Fundamentalism = Intellectual Shut-down

[CatholicofAgora]

I don’t understand why it’s literally impossible to have an intelligent discussion with fundamentalist Christians. I use the word “fundamentalist” here in the extreme sense, mind you. It doesn’t necessarily apply to all Young Earth Creationists and Bible-literalists. Generally speaking, however, this is the group who’s members seem to have a sort of intellectual shut-down where good and evil is black and white, they’re right, you’re wrong, and you better repent of your Godless, Papist ways before we even discuss it. For example, I was watching a documentary on YouTube about Blessed John Paul II and saw a comment that read “antichrist!” Of course, implying that JP II was an/the anti-Christ. So, being the troll that I am, I responded to the comment, saying,
“That’s “Vicar of Christ” to you good sir.” -After I said that, he just wasn’t having it.

I got a personal message from him where he basically quoted 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 and Revelations 18:4, applying it to the Pope saying “The pope is a usurper and a blasphemer!!..
Come out of her now!!”

Of course, when dealing with this sort of person, there is no use in explaining who the Pope is, how he comes to power, what we believe and why, etc. I have already tried doing this in the most charitable manner at this point, but he’s right, I’m wrong, even if all he has to go on is his “interpretation” of Sacred Scripture & insults towards our Pope.

I’m no fool, I know not to converse with quarrel-driven people such as this, but what I DON’T know is why they’re like this! Atheists commonly mistake all religious people as these kinds of people, but we’re really not. There are many devout Catholics, Muslims, Jews and… *some *Protestants with whom you can carry on enlightening conversations with, but some “extreme” fundamentalist Christians/Muslims seem to have no reasoning mechanism whatsoever! It’s cult-like behavior. I almost wonder if this man is under the guidance of a very ignorant pastor or if he has some sort of disease that makes him misapply Sacred Scripture to accommodate his twisted world-view.

I don’t get it. Is there a Psychologist in the house?

What are your thoughts, CAF?

 

[CatholicofAgora]

I notice that there are a few assumptions on his part:

1.) It should be obvious to me that these passages apply to the Pope

2.) I’m selectively choosing to be apart of something evil

3.) The passages are describing the Pope and Roman Catholicism, therefore, the Pope and Roman Catholicism are what the passages say they are

 

[Della]

I notice that there are a few assumptions on his part:

1.) It should be obvious to me that these passages apply to the Pope

2.) I’m selectively choosing to be apart of something evil

3.) The passages are describing the Pope and Roman Catholicism, therefore, the Pope and Roman Catholicism are what the passages say they are

And you could argue against his assumptions until you :banghead: but he will not budge. Why? From fear. He has to be right or he’s hellbound, to his way of thinking. I believe you are right, that he is under the influence of some radical pastor or he’s mentally off-balance, poor thing. He is incapable of dealing with the vagaries of human life without putting everyone and everything into neat little boxes that make him and his group into saints and everyone else into reprobates. Don’t bother rattling his cage–he’ll only spit on you.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

Honestly, I am now deeply interested in this. I notice that they often lack empathy, or the ability to take into consideration another’s perspective. They seem to project their mindset onto reality rather than allowing reality to project onto their mindset.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

And you could argue against his assumptions until you :banghead: but he will not budge. Why? From fear. He has to be right or he’s hellbound, to his way of thinking.

That’s an interesting thought as well. He has internal boundaries that cannot be crossed that cause him to be closed minded.

 

[Della]

That’s an interesting thought as well. He has internal boundaries that cannot be crossed that cause him to be closed minded.

Absolutely. He can no more cross them than walk on water.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

Then again, I was once a fundamentalist at one point as well, and even now I still believe in hell. So why didn’t I have these internal boundaries that kept me from free-thinking? I think it was because of my empathy. It seems that there’s a direct relation between empathy and the ability to freely think. When I have a disagreement with someone religiously, I say, “Ok, so this is an internal, intellectual obstacle for you. This is what’s keeping you from coming to faith. Allow me to make this my obstacle as well and we’ll find the answer together. If not, then I’ll just be stuck in the same place you are, because you might have a point.”

And now I’m Catholic

 

[CatholicofAgora]

However, for some reason, I don’t feel as though fear is the only reason for this lack of empathy…

 

[Della]

Then again, I was once a fundamentalist at one point as well, and even now I still believe in hell. So why didn’t I have these internal boundaries that kept me from free-thinking? I think it was because of my empathy. It seems that there’s a direct relation between empathy and the ability to freely think. When I have a disagreement with someone religiously, I say, “Ok, so this is an internal, intellectual obstacle for you. This is what’s keeping you from coming to faith. Allow me to make this my obstacle as well and we’ll find the answer together. If not, then I’ll just be stuck in the same place you are, because you might have a point.”

