WINMX Assorted Textfiles/Ebooks.tar/Text - Religion - How to think like a fundamentalist.txt

Text File | 2003-10-05 | 20KB | 292 lines

How to think like a fundamentalist
       Planning a career in online Christian fundamentalist apologetics? How
      about the exciting world of Young-Earth Creationism? Witnessing to, and
      debating with, atheists and other hellbound unsaved sinners on the
      internet can be hard work, so you need to familiarise yourself with the
      tried and tested methods used by fundies all around the world. After
      completing this simple training course, the shadow of doubt will never
      again flicker across your mind whilst listening to the lies and deceptions
      of those ignorant infidels who disagree with your self-evident truths.
      1) Inerrancy
      First and foremost, the Bible is the absolute, literal word of God.
      Contrary to popular opinion, it contains none of the following:

        errors of any kind
        contradictions
        absurdities
      When you understand this, dealing with those who claim to have found a
      contradiction is simplicity itself: there are no contradictions, so he
      cannot have found one! You see? Easy, isn't it? If your opponent continues
      in his error after having this explained to him (nice and slowly),
      elaborate on your answer using an appropriate response from the following
      list:

        That translation is incorrect - in the original texts a different word
        is used, so it is not a contradiction.
        He is taking the verses out of context, so there is no contradiction.
        Satan has blinded him to the truth. There is no contradiction, and he
        should pray to be shown the correct meaning.
        This is only an apparent contradiction. That is not the same as an
        actual contradiction.
        If the verses are interpreted correctly, it is obvious that there is no
        contradiction.
        There are no contradictions in the Bible, so this is not a
        contradiction.
        The contradiction is caused by his anachronistic thinking. The word
        [insert word here] had a different meaning back then.
      Having just demonstrated that the supposed contradictions do not exist,
      you have now proved that there are no contradictions in the Bible,
      reinforcing your claim that it is truly the unsullied Holy Word of God.
      2) Science
      There is but one measuring stick required to determine the truth of any
      claim - how it compares with Holy Scripture. More precisely, how it
      compares with your personal reading of Scripture. So, if some secular
      humanist scientists dare to dream up a theory (or "wild guess", as it is
      more accurately known) that apparently conflicts with the teachings of the
      Bible, clearly these egg-head mad professors have made yet another idiotic
      mistake, possibly under demonic influence. How do we know they are
      mistaken? See "1 Inerrancy".
      Conversely, when science agrees with the Bible we should applaud the
      brave, Bible-believing investigators for supporting the Holy Word and
      showing the glory of Creation. But usually they are wrong.
      Never forget, the atheists are quick to use the findings of science as
      "evidence" in their arguments, but this is because materialism and science
      are their god and religion. They want the men in white coats to save them
      from the God they know will judge them.
      There are many things which science cannot explain. However, you can
      explain these things instantly and simply by saying "God did it". Perhaps
      the atheist will say "Well, we don't yet know how the Big Bang happened,
      and maybe never will, but we're working on it". Easy solution - God did
      it. Problem solved. However, some atheists are stubborn in their evil ways
      and you may have to repeat this scientific explanation to them many times
      before they accept it. Of course, when scientists eventually do come up
      with an answers for such problems, be prepared to patiently explain to
      them that this is what your religion taught all along, if interpreted
      correctly.
      3) Debating techniques
      Here we delve into the murky world of online debating with heathens. You
      can witness to lost souls in USENET newsgroups (such as alt.atheism and
      talk.origins), or in message fora on their websites.
      Self contradiction
      In a heated argument, you will often find yourself losing track of your
      previous posts, and the atheist will often accuse you of contradicting
      comments you made earlier. As your words are Bible-based, it stands to
      reason that they should therefore be correct at all times. Refer to "1
      Inerrancy". Alternatively, remember that, as slaves of The Evil One,
      atheists will do their best to twist your words and attempt to confuse
      you. If this appears to be happening, ignore their comments and pray for
      strength.
      Logic and reason
      These are the playthings of the unbeliever, and you should have no truck
      with them. Faith in the Lord is all you need. The atheist will try to
      imply that God should be bound by the rules of logic, but God invented
      logic and so cannot be constrained by it! The more illogical and
      unreasoning you are, the harder it becomes for atheists to refute your
      statements. They will scream "But that doesn't make sense! It is logically
      impossible!" - be that as it may, your faith will tell you that you are
      correct. With God, all things are possible - including impossible things.
