Fundamental Religious Folk and Their Lack of Faith

(from my blog)

My contention is that as much as religious right wingers from all religions preach about their faith in their various Gods, they actually really lack faith in their Gods. God is considered infallible in monotheistic religions such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism. However religious bigots and fundamentalists, consider homosexuals an abomination. This I find a mighty big problem with their 'faith' in God.

Yes, I could see how god made a small mistake, like making Bangladesh under the sea level. Poor things get flooded all the time. However making 10% of the population a mistake, 20% if you count bisexuals and drunken sorority chicks, that is far short of infallible. That is just a poor worker. Now, I don't claim to love my job or excel at it, however even I don't make a mistake 10-20% of the time. The infallible one should make a far lesser percentage of mistakes than me, I can see making a mistake 1 in 10,000 or so, but 1 in 10?

Which brings me back to my original point where is the faith in this? This is literally an outright mutiny against God. Believe that God did the right thing in making homosexuals. He wanted something out of it, maybe you don't understand why... and this is why you need to have FAITH in your God. '

:D

they don't believe God "made" homosexuals. We CHOOSE to be this way, which makes us sinners who have turned against God.

I know in my case, I decided one day that I would rather be a sinner who would burn in hell for eternity than have sex with a woman. (Insert sarcasm thingy here.)

Every gay person longs to be a social outcast and an eternally-punished sinner. :wtf: :crazy: :sarcasm:

by their conception.

Just as adultery, theft, coveting thy neighbor's shit are choices on makes. We're just sinners, God didn't make us this way. If we prove that it's not a choice, they'll still insist it's a choice, because they need us to be the barometer for their being better than someone. After all, most sinners aren't sinning 24/7, so we're the worst of the worst. A thief can steal and then ask God for forgiveness. An adulterer can cheat once and then be forgiven. A homosexual is sinning full-time.

Stupid people. They make my head hurt.

there are a handfull of fundies that I have interacted with who readily admit that sin is sin and that God probably doesn't have a sliding scale of abominations. But for the most part, it's as you say- Break any combination of the 10 commandments and they'll look the other way. Not so much with homosexuals.

they counter that logic with "God didn't make you gay... you CHOSE to be gay." Then they'll go off on a tangent about free will, and throw up all of the "ex-gays" running around out there.

its by design and not choice

blame the damned designer

If God made me, surely he knew what he was doing. Why would he give this impulse to some and not others- would a "just God" really do something so utterly inequitable? But the fact remains that religion is a construct of humankind, and is effed up by its very nature. I've just accepted this as the state of Christianity, and become mostly agnostic.

I don't need my beliefs or issue positions to pass a Bible Test, only a Human Justice Test. If it doesn't pass the Human Justice Test, I oppose it.

The hardest part for me to accept is the fact that one of the two major political parties is still in the hands of anti-gay oppressors, and the other party seems willing to make too many bargains with the devil.

If the Democrats fail to prove their ideals over the next four years even with control of all governmental branches, I may finally break ranks with them for good.

You could just as well "blame the designer" for birth defects or inheritable illness.

Even among the fundies who would agree that homosexuality is innate, they would point out that some people are also born schizophrenic or with tendencies toward mental illness - of which they would classify homosexuality as one.

Congenital abnormalities are, in their view, all consequent to the original sin of rebellion by Adam and Eve, which is the source of all evil in the world in the first place.

Convincing a fundie that homosexuality is innate, is not a step in the direction of changing their mind.

Their majority belief that homosexuality is a "moral choice" simply makes them a bit more personally comfortable in their condemnation of it.

You would also get those who say that it doesn't matter if it is innate. Heterosexuality is also innate, but that doesn't mean they approve of heterosexuals acting on that orientation outside of marriage (the kicker there being that they also don't want homosexuals to be able to get married).

my point is all of those add to a lack of faith in their god

Any god which needs humans to "defend" it, doesn't strike me as a particularly powerful deity. But it is the doubters among the faithful who are trying to "prove themselves worthy". If they are confident of the effectiveness of their faith, then whether everyone around them is going to Hell shouldn't bother them.

The Puritans had it right when they objected to government being involved in the marriage business in the first place, as so much of the right's confusion on this issue arises from their inability to distinguish between marriage as a religious institution, and marriage as a civil status.