And now I’m Catholic

I know what you mean. This is why this person may have some kind of mental issue. I knew a man who was burned out alcoholic who went around pronouncing to anyone and everyone that “Jesus never turned water into wine because alcohol is of the devil”. He couldn’t have cared less if you wanted his opinion on the subject or not.

I had fundamentalist tendencies in the Assemblies of God, but that got quite tiresome and after a while reality just didn’t fit with my world view, so I chucked it and eventually became Catholic, like you. So, it is possible. It just depends on why they are the way they are and if they truly want to follow God or follow whatever makes them self-satisifed.

 

[Erich]

From The Antichrist:

…
The Antichrist is mentioned by name in only four verses of Scripture: 1 John 2:18, 22, 4:3, and 2 John 7. There are other verses that many people link to the Antichrist, but since he isn’t named in them, the connection is not certain. The four Johanine verses must serve as the core of our knowledge before trying to link other verses to them.

In 1 John 2:18–19, we read, “Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us.”

This passage appears to speak of a major individual Antichrist, as well as many minor individual Antichrists, who apparently are apostate Christians for “they went out from us.” The appearance of the individual Antichrist is yet future (“Antichrist is coming”), but the presence of the many Antichrists is a signal that “it is the last hour.”

In 1 John 2:22–23, we read, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.”

This is consistent with the apostate nature of the many Antichrists, for they have “deny[ied] that Jesus is the Christ” and, in denying the Son, they have implicitly denied the Father. Presumably the same would be true of the individual Antichrist.

1 John 4:1–6 gives practical tests for discerning which spirits bearing revelation are from God and which are not. In John 4:3, we read that “every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of Antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already.”

This shows that the Antichrist movement is inspired by spirits bearing false revelation and that refuse to confess Jesus. This movement had begun in John’s day but would grow afterward.

Finally, in 2 John 7, we read, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.”
…

Nothing there about the pope (any pope!) or the papacy.

 

[JustaServant]

Former fundamentalist here and former pastor.

There are two things that are the foundation of fundamentalism.
Simplicity and certainty.
I’m at an age now where I no longer go around showing everyone how much I “know”. The older one gets, the more one realizes just how much one does not know.
I never made a good fundamentalist because I hung onto an old saying: “Question everything, and when you find what you think looks like an answer, question that”. Fundamentalism insists nobody question ANYTHING. Proper education teaches me to THINK. Fundamentalism resists such a philosophy.
God made us creatures of reason, that reason can be guided by Him, or I can use my own reasoning to try to find what I desire to be the “truth”.
To me, certainty is the playground of the young, or the emotionally immature.

Also. wanting to be on the “right side”, is certainly a strong draw. If one believes that he or she has experienced what no other has (being “born again”), and possesses what others other than them could not possibly have (the Holy Spirit), it creates an elitist world-view that allows only those to whom we agree with, to enter.
It certainly boosts the self-esteem of those who have a low self image.
If I can ‘be sure’ who is going to Heaven (those who repeated a sinners prayer), than I can also be sure who is going to Hell (those who have not). This ‘knowledge’ of who is destined for Hell plays into a destructive psychological pattern. There is a strange and sick satisfaction of ‘knowing’ our enemies are ‘burning in Hell’. It gives us a feeling of ‘justice’.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

They aren’t fundamentalist for intellectual or sound reasons, but because of emotion. Generally its hard to find an intellectual fundamentalist.

 

[mark_a]

I’m no fool, I know not to converse with quarrel-driven people such as this, but what I DON’T know is why they’re like this!

What are your thoughts, CAF?

Of the folks that I know of who are like this, their personal lives are full of moral lapses.

Just my two cents.

 

[kwortham]

Fundamentalists are programmed with Pavlovian responses from birth. Therefore, they don’t even realize that they are like Pavlov’s dogs and that is the reason they start screeching out “blasphemer.” If the dog senses you coming, then the Pavlovian response will always be a bark. You have to either slip up on the creature or recondition them.

You can recondition them by small treats that do not illicit the Pavlovian response. Invite or encourage a reading of someone that was alive when the apostles were, like St. Clement. St. Justin Martyr is someone that most protestants consider a holy person and, therefore, harmless to read. After all, even protestants get the term Martyr from St. Justin.

Most protestants have never read the early church fathers. Therefore, they do not know that they were catholic. If they read any of these fathers, then they will have to acknowledge the father’s description of faith, which is different from their own. Since there is no history of anyone teaching the Baptist faith until 1600 years after Christ, then your protestant associate will have a crisis of protestant faith. How can every father in church history teach the catholic faith, if it were not the original and true faith? The Baptist faith is a recent creation of man in history. Non of them can give a writer in the first 1600 years of Christian history that taught what the Baptists believe and exactly the way they believe it.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

Fundamentalists are programmed with Pavlovian responses from birth. Therefore, they don’t even realize that they are like Pavlov’s dogs and that is the reason they start screeching out “blasphemer.” If the dog senses you coming, then the Pavlovian response will always be a bark. You have to either slip up on the creature or recondition them.

