Most Americans are, or should be, aware that the  United States is  clearly the epicenter of protestant fundamentalism. By my rough estimate, around 80 per cent or religious focused TV sound the old themes of Biblical inerrancy ,skepticism of science . opposition to the findings science, no matter how widely accepted such findings are. All the way from the thousand year old earth, the denial of evolution. the mocking of global warming. sexual preference as  innate ==the findings bearing on these issues. and others, are still stoutly denied.

But my focus here is not on the ignorance of these views but how such immunity to science and reason is effecting the American religious landscape and what it could lead to.

Must has been said and written in the last decades about the decline in numbers, and thus in influence, of what is called "the main stream churches." And such decline has clearly been evident. Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Lutheran, some forms of congregationalism struggle to keep membership figures. Even the Southern Baptist,  historically fundamentalist. have had to creep up to the Republican Party, to help secure their, now mainly Southern anti liberal tendencies.

 Now, I think there are two principal causes for the weakening of the main-line religions. First, the steady advance of science has made the rational undergirdings of supernatural religion less firm. What might have been accepted as quite believable ,say, 100 years ago, has become hard to accept. Just one example: The special creation by a creator of  the world 5000 years ago is simply not acceptable even to those of very limited education.  Denominations that attempted to grow by a combination of reason, tradition, and faith have seen reason(science) win much of the field , tradition not so sacrosanct , and faith, belief in the unseen, maybe not as good a tool to base living on

Second, we live in a world of many competing interest, and organized religion is just one among many. So how does organized religion 'hold its ground'?

Well, I suggest  a "more bang for the buck" approach. I'm not just talking about bowling alleys, free movies, dawn to dusk activities, making the church your second 'home.'

No, I'm suggesting change the theological/practice scene, Bring back with much greater fervor the idea that was called "Enthusiasm" which was always around at least at the edge of historic Christianity and which Ronald Knox wrote so elegantly about. Religion is not primarily about reason and tradition. IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS RELIGION IS JUST A MATTER OF FEELING . Get the faithful together and through music, or preaching or visits of the holy spirit stir the emotional pot to boiling and reap the harvest of souls. How dare reason, tradition stand in the way of what we know by our own "inner feelings!!"

MORMONS: Looney Tunes

I hate to be mean, but with this group, where do you start? Okay, it's our 'native' American religion, and it grows like a California wildfire. So there must be something there. RIGHT? Well, NO. Let's deal with METHOD, not Theology.

First, get a kind of shady crank guy.
Second, get some "Golden Tablets." straight from the BIG GUY or from one of his messangers..
Third, let your imagination run wild and make up some crazy history about jews and American Indians.
Four, throw in a little sex(man have many wives).
Five, spice things up with 'sacred temples'
Six. Have a university.
Seven Act like you have scholars.
Eight. Make it so garbled, you can just reinterpret any thing, anytime,

Hey, and don't forget the crazy underwear! Still can't figure that out. Your UNDERWEAR has religious significance!??

So, if your daughter wants to marry a Mormon? Not much you can do. Just swallow your pride. After all she might develop a yen for Scientology.



































 to have scholards

Most reasonably educated Americans are familiar with the term "Fundamentalism" as that term us used American religious discourse. Historically it came into popular use around the term of the 20th to  describe a reaction to liberalism in religious thinking associated with what was called "the higher criticism." This "criticism" turned a searching eye on the Biblical texts to see which were actual facts and occurencres as opposed to later, not always 'history,' in the sense of actual events or sayings.

The "fundamentalists," centered at first around Princeton University, rejected this "higher criticism" and drew up a list of  5 'fundamentals' which they claimed were absolutely essential to Christianity, indeed the very ;sine qua non' of the faith without which Christianity had no real eternal truth. In sum, the fundamentalist position was that the Bible was divinely inspired and was  thus inerrant, that us without error in theology or fact.  This inerrancy is still held by millions of  Americans. This book with no errors might not be so troublesome if its perfection were confined to theological matters, but when expanded to history and science, the results become grotesque.

The problem with any type of fundamentalism is that it reeks of  certainty. There is only one truth; all deviation from the 'fundamentals.' is, almost by definition, error ,if not outright evil, in religion and social thought.

Science, on the other hand, does not speak of certainty but probability. We call evolution in the natural world  a theory, but as a theory with such a high degree of certainty that we slip into calling it a 'fact.' But if we say the evolving of species in a certain way is hard fact then we gave closed the door the further, if any, refinements of the basic theory. "Facts" cannot change. "Theories" leave the door open to further discoveries.

Now today we have three theories, accepted by many facts and thus not challengable , that are creating problems that are impeding the advance of knowledge. First is religious fundamentalism , the idea that certain writings Biblical cannot be subject to error; then political Islam, the belief that major parts of Islam must be force upon the rest of the world by force if necessary. and third,  what I will call 'sexual fundamentalism,' doctrines about the sexual relationship of humans which, still day, cause major mischief in the lives and well being and happiness of millions.