The Religious right...a question

[fencesitter]

Is this "religious right" group really that large and powerful? Who does it include? I think I've only met, in my life, a few folks that would fit in this group and they were nuts enough that no one would take them seriously. Of course, I live in the PA suburbs, not the heartland. I read a US News report a while back, and although they're very loud and bring politics into the church, they still seem to be a small minority of the voting population. Am I naive?

[mopaul]

1. i have personal experience with them

because my mother father and brother have all gone over to the dark side of Christianity. for over 30 years they have been utterly brainwashed by fellow born agains. when i see up close, what has happened to three members of my own family, i witnessed the real power of the republicans. they have successfully played these people like a cheap fiddle, seemingly without their knowledge.

i say yes, they are very powerful, and very dangerous to our union.
now more than ever. we should be very very afraid of their zeal.

[BR_Parkway]

2. Come visit us here in the South

We have the Southern Baptists, the Pentacostals, the various Assemblies who are all pretty fanatical.

Also home to Liberty University, Oral Roberts and 700 Club, Jim & Tammy Baker and at least one church on every corner

[fencesitter]

3. Lotsa Baptists around here

Not "Southern" though. But isn't Jimmy Carter a Southern Baptist? I had my son in a Baptist prescholl (it was convenient and affordable) and all the folks I met there seemed very grounded, not at all homophobic or exclusionary.

[Lars39]

5. Jimmy Carter left SBC. The submissive woman edict was last straw.

http://www.baptiststandard.com/2000/10_23/pages/carter.html

[saltpoint]

4. Of the fundamentalists I've encountered, I'd describe --

most of them as unalert, divisive, accusatory, unchallenged, graceless, Medieval, and loud.

[Ladyhawk]

6. As a former fundamentalist, I can tell you they are very, very dangerous.

They think they already have the answers, so it's pointless to talk to them. They feel no need to listen. If you try to reason with a fundy, you'll most likely be shouted down.

My mother is a member of the Christian Coalition. She's anti-gay...anti-anything the church tells her to be against. Fundies weigh new information and decide whether to accept or reject it based upon their pre-conceived notions of dogma. They will reject FACTS if those facts don't line up with their interpretation of the bible. And--perhaps most alarming--they place way too much trust in authority. If George W. Bush says God told him to invade Iraq, well, it must be true.

From an early age, fundamentalists are taught to eschew reason. Reason is seen as dangerous and anti-god.

Some fundies think they have a direct line to god and interpret their own prejudices as "messages from the almighty." When I went through my charismatic stage, I used to do this. I thought the powerful emotions I was feeling were messages from god and used them to manipulate other people. Yes, I was whacked.

Very few people escape fundamentalism, especially if they are indoctrinated from an early age.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[fencesitter]

7. So, how were you deprogrammed?

And this is what I mean, are not these people a small minority of Christians?

[mopaul]

8. I used to do what the Hindu...

i was raised a methodist, drifted into drugs and eastern philosophy in the 60's. had a very scary close encounter with the hari krishna movement, and became a real nutball for a while. most people apparently go through a religious period, sometimes permanently.

i eventually became a happy atheist, and it didn't help that my whole family went fundie in 1972, and never turned back. and i've witnessed many other people fall into the 'mystic maelstrom' and it works for some of them. if they are happy, so am i. but i don't want them mucking around with my government and sexuality.

[TXvote]

9. Very organized numbers

One of the things about the extreme religous right is how well organized they are. As righteous people will do, they recruit and hand deliver voters to the polls of a like mind. Unfortunately liberals tend to be less "militant" about expecting their peers to deliver votes.

Also, with this gay marriage issue, I have had life long Democrats who are deeply religous tell me that they will vote for Bush if the Dems support gay marriage " because God is bigger than any party".
Unfortunately, when the extreme right touches on a core religous issue, they will pull in bible votes.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Big enough, organized enough, well-funded enough

sad to say.

[Hamlette]

11. I don't know how many they are

but I tried to have a discussion with one about how difficult it was for her to live in a secular world. This was about a year ago, before the gay marriage issue came up and she gratuitously said in the course of the discussion: I believe in Jesus blah blah and it angers me when religious people go off against homosexuality. Jesus would never do that.

The only other religious nut case I knew was a Dem, quite liberal but very anti-gay. We parted company over the issue. We'd been best friends for years.