LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Fresh Air with Terry Gross will have the pastor of the Dominionist Coral Ridge church as well as Fredrick Clarkson (author of Eternal Hostility) on as guests. This should be a very interesting program.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The first half of Jeff Sharlet's "Harper's" article Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch" is available on his "Revealer" website. I highly recommend it.

Here's an excerpt:

the city’s mightiest megachurch crests silver and blue atop a gentle slope of pale yellow prairie grass on the outskirts of town. Silver and blue, as it happens, are Air Force colors. New Life Church was built far north of town in part so it would be visible from the Air Force Academy. New Life wanted that kind of character in its congregation.

“Church” is insufficient to describe the complex. There is a permanent structure called the Tent, which regularly fills with hundreds or thousands of teens and twentysomethings for New Life’s various youth gatherings. Next to the Tent stands the old sanctuary, a gray box capable of seating 1,500; this juts out into the new sanctuary, capacity 7,500, already too small. At the complex’s western edge is the World Prayer Center, which looks like a great iron wedge driven into the plains. The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life’s founder.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hangedwoman)

Since recently we've been discussing the sociology and psychology of fundamentalists, I thought this article which discusses the appeal of fundamentalist organizations would provide some good fodder.

Would you believe until I went to post this I forgot I wasn't a member here but was only monitoring. :P

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's another article that compares the Religious Right to addiction.

An excerpt:

For my purposes, the distinction between fundamentalist Christianity and Dominionism is incidental because what is most important to understand is that any religion, philosophy, or belief system can be addictive, fear-based, and terrorizing, and if it is used to justify changing the Constitution of the United States and creating a society in which the laws of that system are also fear-based and terrorizing, then regardless of the label, fundamentalist or Dominionist, that system is both terrorist and tyrannical. Whether one wishes to debate the differences between fundamentalist Christianity and Dominionism or not, both systems are about domination, power, control, right/wrong; win/lose. Moreover, as in my last article, I am reiterating that terrorism and tyranny, like the word addiction, have much broader definitions than crashing planes into buildings, establishing a superior race, or forcing women to cover their faces.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

In this post, docnuke wishes that we had a "Science Nazi" to put some sense into the "Intelligent Design" pushers' heads:

This is why we need the Science Nazi. In a situation like this, he would walk up to the Kansas Board of Education and announce:

NO SCIENCE FOR YOU!

What’s that Mr. Board Member? You want to use your cell phone? Sorry that was only possible with the scientific discovery of radio waves.

NO SCIENCE FOR YOU!

What’s that Mr. Intelligent Design/Creationist? You want to drive your giant SUV? Sorry, gasoline is a fossil fuel from the days of the dinosaurs, which don’t exist in your Bible. Not to mention the refining process, and the workings of the internal combustion engine.

NO SCIENCE FOR YOU!

What’s that Mr. Concerned Parent? You don’t support gay marriage cause it’s “unnatural” since gays can’t breed, even though your own quadruplets couldn’t have been born without fertility drugs?

NO SCIENCE FOR YOU!

What’s that President Bush? You don’t support stem cell research and denounce global warming, yet you want to bomb places and send spaceships to Mars? Bombs and rocket fuel don’t just magically appear like the voices in your head that told you to be president.

NO SCIENCE FOR YOU!

These are just a few of the reasons why we need the Science Nazi. We need to remind people that they can’t have it both ways. They can’t have their 21st century technology, medicine and conveniences and still expect society to adhere to fairy tales from 2,000 years ago. If they want that kind of life, they can hang out with the Amish or set up a sanctuary cut off from the world like in The Village. If they are lucky and a divine source is watching out for them, maybe a bunch of them won’t drop dead from easily curable diseases.

Oh, and you, the guy right there, yes you, the one who doesn’t want kids reading Harry Potter because magic is bad, unless it’s Jesus-magic. You shouldn’t be using a computer, that’s chock-full of science and technical wizardry. Log off! Get out of here!

NO SCIENCE FOR YOU!