What are the Degrees of Fundamentalism?

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I never even heard of Fred Phelps until I started hanging out at EvC.

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Anyone who's frequented university campuses in the last 20 years would know him best.OTOH, you know of Robertson and Falwell, and they are the same as Phelps, just with slightly better manners.

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As for leftist Christians, you must be joking. PBS is crawling with them. Ditto NPR. Network news IS leftists. When Robertson or Falwell or Phelps ARE covered, it's from a leftist point of view.

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Really?Communists run PBS and network news?I didn't realize Rupert Murdoch and Michael Eisner were Red.

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Any Biblical or theological matter that comes up in the news will get the usual liberal Christian authorities out to comment on it.

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Funny, I've seen Falwell and Robertson and Dobson commenting on religious matters on mainstream (not fox) quite frequently in recent years.

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And as I already said, and now repeat, the "centrist" media is a myth of the far left.

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Whe you say "far left", do you mean "Communist?Because that is who the "far left" is.Are you saying that NBC, CBS, and ABC are Communist networks?

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And by the way, YOUR messages are a perfect example of the kind of judgmentalness that Jesus condemned.

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Jesus didn't condemn being judgemental.He just let us know that if we choose to judge others, we should be prepared to be judged in the same way.

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The death penalty is obvious. "Whoever shall shed man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." This is a command, and the Law is full of commands to enact the death penalty besides that. Failure to enact it, at least in the case of murder, would certainly be to bring God's wrath on a nation. Even directly it punishes the nation, since it requires the nation to support people who shouldn't be allowed to live at all.

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Do you support the stoning to death of disobedient children?What about aldulteresses?Witches?I also suppose that you reject that whole notion that Jesus, through his ultimate sacrifice, brought mercy and forgiveness of our sins to the whole world?I think you are actually a closet Jew, Faith. You seem to identify with the bloodthirsty, angry, jealous, vengeful God of the OT much more than the gentle, liberal, pacifist, "turn the other cheek" message of the Messiah in the NT.There's so little love in your posts on religion, and so much negativity and despair and bitterness.I thought that Christianity was supposed to be uplifiting and fulfilling?Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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Yeah I enjoy rabbinical commentaries occasionally and sometimes they do shed light on a passage, but other times they are out in LalaLand.

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I'll bet the times they are out in LaLa land is where they disagree with your preferred interpretation of, isn't it?Amazing that you reject ancient rabbinical interpretation of an ancient text that was written by Jews, for Jews, in the Jewish scholarly tradition.

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Don't fully grasp the theology involved in all this I must admit. It made sense in the theocracy of ancient Israel though, certainly not in a modern pluralistic society.

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Death penalty for murder, however, does make sense today.

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Oh.So you do not actually take the Bible literally after all.Just as I've always said; everyone is a moral relativist, even you, Faith, a so-called Biblical literalist.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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I never claimed to take the Bible "literally" in the idiotic sense you appear to mean it.

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I mean "literal" in the common sense way that most normal people mean it; that you do not interpret the words, and do not add or subtract anything from them, but read them as they were written in a straightforward, simple way. Nothing is to be taken as metaphor or symbol. You have stated that this is how you read the Bible, haven't you?Thus, when the Bible says that the Flood happened, you believe that a worldwide flood actually happened.Therefore, I am puzzled as to why, when we agree that the Bible quite clearly points out who should be killed, you suddenly depart from what the Bible so clearly directs if one is to read it in the same way that you read Genesis regarding the events of the Flood.According to the Bible, disobedient children, adulteresses, and witches should be stoned to death, just as it says that the Flood happened.If we are not to interpret the Bible in the light of modern knowledge regarding the Flood, why is it that we are permitted to do so regarding who is to be put to death?Edited by schrafinator, : to add a clarifying sentence.

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Many things are different from the Old Testament context of the Israelite theocracy, which I've many times discussed, and I already said I don't grasp the theology of the particular incidents you mentioned,

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I agree.Many things in the OT, when taken out of the context they were written in, do not make any sense....like the Flood. In the context in which that story was written, such a tale made sense. However, given the modern knowledge we have that the writers did not have, it does not from a literal, face value standpoint.I truly do not understand why you do not understand the theology of a long list of rules and laws about crimes and punishments. I wouldn't have thought that there was much theology in there, really. Nothing to interperet or figure out. It says, "if someone does X, they must die."...just like it says, in Genesis, "the Flood happened."So, please, tell me. Why are we to supposed make allowances for context with regards to "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", but are not supposed to do so for the Flood story?

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but your entire MO seems to be to make accusatory digs and I get tired of it. I've said enough.

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If it is "accusatory" to point out the idiocy of rejecting the common sense definition of the word "literal" that normal people use, then I just don't know about this place.