I have been upset by a religious zealot

I hate religious prostletysers more than cold-calling double-glazing sellers or phone loans people.

Is some nutty christian mob doing this as a concerted effort for some weird reason? Anyone heard anything else like this?

I got an email forward at work saying that (it was meant to go to the person I replaced, who was active in Christian groups). yeah they were extremely vehement about going to see the thing, which struck me as odd.

I sometimes think it's a fairly pointless exercise even attempting to discuss religious beliefs with such people because they argue as though they have been brainwashed and always have to have the last word.

(Note: I do not equate Suzy with Rik the People's Poet, that would be a wrong sentiment.)

E!U!P!H!E!M!I!S!M!

Three stories about dealing with various types of prostheletisers:

-My friend's father was an Anglican Bishop. He would happily invite all manner of born agains into his house, and sit them down in his study, then leave them alone for a minute to slowly realise that all the leather bound tomes in the room were actually religious tracts in Latin. The bishop would go upstairs, change into his dog collar and come back down to the study, crack his knuckles and ask "Now where were we?" That generally shut them up.

-My brother vs. the Mormons would invariably ask "Ah yes, the salamander!" (Don't ask.)

-There was a woman in Albany called The Bible Lady who would walk up and down Lark Street (the local boho strip) asking people if they wanted to read the bible with her. One of the local punkers, the Rev. Jim Brown, got a copy of the Satanic Bible, and sat down next to her, and said "Well, I'll read the bible with you, if you read this with me!" She ran away, very scared.

missionary zealots with massive fake appendages

xpost

x-post - don't make fun of my spelling. I thought Ed said this thing was supposed to correct yer spelling mistakes. (Well, it doesn't work for him, though, does it?)

(coincidentally, I went along to my local library just this morning to look something up in the OED: the history of the word 'cool')

no they wouldn't. the full oxford english dictionary is immense and costs about £2,000

Not a bad photo of me is it...

I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry.

I shit you not.

Yes, I have heard that, but I think it's unlikely to make the edifice of the Christian church crumble.

The original texts of the New Testament aren't in Aramaic - they're Greek.

This is bound to be contentious, and also innaresting. For starters, the movie is based on a blend of all 4 gospels, written by non-eye-witnesses, and according to my googling (21 century equiv of medieval biblical scholarship?) Mel G's gone for 'versions' of these gospels that accentuate... well, you get the picture -- just having aramaic dialogue and location shooting doesn't actually increase the 'realism' but the naturalism.

It's not a 'mortal sin' to disagree with the church. Again, you're misrepresenting church teaching.

It wasn't my definition, if you don't like it, tell the fucking OED.

-- Kerry (dymaxiaOU...), February 16th, 2004.

fundamentalism n. 1 a form of Protestant Christianity which upholds belief in the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible. 2 the strict maintenance of the ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology.

Concise Oxford Dictionary 10/e

Now version 2 certainly applies to Catholic hatred of homosexuality.

You're not required to 'hate homosexuality' by the Church.
Read this.

Incidentally, 'OED' is consistently misused on ILX. The actual OED is about a gazillion vols long and the entry for 'fundamentalism' wd no doubt be an interesting short essay on the word's etymology. But few of us, I'll wager, have access to this. Oxford dictionaries use the OED's resources, however.
-- ENRQ (miltonpinsk...), February 17th, 2004.

--Surely most public reference libraries would have a copy?
no they wouldn't. the full oxford english dictionary is immense and costs about £2,000

-- Dave Stelfox (destelfo...), February 17th, 2004.

Well, it just so happens that I have access to the FULL OED, both online and in hard copy. But thanks for imputing that I'm a liar.

Would you like me to post the entire entry, complete with etymologies, to prove it? If the Catholic Church were 'fundamentalist', there wouldn't have been a Vatican II. And I love the incredible theological detail you go into with your mentioning of mortal sins. That's really helpful to all of the people who read this thread who aren't as familiar with the church as those who were raised Catholic.

I will also note again the refusal to accept the American connotation of 'fundamentalism'. So much for respect for cultural differences.

a. A religious movement, which orig. became active among various Protestant bodies in the United States after the war of 1914-1918, based on strict adherence to certain tenets (e.g. the literal inerrancy of Scripture) held to be fundamental to the Christian faith; the beliefs of this movement; opp. liberalism and modernism.

examples: 1923 Daily Mail 24 May 8 Mr. William Jennings Bryan..has been exerting the full force of his great eloquence in a campaign on behalf of what is termed ‘Fundamentalism’. 1925 K. LAKE Relig. Yesterday & To-morrow 63 There has been in America some surprise at the sudden rise of Fundamentalism in the last five years. 1927 Observer 5 June 5/3 Fundamentalism and the Klux Klan are signs of alarm on behalf of the older ideals. 1955 Times 25 Aug. 14/1 ‘Fundamentalism’..appears to have been used first in connexion with the (American) Northern Baptist Convention of 1920 to describe the more conservative delegates who desired ‘to restate, reaffirm, and re-emphasize the fundamentals of our New Testament faith’. Ibid., Now ‘fundamentalism’..appears to describe the bigoted rejection of all Biblical criticism, a mechanical view of inspiration and an excessively literalist interpretation of scripture.

b. In other religions, esp. Islam, a similarly strict adherence to ancient or fundamental doctrines, with no concessions to modern developments in thought or customs.

