will prevail and maybe hotter ones will enlist….no, seriously, wait…bad analogy. Perhaps “see the light” or “be faithful to the spirit of Christ’s teachings rather than dodging the more difficult and challenging aspects of what he taught” would be more appropriate. I’ve had enough of the brand of Christianity that excises the new testament from the bible.

DISCLAIMER: I abhor Muslim fundamentalism as well.

The disclaimer may satisfy some but not all, but it is heartfelt nevertheless. I feel silly having to make it though.

Please post a set of links to the entire series or point me to where I might find I thoroughly enjoyed the first few and would like to share the subsequent ones.

I think Karen Armstrong was terribly insightful about the fatal flaw in fundamentalism in her book about The History of Religion.

To make such human, historical phenomena as Christain ‘Family Values’, ‘Islam’, or ‘the Holy Land’ the focus of religious devotion is a new form of idolatry.

The occasional cleric who has stuck his neck out to criticize the fundies — John Shelby Spong, who wrote a book about defending Christianity from the fundies awhile back, comes to mind — gets publicly crucified (so to speak) by the fundies as enemies of Jesus. And I tend to agree with Spong that it’s the fundies who represent the real threat to Christianity. Thanks to the fundies, Christianity is becoming the religion of the superstitious and uneducated, and is increasingly irrelevant to people who actually think about things. But it didn’t have to be this way.

On a related note, I’m not sure why Tammy Faye Bakker Messner’s short life makes me so sad. Perhaps because it’s a classic example of how fundamentalism dupes women into humiliating themselves. I’ll have to think on that one a bit more.