What are the Degrees of Fundamentalism?

Why are you waiting for God to give us a revival? God has already told you what to do with these people. So if you encounter someone who deals in witchcraft, do you kill them as is God's decree? Or do you defy Him with your intellect?Edited by docpotato, : No reason given.

Exactly. And yet, fundies depict a god who kills children because he's mad at the gays next door.

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Thank you Faith, for providing such an excellent example of fundamentalist binary thinking, and some of the implications.The binary thinking 'right/wrong', 'True/false', 'saved/damned'. The implcations is the notion that is the fundamentalist is 'right', and everyone who disagrees is 'wrong.Noticed the implied contempt of 'liberal thinking, and the refusal to get into a dialog with those that have different interpretations. There also is the stated concept that 'those who see god differently than I do deny scripture' attitude.This inflexibilty is what drives the various degree's of fundamentalism. The more inflexible, and 'me vs world' attitude, the more 'fundamentalist' the individual.I think people will notice this pattern amoung the more conservative christians on the board. The ones that are willing to engage in dialog
and dicuss things tend to lose that 'binary thinking/right-wrong' mindset.

Personally, I don't think the bible says what you think it says.You are not putting your trust in God, or in the bible, but rather you are putting trust in your infallibility and how your put your concepts into the bible.

Of course, 'witch' is a poor translation.It is refering to someone who 'Deals with the spirits of the dead'. Such people would be those who channel, and those folks on the sci-fi channel that 'talk to the dead'.. those are the kinds of people they are talking about (John Edwards was one of them).

No doubt. Wouldn't that, by necessity, include Christians who pray to Jesus? Now I'm confused.

"Witch" covers the territory well enough. It's all about dealings with demons. The spirits of the dead do not communicate with the living. It is demonic impersonations of people that communicate, when it's real and not a fraud of course.

Well, I have to point out Isaiah 45:7 So, according to the writer of second part of isaiah, god did create evil. However, that is a big difference between the concept that GOd created all things (including the opportunity for man to do wrong), and the sending of divine retribution.As for blasphemy, one man's blasphemy is another man's theology. To say one is right and the other is wrong you have to be God.. (and it doesn't matter one bit if God doesn't exist). I certainly don't think the concept of 'divine retribution' is very meaningful. On the other hand, I am not 'God' and neither are you or faith, (unless you want to take the quote attributed to Jesus of 'you are all gods' literally).

Well, technically, the Christians believe that Jesus is risen from the dead. So , in their mind, they are not doing so.However, that is a very good point.

Why don't you follow the argument sometime, hm? Lot said about why we don't kill witches any more if you'd been paying attention.

That is , again, an interpretation of the passage that I do not feel is justified by the words in the passage. You are reading a lot of bias INTO the passage rather than reading what the passages actually says.

Jesus is alive forevermore, not dead.

When you know the supernatural is divided between God's kingdom and Satan's kingdom, there is no doubt that the various occultic practices are all in the latter, and to call it all "witchcraft" will suffice. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As far as I can see, you've hemmed and hawed about not being sure whether these rules apply outside of a theocracy.Sounds like trusting your own intellect kind-of talk to me.

The word "evil" in Isaiah 45:7 does not mean sin and badness, it means calamity and disaster. It is an archaic use of the word. The evils that befall us all sort of thing. At least one other translation as I recall has "calamity" there. I can't access Blue Letter Bible for some reason to check that out right now. But that is how I have always read that verse. It is therefore directly saying that it is God who brings all the disasters on the world.