      What more do you need?
      The burden of proof is on the skeptic
      "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" you will be told.
      But just who is making the extraordinary claim here? You, who simply
      observe the Creator's hand in all things, or the infidel who against all
      logic and reason denies the very same. Clearly, it is incumbent on the
      unbelievers to support their ludicrous assertions that there is no God.
      Ask them if they can prove God does not exist. Ask how they can be so
      arrogant to make this claim, when they have not searched the entire
      universe for God. They will come back and ask you to disprove the
      existence of Zeus, Vishnu and unicorns, but you should dismiss such
      childish nonsense - there is no comparison between the fairy-tale gods of
      other religions and the Truth of Christianity, Their inability to disprove
      God is evidence enough that He is real. If they cannot overturn your
      theory, they are clearly being unreasonable by refusing to accept it.
      Repeating yourself
      After spending a few days debating with a group of atheists, you should
      leave them alone for a week or so. This will give them time to come to
      terms with the truths you have revealed. Also, it will provide time for
      new people to join the discussion. This allows you to return to the forum
      once more and repeat your statements, unchanged, for the benefit of
      newcomers. We recommend storing your longer arguments in a text file, so
      it can be easily cut-and-pasted into the forum. If the forum regulars
      object, explain that, having already corrected their misconceptions, you
      are now simply trying to reach the new members and those who still
      unreasonably reject the truth. If they are civilised people, they will
      respect this and stand aside. Repeat this technique until you are banned
      from the board or placed in everybody's killfile.
      Huge posts
      To take the wind out of your opponent's sails, reply to the smallest query
      with pages and pages of text. Ideally, you should spend a couple of hours
      writing this yourself, but if you don't have the time cut-and-paste
      relevant (or, if possible, irrelevant) information from other Christian
      websites or resources. Try to spend at least ten kilobytes explaining why
      they should pray more, why they should fear Hell, how Christ died for
      their sins, why prominent Christian philosophers and scientists disagree
      with them, how long-dead Christians have already proven them wrong, and so
      on. Ask as many obscure questions as possible. If they are truly sincere
      (which, being atheists, is impossible) they will answer all of your
      points. If they fail to answer all of your points and questions, victory
      is yours. Make a note of this humiliating defeat and remember to bring it
      up often when dealing with this particular individual. (This is also a
      handy technique to use during a live debate with evolutionists. )
      A variant on this theme is to post numerous verses from the Bible to
      support your argument. Why bother with a hundred words of explanation,
      when a single verse will do it all for you. Simply post the verse that
      refutes the atheist, and then maybe two or three more referring to
      hellfire. As the verses are known to be true, little more need be said on
      the matter. If the atheist predictably comes back with a counter argument,
      post the same verses again but suggest that he actually read them this
      time.
      Grammar and spelling
      - Are not important, as long as the Spirit guides you. If you are
      criticised for being unable to form a sentence in English, or using words
      like "athiset", "Noahs arc", "evolotin" and "revilatian" - worry not. It
      is not the trivia of punctuation and spelling which is important, but
      getting the message of God across.
      Consider this excellent example. To the untrained eye, the writer may
      appear to be an illiterate, ignorant dolt, but just feel the love in his
      words:
      "i was wonder if you yourself knew that darwin disowned his theroy in his
      last days knowing that fossils show species suddenly appering not sight
      mutations made over long periods of time. the fact is eveolution is total
      improvible."
      Only the coldest of hearts could not be moved by such testimony. This is
      the sort of level of incoherent drooling you should be aiming for.
      You should combine a flimsy grasp of the English language with your own
      distinctive writing style. The following are quite fashionable at the
      moment:
        writing everything in lower case without any punctuation at all this can
        be quite difficult to read but is very easy to type which is a bonus
        dont you think
        ALTERNATIVELY, WRITE EVERYTHING IN CAPS. THIS MAKES YOUR IMPORTANT
        MESSAGE STAND OUT AND PEOPLE WILL TAKE NOTICE OF IT AND REALISE THAT YOU
        REALLY MEAN IT.
        short, disjointed.....sentences separated by long......strings of
        dots.....this makes you look quite.....thoughtful as if you
        are......pausing every now and......then.
