From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Sun Dec 20 1998 - 23:37:59 MST
>Samael wrote: ...The ex-Christians I know are also the most antireligious
>people that I know - to the point of irrationality....
samael, have you pondered why this might be? i have an insight to
share please.
you may have seen a single axis thought-space map for politics
which shows liberals on the left, moderates in the middle and
conservatives on the right. (please ignore the vertical axis for
the sake of this simple arguement.) to the left of the leftists are
the radicals, to the right of the conservatives are the reactionaries.
in some models, the two ends join in a circle, since radicals and
reactionaries share some characteristics, do they not?
now, do the same trick for religion, a single axis thought-space
map for religion. try to locate yourself on that map. can you?
suppose we focus on christian based religions for the sake of
this limited model, and to prevent me from venturing too far on
ground i do not understand. {8^D ok, in the middle, we have
moderate believers. to the left are the more open-minded brands
of christianity, presbyterian, etc. farther to the left are unitarian
universalist, etc. to the right are bible thumping fundamentalists.
ok, on that scale, what is to the left of the universalist? what is
to the right of the fundamentalist? give up? let me suggest,
to the left of the universalist is the agnostic, and to the right of
the fundamentalist is the athiest. like the political counterpart,
the far left and far right share many characteristics. the axis
meets around back.
does it surprise you that the athiest is to the right of the fundamentalist?
even without understanding this principle, fundamentalists somehow
know that athiesm is lurking nearby and are terrified by the prospect
of drifting to the right and becoming an atheist. this is what makes
them so closed minded and resistant to ideas. the former
fundamentalist turned atheist is appalled by her or his former notions
and can be quite hard on those who refuse to examine fundamentalist
beliefs critically. i know many examples of this.
samael, how does this theory work for you? spike
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