You can recondition them by small treats that do not illicit the Pavlovian response. Invite or encourage a reading of someone that was alive when the apostles were, like St. Clement. St. Justin Martyr is someone that most protestants consider a holy person and, therefore, harmless to read. After all, even protestants get the term Martyr from St. Justin.

Most protestants have never read the early church fathers. Therefore, they do not know that they were catholic. If they read any of these fathers, then they will have to acknowledge the father’s description of faith, which is different from their own. Since there is no history of anyone teaching the Baptist faith until 1600 years after Christ, then your protestant associate will have a crisis of protestant faith. How can every father in church history teach the catholic faith, if it were not the original and true faith? The Baptist faith is a recent creation of man in history. Non of them can give a writer in the first 1600 years of Christian history that taught what the Baptists believe and exactly the way they believe it.

I’ve tried this with a Baptist friend of mine. It doesn’t work. They seek to create their own history, a form of pseudo-history, to cope with the information they are given that determines them to be “right.” I gave my friend an entire list of Catholic names from century to century defining what is, and is not Christian belief and practice, and he simply said "well, at one point the Catholics were right, but then they became a break-away group who called themselves Catholic and came up with all of this (typical Catholic affiliation here), even though he has no evidence for this belief -it’s merely something he made up on a whim- there’s no legitimate reason to believe this. He also expresses extreme discomfort believing something extra-biblical. For example, there being a succession from every single Pope in every single century from St. Peter to Pope Benedict XVI. I mean, this is a simple fact of history…

 

[Matt_Guitar_Man]

I have come to the relization that many hard core Fundamentalists and also Evangelicals have the view “That unless your experiance of God’s salvation is the same as thiers, you can not possably be saved”. To me this is also a result of the Charismatic movement and when I explain to them that the Church encompasses all aspects of Christs salvation they often reply that to them the Church is bound up in man made traditions, When I then tell them that what they are reffering to is the Liturgical Worship of the Church they look at me blankly.
The problem is that because Fundermenatalists have been so influenced by the so called Restorationists they view any form of Liturgical worship as wrong or not Biblical and forget the fact that all the very first Christians were of the Jewish faith which is extreamly Litturgic and that Christaianity right from the very begining was and is a Liturgical religion.

 

[BA11]

Fundamentalists give protestants a bad name, and are unfortunately where catholics and others get their general opinion of the “protestant” faith.

I was raised baptist (not hardcore, fire and brimstone baptist) and consider myself non-denominational. I don’t believe catholics go to hell, I don’t believe in screaming hellfire at non-believers as the means of evangelizing, I enjoy a good beer and don’t think television/movies/etc. are of the devil. I’ve been accused of being too “liberal” by some on this side of the religion.

I, and what you may find to be a surprisingly large number of protestants, believe that Jesus Christ and his work on the cross saves. Anyone who accepts that truth and understands the true nature of Christ will be in Heaven one day. I also believe there are many, protestant and catholic, who believe they can do a little dance for God and get into Heavn without true belief.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

It’s all about the level of “indoctrination” and that person’s willingness to take it to overly-scrupulous heights.
And of course…a religion that differs from yours would indoctrinate their members with different beliefs than yours.
But I imagine a Catholic’s view of what is right and wrong can be black and white as well (eg, regarding abortion, just to give one example)…and a Fundamentalist, in turn, would find instances where they thought a non-Fundamentalist Catholic had intellectual shut-down as well.

Yeah, but the difference is that even though I believe abortion to be as wrong as being a liberal, you and I could continue an intelligent discussion as to why we believe this. You can’t do that with a religious fundamentalist. They assume that after they quote Scripture at you that you should understand their position and repent of your evil ways. There’s no point-after-point talk. There’s just the I’m rght, you’re wrong, end of story.

 

[benjohnson]

To me this is also a result of the Charismatic movement and when I explain to them that the Church encompasses all aspects of Christs salvation they often reply that to them the Church is bound up in man made traditions, When I then tell them that what they are reffering to is the Liturgical Worship of the Church they look at me blankly.

Careful there… the Charismatic movement is alive and well in the Catholic church:

nsc-chariscenter.org

But what you said about not being open to other forms of God’s grace is spot on - in that if we don’t have joy that others receive our Risen Lord in slightly different formula, it’s as if we put limits on Him.

 

[BA11]

Careful there… the Charismatic movement is alive and well in the Catholic church:

nsc-chariscenter.org

But what you said about not being open to other forms of God’s grace is spot on - in that if we don’t have joy that others receive our Risen Lord in slightly different formula, it’s as if we put limits on Him.

The funny thing is that the fundamentalists, who PREACH sola scriptura, ignore the easiest and clearest message within scripture when they do this. Whoever truly believes in Jesus and his atonement will be saved. Salvation isnt rooted in how you pray, what day of the week you go to church or which translation of the bible you read (looking at you KJV only-ists).