Myths of Christian Fundamentalism

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G2G
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Myths of Christian Fundamentalism

Unread post by G2G »

Happened to run across this and feel it's something, imo, we ought read with the mind wide open. Wasn't sure where to post it, however. Very interesting and provocative, I thought. :idea:

"The Myths Of
Christian Fundamentalism
By Ken Adachi
Editor - Educate-Yourself.org
3-1-8"

"Normally, I would not expound on this subject. I don't believe in wearing your religious beliefs on your sleeve and I don't approve of trying to push your convictions upon others, however, I feel it's necessary to expose teachings -delivered within the framework of religious instruction or Biblical instruction- which are untrue and ultimately lead to harm for those who subscribe to them. I'm referring to the myths of Christian fundamentalism.

A belief is not the same thing as knowledge. A belief is an idea that we are conditioned to believe is true, yet we possess no concrete way to know or prove to ourselves (or to others) that it is true. In order to accept a belief as true, you must first possess faith we are told. But all faith is blind faith by definition and that's the rub. All victims of belief manipulation are first convinced that they must possess faith in order to be 'saved'. But faith in what? Faith in whatever the preacher says is the "Word of God" while holding up one of the 650 different versions of the "Holy" Bible and declaring it to be the unchallenged written Word of God. I can get you to believe in anything, if you will first surrender your intellect and common sense and allow me to supplant them with a firm conviction in the notion of "faith." That's why preacher-propagandists spend so much effort touting the supposed virtue and desirability of possessing "faith" and will repeat well-worn Biblical mantras like "Oh ye of little faith" or "doubting Thomas" to reinforce the idea that blind acceptance-based on faith- is a good thing , while entertaining any sort of doubt (meaning questioning the validity of what's being shoved down your throat) is a bad thing .

How reprehensible it is to treat people in this way, yet that is the mind wash that's being pushed upon a very large group of people in America who refer to themselves as "Christians." But are these self-described Christians truly followers of Christ and do they emulate His example and adhere to His teachings? I don't think so. If anything, they are grossly unaware of the true teachings of Jesus Christ. They are mislead by false teachers into deception and calculated manipulation. They may refer to themselves as non-denominational, or charismatic, or evangelical Christians, but ultimately they are fundamentalist Christians and they are the most duped people on the face of the earth.

Being a fundamentalist anything is undesirable because a fundamentalist is a zealot-and zealots can be dangerous. A zealot believes in a set of acquired postulates and will go to extremes to coerce his beliefs upon others. The false postulate that the fundamentalist Christian has an obligation, or duty, or mission to "save" other people on behalf of "God" or Jesus is an affront to the free will and self-determination that every soul in God's creation is entitled to-and no one has the right to try to impose his beliefs or will upon others.

I recently saw a documentary on Mormons on public television. It may have been Frontline or The American Experience, I can't remember, but it was a revealing expose of the underside of the Church of Later Day Saints and their evangelical 'mission' to brainwash young men into giving up two years of their young lives to go to a far-away place and engage in the very sort of un-welcomed coercion that I'm describing here. One disillusioned ex-missionary remarked that after two solid years of daily accosting, haranguing, and 'evangelizing', he had not succeeded in obtaining even a single convert (what a surprise!). Had this individual retained the capacity to think for himself and not allow himself to be blindly brainwashed, he would have recognized that Jesus never engaged in 'evangelical' behavior.

The people who listened to Jesus sought Him out, not the other way around. Jesus gained followers by example and the wisdom of his counsel, not by any form of coercion (if even one self-described fundamentalist Christian reading these words acquires an understanding or realization that's it's fundamentally WRONG to try and force your beliefs on others-the very core of "evangelism"- then I will have succeeded in serving humanity with this article).

Evangelism, however, is not the only false postulate that Christian fundamentalists embrace. There are many destructive notions that are seeded into the fundamentalist psyche that cause him to engage in behavior or hold beliefs that lead to strife and conflict. These include the concepts of "judgment", (whether against others on the earthly plane, or the judgment that they assume they will face when they arrive at the Pearly Gates) and the concept of "sin", which carries a debt of guilt and the need to atone in some punishing way. That atonement includes the idea of burning away in Hell for eternity (or burning for a time in the halfway house, Purgatory) which is offered up to impressionable youngsters in order to scare them straight so they in turn will pass the Fear torch on to their children (and on and on it goes in a continuous Merry-Go-Round of pulpit-inspired deception, generation after generation).

