> Well, don't forget, Doug, 75% of us believe in angels, as I just read on
> your website.
>
> But I'm concerned about the fact that the Christian Right's trump card is
> flashed when the US pop answers such questions the way they did. I don't
> see the people who are in charge right now as mere rightwing ideologues,
> they are also religious rightwing ideologues, and their extreme brand of
> Xtianity is one of the things propelling them to do what they're doing.
> They are absolutely certain that the US is a nation favored by the Almighty,
> because they are such good Xtians, and that means they aren't just running
> the richest most powerful country the planet has ever seen, they are doing
> God's will with it.
Here's hoping that the rest of the world wakes up one of these days and gives these American idiots a wake-up call about the fallacy of their beliefs.
A literal belief in Scripture will also make you
> rather unconcerned about the environment: after all, in Genesis it says
> right there that God gave humanity this world to completely master, to
> subjugate to human will.
As somebody coming from a fundamentalist background, I would say that there is another reason why the environment is unimportant. Religious nuts have a sick obsession with the crazy idea that their afterlife is more important than their life here in reality. Stuff here on earth just isn't important as long as you are doing the things that will get you into heaven. I come from a fundamentalist Lutheran background, which holds that faith alone will get you into heaven. Good deeds don't count when you make your appearance at the Pearly Gates.
It was this belief that was mostly responsible for me rejecting Christianity as inhumane and barbaric.
If God wills the world to be destroyed, there's
> not much we can do about that, and besides, if it does start falling apart
> that will be the End Times and all good Xtians should rejoice in that. So
> fundie Xtians really don't care about ecology or global warming or any of
> that crap, because they don't think they'll be needing this planet for that
> much longer anyway. Mother Earth is just a slave for mankind's use, a
> place Yahweh gave us to do with whatever we want.
It's more simple than that. Religious fundamentalists look forward to the end of the world because they see it as a good thing for themselves. Some nuts like Pat Robertson seek to hurry the apocalypse along, by interfering in affairs in the Middle East (this goes against Lutheran beliefs, which say that you shouldn't mess with goid's plans).
> And here we are, with people with these beliefs driving the bus, especially
> at this point in history. On top of that, when they wrap themselves in God
> and get all pious most Americans just fall in line because they "believe",
> too. BTW I've heard from several people that Europeans hardly even go to
> church anymore and they're quite secularized in their worldviews, which is
> one of the things that makes pious Americans seem a bit bizarre to them.
I think we need more anti-clericalism here in the States. It would also be nice to have an anti-religious equivalent of ELF. ;-)
Chuck0