1957 L. BINDER in Middle East Jrnl. XI. 391 Fundamentalism in religion and the Hinduization of the national historical myth were made possible [in India]..by the historical and religious work of Europeans. 1961 Relig. & Politics in Pakistan ii. 52 These same circumstances determined that the Congress act as midwife at the birth of Islamic fundamentalism in the Khilafat movement. 1981 Observer 27 Sept. 32/1 The new, or rather very old, Islam, the dangerous fundamentalism revived by the ayatollahs and their admirers. 1984 Church Times 2 Mar. 6/1 The newly-revived Western Christian awareness of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, whose symbolic figure is Ayatollah Khomeini. 1984 Times 27 Apr. 13/2 It is this very process that has helped ignite the fires of Sikh fundamentalism, rather as Shiite fundamentalism was sparked off by the forces of modernization in Iran.

So fundamentalist, an adherent of fundamentalism; also, an economic or political doctrinaire. Also attrib. or as adj., and transf.

1922 Contemp. Rev. July 20 The fundamentalist creed. Ibid. 21 The Fundamentalists have been fortunate in their non-ministerial leader [sc. W. J. Bryan]. 1925 K. LAKE Relig. Yesterday & To-morrow 60 The most energetic..group, but the least well educated, is the Fundamentalist. Ibid. 62 The Fundamentalists have zeal, but it is certainly not according to knowledge. 1926 H. F. OSBORN Evol. & Relig. in Educ. 12 The fundamentalist movement..sought to re-establish the Biblical literalism of the time of Cromwell, Milton, and the Puritans. 1955 Times 25 Aug. 14/1 The dangers of the new fundamentalist movement. One of the encouraging developments for Christian teachers to-day is the new relationship which is growing up between scientific and religious thought. 1957 Middle East Jrnl. XI. 391 Less well known is their [sc. Europeans'] part in the development of non-Christian fundamentalist movements through their translations..of the ancient sources. 1961 L. BINDER Relig. & Pol. in Pakistan xiii. 378 The fundamentalist movement is a lower middle-class movement..oriented to the institutions of a..passing age. 1961 WEBSTER, Fundamentalist, an extreme conservative; esp: one who attacks any deviation from certain doctrines and practices he considers essential (as to a religious, political, or educational system). 1969 New Yorker 14 June 45/1 I've never been a flashy stylist, like Arthur. I'm a fundamentalist. Arthur is a bachelor. I am married and conservative. 1973 Economist 15 Dec. 106/2 The fundamentalists look at a company's product, balance sheet, record and management before deciding whether the stock market has put the right value on the shares. 1981 Times 26 Sept. 4/2 The measures are designed mostly to curb the influence of Muslim fundamentalists. 1985 Daily Tel. 29 Mar. 22/4 Fundamentalist Jews are limbering up to oppose the plan on the grounds that it will depict scenes from the New Testament as well as the Old.

Non-Catholics need to understand that Catholicism is as much cultural as it is religious. Maybe they wouldn't be so snobbish and condescending if they had the faintest understanding of that.

(please please please do not equate criticism of the relious impulse with the intolerance of homosexuality &c to which i'm referring there)

I don't think anyone is denying the specific Protestant connotations (esp. in the US) of fundamentalism, are they? It's just that it has a wider meaning too.

Mel Gibson is. Kerry (and those 'recovering', like Dave and myself) probably aren't.

A few points:

1) Mel Gibson, as has been pointed out repeatedly on this thread, belongs to a Catholic splinter group that thinks the current Catholic church is not sufficiently conservative.

2) There's a reason that the definition Kerry's relying upon is #1, and the reason Dave and Enrique are using is #2.

3) Even under the #2 definition, the current Roman Catholic church probably couldn't be considered 'fundamentalist', since Vatican II did a real number on "the strict maintenance of the ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology." Just out of curiosity, what do you non-Catholics consider the "fundamental doctrines" of Catholicism? (Note: there is an answer to this question that is both simple and indisputably correct)

4) Finally, As Kerry pointed out upthread and Jim just pointed out above, there are fundamentalist Catholic groups, Opus Dei and Gibson's wacky splinter group are among them. Only Opus Dei is sanctioned by Rome, though.

Go on then. In practice: institutional homophobia is a 'fundamental doctrine'.
What's the right answer?

More fundy crap .

First, "institutional homophobia" is not a doctrine at all; it's a practice, and one that is not central to catholicism in any way.

The correct answer is the Nicean Creed, which is nothing but a recitation of the basic beliefs of Catholics.

http://www.stmargaretsparish.org/stmargaretsparish/beliefs.htm

Please note that homosexuality is not mentioned.

You gotta have Faith.

just because it might be NSFW, though as far as I can tell it's not

Yes, it was posted almost a year ago, but I have to point out that this is one of the most AMAZING typos I've ever seen (given thread and post topic and the fact that I went to school there).