At the heart of Christian fundamentalist myths is the idea that man is a lowly sinner who must be "saved" by the grace of God (or Jesus) in order to obtain salvation and buy a ticket to Heaven. This concept (which includes the myth of Original Sin) is erroneous and leads one to think of himself as being separate and detached from the Creator We are not detached from the Creator. We are part of the Creator and therefore we possess the capacity to create. It riles the Christian fundamentalist dogmatist to no end to confront the notion that his lowly, unworthy "sinner" is possessed of a divine nature and can create himself, but this is exactly what Jesus told us when he said "you can do all that I have done, and more." Is that not so?

Therefore, we have a divine nature, since we have God dwelling within us at all times, whether it appears that way or not. Every single human being possess a divine nature and we are ALL sons and daughters of God-without exception. Yet, consider the rank hypocrisy of Christian clergymen everywhere who refer on one hand to their congregation as "children of God" while in the same breath declare that Jesus in the ONLY Son of God. You can't have it both ways.
(By the way, Jesus never said He was the Son of God. He referred to Himself as the "Son of Man". The Roman emperor Constantine decided that Christ was the "Son of God" in 323 AD at the Council of Nicea).

What we see in the mirror is a reflection of a fleshy garment which we wear while on the physical plane, but it is not the essence of who we are. We are an immortal consciousness, a Being of Light, who is temporarily housed in that fleshy garment while on earth to learn spiritual lessons. Besides the skin we wear, we also have other "bodies" nested within our form like layers of an onion.

We have a sensual 'body' that can be so captivated by pleasurable sensations that it can lead us to addictive and obsessive behavior such as drug addiction, alcohol addiction, sex addiction, or food addiction, if allowed to run unchecked and uncontrolled by our inner consciousness. We have an emotional 'body' that can respond wildly to the stimulus of emotions and especially to the dictates of the ego unless we recognize its influence and can learn to contain it. This is the 'body' that is most manipulated by Christian preacher-propagandists who employ the use of charged emotions (the fired-up emotional delivery of the preacher, the power of music to emotionally sweep us off our feet, the powerful dynamics of group reverie (or pseudo-reverie) to suspend thinking and carry us along on a river of emotionalism) to install their Illuminati-inspired British Israel programming in their highly suggestible and pre-primed congregations.

This is precisely what British Israel con artists like Benny Hinn, John Hagee, Paul & Jan Crouch, Rod Parsley, Jesse Duplantis, etc, etc., are doing with their congregants. They are using the facade of Christianity to install ideas and beliefs (E.g. Christian Zionism) that will ultimately lead to the destruction of Christianity and the imposition of the Satanic New World Order.

Duped fundamentalist congregants are not going to be able to recognize or free themselves from this deception unless they begin to temper the hypnotic influence of emotionalism and start engaging their under-utilized intellectual "body" to discern and examine more carefully what they are being taught as the indisputable "Will of God." They are being brainwashed and manipulated to serve the agenda of the New World Order and they don't know it.

Thankfully, a few books have been published recently which address this issue head on and more Christian pastors-who still have their heads screwed on straight- are now beginning to publicly lambaste the deceptions being promoted by the likes of Hagee or Hinn, but much more awakening needs to take place within the ranks of congregants themselves. They are the ones who are funding and underpinning the very scaffolding upon which they will hang themselves.

Ken Adachi- All Rights Reserved.
The Myths Of Christian Fundamentalism by Ken Adachi
Editor - Educate-Yourself.org

-----------

Interesting! I remember one of my children working on a "subliminal persuasion" project during HS. It was very enlightening. I found the above article quite thought-provoking, and cannot simply dismiss it as "hoo haa." We know so very little, and have been lied to so very much. Let's do our own thinking and not that which we are informed "IS," for within each of us is that very thing which knows what "IS." That's not from my RSE experience, but something I've always known. We are each precious and divine in our own way and how wonderful the world would be if we all were to recognize the divine within each and every person/being with which we share this planet.
"I never really understood religion - it just seemed a good excuse to give" - Ten Years After circa 1972
joe sz
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Unread post by joe sz »

re fundamentalism.
This is a complex often misundestood phenomenon worldwide. fyi, refer to the excellent, thorough study by Martin Marty, PhD, the head of religious studies at U of Chicago. [Marty took over as chair for the illustrious Mircea Eliade when Eliade died in 1986].
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Complete/Series/FP.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Marty

I am no fan of evangelical fundamentalism even if many of those folks are fine neighbors. Kinky Friedman, when he was running for governor in Texas, said. "The only thing wrong with Southern Baptists is that they don't hold them down long enough." [Skeptic, 2008, Vol 13, #4, p.15].

