Free Republic

Fundamentalism is not confined to Islamic religions. In fact fundamentalist movements are to be found in all societies and religions, including Catholic Christianity. Fundamentalism is a form of organised anger in reaction to the unsettling consequences of rapid social and religious change. Fundamentalists find rapid change emotionally extremely disturbing and dangerous. Cultural, religious and personal certitudes are shaken. Consequently, fundamentalists simplistically yearn to return to a utopian past or golden age, purified of dangerous ideas and practices. They aggressively band together in order to put things right again – according to what they decide are orthodox principles. Sometimes they turn...

Some important questions and no-nonsense answers: Q: How did Churchill see Islam? A: Churchill saw misogynistic Islam for what it was. In a word: totalitarian. Whereas Obama likes to feel facts, Churchill didn’t care for fantasy describing the so-called religion of peace in the frankest and therefore most politically-incorrect terms. Of Islam he said: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.” Today, CNN would censor Churchill, without doubt. Q: What shaped Churchill’s views? A:...

The “scientific fundamentalism” promoted by the atheist Richard Dawkins was criticised yesterday by the winner of a prize he had attacked. Professor Francisco Ayala, who won the £1 million Templeton Prize for scientific thought, said that attacking religion and ridiculing believers provided ammunition for religious leaders who insisted that followers had to choose between God and Darwin. “Richard Dawkins has been a friend for more than 20 years, but it is unfortunate that he goes beyond the boundaries of science in making statements that antagonise believers,” he said.

This is a .pdf document which will not paste here. Please click on the link and scroll down to p. 184

I was an associate pastor in New York City in the early 1980’s, and one of the other pastors had been a member of the motorcycle gang called the Pagans. They are a large and notorious gang that has a record of violence and drugs. This man, named Tom, began to date a backslidden Christian and led her into a sinful lifestyle. The girlfriend’s mother was a strong believer, and God had burdened her heart not only for her daughter, but for this man Tom. One day, led by the Spirit, this little woman marched right into the Pagan’s clubhouse...

If you had to come up with a subject for a debate, one that would persuade more than a thousand people to leave their firesides on a wet winter evening to sit in a draughty sports hall, what would you plump for? It would have to be something pretty charged, you would imagine. Or at least salacious. About Katie Price, perhaps, or Tiger Woods. But no. The motion that had them standing in the aisles and dangling from the rafters at Wellington College was: "Is atheism the new fundamentalism?" True, this was an Intelligence Squared debate, and there was a...

The Nightmare of Christianity By Max Blumenthal September 9, 2009 The following is an excerpt from Max Blumenthal's new book, Republican Gommorah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, published by Nation Books. A few miles down the road from Colorado Springs [a home to James Dobson's Focus on the Family], in the quiet bedroom community of Eldredge, a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray followed the unfolding debacle at New Life Church [once under the stewardship of Pastor Ted Haggard] with an interest that bordered on obsession. Murray, a sallow-faced, bespectacled 24-year-old, had been indelibly scarred by a...

"Will the Baptist conventions come back together?" my father-in-law asked over Sunday lunch.Not in his lifetime.Most likely, not in my lifetime.And probably not until the Consummation of Time.Good question My father-in-law had a solid reason for his question. He had read my editorial about this year's Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. It describes the generation gap within the SBC and tells how the youngish leadership walloped the old guard.This is significant because the old guard comprises the remnants of the hard-line fundamentalist leadership that wrested control of the SBC from so-called moderates in a struggle that lasted from the late 1970s...

French president Nicolas Sarkozy's rejection of the burka and the face veil are "in keeping with the republican spirit of secularism," according to the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, quoted by media. Boubakeur said he supported a proposal by French MPs for a panel of deputies to look at the wearing of the burka "on the condition that they listen to what the experts on Islam have to say". The burka marked "a return towards Islam's past, in line with the preaching and vision of fundamentalists" added Boubakeur (photo)....

Narrative Summary 4. Would you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that teachers and students should have the academic freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution as a scientific theory? (Click excerpt link for responses) 5. Charles Darwin wrote that when considering the evidence for his theory of evolution, “…a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with Darwin’s statement? (Click excerpt link for responses) 6. I am going...

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4

I became a Christian in my sophomore year of college. The people who had led me to the Lord immediately began my discipleship. They taught me to evangelize and they taught me what they felt a Christian should believe. But most importantly they were a loving family of believers which was a welcome oasis for someone like me whose home life had been less than familial. Thus, when I was told that Christians must believe in a young-earth and a global flood, I went along willingly. I believed. Being a physics major in college I had not taken any geology...

In one of the most remarkably frank and candid assessments of the whole subject and methodology of paleoanthropology, Dr. David Pilbeam (a distinguished professor of anthropology) suggested the following: "Perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy."...

The repercussions that were expected from the Louisiana legislature’s passage and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signing of the creationist 2008 LA Science Education Act have begun. Louisiana taxpayers and schoolchildren are now reaping what the legislature and governor have sowed: the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, one of the nation’s leading scientific societies, is boycotting Louisiana.

... According to Ms Williams, the HFE Bill must be resisted because it permits embryo experimentation, violating the sanctity of life. It also improves the rights of gay parents (homosexuality is a sin, of course). But most of her efforts will be focused on using the Bill to restrict abortion laws. By laying amendments, MPs will be able to change abortion legislation. Because Ms Williams believes that any intervention with the embryo is sinful, she is absolute in her attitude to abortion. It should be completely illegal. She knows this is not achievable any time soon, but a reduction in...

Fundamentalist Christians have become the new target for the Old Media. One big reason is that media scribblers are simply ignorant of Western and world civilization. That thought comes to mind on listening to Verdi's Requiem, one of the most gorgeous and moving works ever composed. It is simply filled with "Christian fundamentalism" --- including the fear of punishment before God. At a guess, half of the greatest works in Western civilization are directly inspired by religious fundamentalism of one kind or another.  Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Mendelsohn, Faure, Britten, Handel, and all the rest are just incomprehensible without...

Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals. Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works. “I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at...

Women are being given controversial "virginity repair" operations on the NHS, it emerged last night. Taxpayers funded 24 hymen replacement operations between 2005 and 2006, official figures revealed. And increasing numbers of women are paying up to £4,000 in private clinics for the procedure apparently under pressure from future spouses or in-laws who believe they should be virgins on their wedding night. Doctors said most patients are immigrants or British of ethnic origin. The trend has been condemned by critics as a sign of social regression driven by Islamic fundamentalists. Some countries have made hymen reconstruction operations illegal. ...Tory health...

There is an old hymn written by Fanny Crosby, sung at generations of camp meetings, which exclaims: "Crown Him! Crown Him! Prophet, and Priest, and King!" Since the emergence of evangelicalism as a cultural force in the 1950s, three approaches to politics, represented by three personalities, have emerged. They are the prophet, the priest and the kingmaker. The prophet has been psychologist James Dobson, who dispenses child-rearing advice on the radio from his Colorado ministry, Focus on the Family. On family issues, Dobson's counsel is moderate and broadly appealing. On politics, his tone sharpens. He rails against compromise on social-conservative...

NEW YORK - Christiane Amanpour's work on the documentary series "God's Warriors" took her directly to intersections of extreme religious and secular thinking. She watched, fascinated, as demonstrators in San Francisco accused teenagers in the fundamentalist Christian group BattleCry of intolerance in a clash of two cultures that will probably never understand each other. Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week. The series on religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims and Jews airs in three parts, 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday through Thursday. Many people know only stereotypes...