My point was only that fundies consider every "sinful" tendency to be innate, since the basis of much of Christianity is addressing a proposed inborn sinful nature. From that perspective the nature/nurture argument is an irrelevant tangent to their belief system. Winning that argument doesn't change the way they think.

Is why they want or think that intelligent design should be considered scientific. The point of faith is to believe without proof. I KNOW the sun will "rise" tomorrow. If it doesn't then if the Earth hasn't frozen, I'm going to turn on the television, and there's probably going to be a scientist telling me that a meteor knocked us out of orbit, or something extinguished the sun, and we're all going to die. I believe in God, but I can't prove He exists, and I kind of think that's the point.

TlalocW

For many religious people, particularly of the fundamentalist stripe, that is true, and it is what drove me away from religion for many years. What could be more irrational, and more reinforcing of a fascist mentality, than believing something just because someone with his collar on backwards tells you to?

I now feel that faith and belief are actually opposites. If you have faith (i.e. trust) in God or life or the universe, or whatever, you don't need to believe. You feel that, whatever the truth turns out to be, it will be good. People who have no such trust need to believe in something irrational in order to be able to face life at all.

Alan Watts said it best: "Belief is clinging to a rock in the middle of a raging river. Faith is learning to swim."

As far as religion being a human creation, of course it is. That doesn't make it entirely worthless and lacking all truth. Mathematics and science are human products as well. Does that mean they are "bogus?"

For me, the big problem is a lack of understanding of metaphoric thought and expression. Fundamentalists are terrified of admitting that anything in their religious tradition isn't literally true. They think that would be the first step to the complete disintegration of their belief system. It's the old "slippery slope" fallacy; if A happens, B, C, and D must follow; which is rarely the case. So by clinging desperately to their narrow interpretation of their religion, they miss-out on most of what it really has to offer. They eat the menu instead of the meal. It's sad.

Wow. That is a great encapsulation.

Also applies to those whose "allegiance to the flag" extends solely to reverence for a piece of cloth, instead of to that for which the flag is a mere symbol.

A good book on the topic is "The Mind of the Bible Believer" by Cohen.

The ones that appear to be the most fervently "faithful" are the ones who are primarily trying to deal with their own doubt. Deep down, they are not sure if they really "believe", so they figure that they can either convince themselves or keep going through the motions until they do. That is why they will typically respond to multiple "altar calls" or "commit themselves to Jesus" several times, just in case the last time it didn't work.

When I was a kid, I went down to the altar and "rededicated my life to Christ" again and again, convinced that my inability to believe was a failing of my own.

When I realized that all I really had was fear of hell and not belief, I finally had to walk away.

...but they are all afraid to admit it.

The most convinced non-believers among them are the pastors, btw. Many evangelical pastors actually quit believing not long after seminary and a few years' experience. By then, it's the only work they are qualified to do. So they keep doing it.

Calvinism works a little better than the "free will" types, since it's not up to you whether you believe. So, it takes off some of the stress of "Do I really have effective faith?"

You might enjoy this book, or even the comments: http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0786718919

In any event, what makes these people dangerous is not what they believe, but their fear that they really don't.

If there is a God, I think the worst you could say about him is that he's an underachiver.

this in their faces, because their religion is a big source of their self-identity and to make them realize and face that they are fascists is irreconcilable with their religion and the notion of Christian brotherhood/love.

Many people who have a religiously based objection to anything but heterosexuality,and homosexuality in particular, will argue that God has declared certain act abominations in his Word as handed down in scripture. It is possible to discuss possible errors of interpretation with some people, but it helps to have access to very good information. Integrity provides some, and there are GLBT groups in all faiths.

What I find most interesting is that, taken literally, the strongest condemnations are in the Torah and the Jewish community as a whole is the most accepting.

a tad too big? Loquats too. Did he design the Edsel?

Beyond being raised as one, the critical thinking skills my parents instilled in me just REFUSE to allow me to make that bizarre leap. The question I always ask fundies is "HOW is god all knowing and powerful and never wrong and yet made gay people, which you see as wrong? Are you saying god was wrong when he did that? If so, then aren't you saying god ISN'T all knowing/powerful/always right? How do you reconcile that??" I've never once gotten a satisfactory answer to that one. I usually just get the "God is testing them and they failed" answer, which always leads me to "But god is all-knowing, why would he create something that goes against him and is bound for failure?". Religion, especially the blind faith sort, just baffles me.