The issue I have with Adachi is not how he feels about those 'southern baptists" but that he seems to commit the same errors of thought and philosophy---Adachi is also a fundamentalist because he asserts the following personal belief as literal fact:
"What we see in the mirror is a reflection of a fleshy garment which we wear while on the physical plane, but it is not the essence of who we are. We are an immortal consciousness, a Being of Light, who is temporarilyhoused in that fleshy garment while on earth to learn spiritual lessons. Besides the skin we wear, we also have other "bodies" nested within our form like layers of an onion."

Adachi espouses a form of radical religious dualism typical of Gnostic cults that flourished early in Christianity and in Hindu Dvaita [see Madhva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhvacharya]. The Hare Krishnas are radical dualists, for example.

I am not arguing that Adachi is wrong but that he has no way of provng that he is right, no more than any fundamentalist does.
See&E
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deliverance

Unread post by See&E »

Maybe this whole followers thing has been going on forever.
What about all those in the Biblical story who were finally set
free and led by 'Moses' (after parting the red sea) only to wander in the desert for ...
.... 40 (symbolic) years... ??? :lol: j/k
Whatchamacallit
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Heart & Soul

Unread post by Whatchamacallit »

>>>I am not arguing that Adachi is wrong but that he has no way of provng that he is right, no more than any fundamentalist does.
<<<

With this I can agree. If there is a "God" in some form/formlessness, then s/he will know MY heart/soul when my time comes to croak. I've already screwed things up in my life, though the older I get (I'm over 21), the wiser I am, the more mature I am, and the better a person I become. "God" will know this about me, I am confident.

If there is no such entity as a "God" in any form, then none of it matters, anyway.

Prior to the RSE experience, and absolutely since leaving it, I have zero interest in involvement in ANY group, be it "organized religion" (another cult in my estimation; been there, done that), or New Age dogma. Never again will I give authority to anyone outside of me. If I went to "church" (fill in the quotes with any religious view), and acted like an idiot the rest of the week (we all know what I'm talking about), it's a laughable hypocrisy, anyway. I am so done ...following... (giggle). If I've made a mistake and Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior, then I have taken that risk. Then again, if JC is that anal, who needs him ? Doesn't sound very unconditionally loving to me !!! I'm HUMAN and I can do a better job of expecting people to play guessing games with theories that even "experts" LOL !!! debate. The more I consider it, it all sounds as ludicrous as some of the stories out of RSE. (MY opinion; not intended to offense anyone or cause a debate)

Some of my children ( the 12 and newly 10 yr old) sparked a conversation a few days ago (Good Friday) by asking me some very pointed questions about this holiday. It was quite interesting. It was liberating for me, and felt so honest to be able to say to them that I can't prove a darn thing to them, but for this holiday, some people BELIEVE such and so. Others believe it is total or partial myth. We delved deeper into that, to the degree they were willing to carry the conversation.

We were very low key with the actual 'holiday' part of the long weekend. What was "high key" for us, was seeing the beauty in life as we worked hard on our property, building a big stone fire pit (had an awesome fire tonight), clearing out more of our land down toward the brook and waterfalls, and being TOGETHER as a family. Life, love and happiness. Hopefully topped off with good health as a bonus !

Life is good. Particularly when it is lived from the heart :wink:
sparky
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Unread post by sparky »

As a brand new member I'm just going to jump in here and say I don't think Ken Adachi has read the bible. Actually, I joined this forum because my dear ex brother-in-law who lived with my husband and I for several years has been involved with RSE for over 2 decades. I lost the husband but kept the brother-in-law as a friend. I learned all about RSE as I was ...searching. I thought any "religion" was fine as long as it incorporated the golden rule. He seemed to be relatively happy, however I continued looking. Jesus said you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32 If one doesn't feel free then one should keep looking.
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