        Overuse of exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can emphasise the point
        you are trying to make!!!!!!!!!!!! Question marks also work well, don't
        they???????????????????????????
        Show ur mastery of the Internet by using words like "u" instead of
        "you", "2" instead of "to" and "too", "ur" instead of "your" and
        "you're", and u 2 can spread the gospel 2 other kewl d00dz.
      If English is not your first language, all the better. The way you present
      your argument says a lot about you, so pick wisely.
      Knowledge of the subject
      Whether you are talking about evolution, the origins of the universe,
      basic human anatomy, or the structure of the solar system, there is no
      need to concern yourself with learning anything at all about the issue.
      See "1 Inerrancy". By definition, those who disagree with you are wrong,
      deluded and possibly perverts, so it is a bad idea to pollute your mind
      with their religious beliefs. All the evidence in the world is no match
      for a single grain of the True Faith.
      If they say "But evolution doesn't work like that! You are completely
      clueless!" remind them that evolution doesn't actually work at all. Has a
      cow ever given birth to a dog? Do we see hydrogen turning into people
      around us? If we "evolved" from chimps, why are there still chimps? Why do
      we not see amoebae sprouting legs and talking? These harsh insights will
      cut through their dogma like a hot knife through butter.
      If discussing evolution, try asking for a complete list of transitional
      fossils from ape to human. They may provide you with a few dozen examples,
      but it is hardly complete, is it? How can you be expected to accept such
      shoddy evidence? Go on to inform them that those are not transitional
      fossils anyway, as there are no transitionals. Clearly God created all
      species individually, otherwise they would have no trouble finding the
      evidence. The gaps in the fossil record are therefore solid evidence for
      creationism.
      If they refer you to papers or websites showing that the universe is
      billions of years old, refer them in turn to Genesis. Explain how carbon
      dating methods have been shown to be hopelessly flawed. For instance, when
      the Turin Shroud was dated, the so-called experts put it around the 14th
      Century, instead of 33AD. This obviously calls into question all the other
      radiometric dating guesses they will throw around.
      Definitions of words
      Words can often mean several different things. For example, the word "set"
      has dozens of meanings : a set of things; a badger lives in a set; a jelly
      will set; you can set something down on a table; you can set up a meeting;
      and so on. Words mean what you need them to mean at any particular time.
      This is a common reason why you will find atheists misunderstanding things
      - they think you mean one thing, when actually you were talking about
      something else. It's hardly your fault if they are unable to keep up, is
      it? For example, Genesis speaks of a mist rising from the ground to water
      the Earth. This can mean : mist, rain, dew, fog, clouds, water vapour,
      condensation, snow, hail, sleet or any other conceivable form of
      precipitation. Let the Spirit guide you in this matter, and if the atheist
      claims you are mistaken or contradicting yourself, let the Spirit guide
      you once more to the true definition of the word. This may happen many
      times, as you can easily misinterpret the Spirit's guidance
      4) Mental gymnastics
      Lying for Jesus
      Being economical with the truth, making up data on the spot and ignoring
      conflicting evidence are all handy weapons in your arsenal. The important
      thing is to convince the opponent of the veracity of your claims. Just how
      you go about this is unimportant. Feel free to refer to other
      fundamentalist works, whether or not they have been supposedly
      "discredited", "refuted" or "demonstrated to be false" - the ICR website
      and publications, Jack Chick tracts, Dr.Dino's website and videos, Answers
      In Genesis, things you remember hearing from other fundies or as a child
      in Sunday School, and so on. When comparing the works of God-fearing,
      Bible-believing Christians against deviant secular humanist scientists,
      who are you going to believe?
      Remember, you are here to save their immortal soul from the burning fires
      of Hell, not educate them in stuff they don't really need to know anyway.
      If you have a dubious argument based on fictional data, but it works, then
      there is no problem. The vital matter is bringing souls to Jesus and how
      you go about that is immaterial. The ends justify the means, and in this
      case the "ends" are souls being saved. Such a noble and worthy goal itself
      justifies any means you see fit to use. Physical force is generally
      frowned upon, although there are clear historical precedents for this. Use
      your own judgement.
      Don't forget, the Lord is watching at all times, and will certainly
      forgive you as long as you are spreading His good news. So go to it!
      Compartmentalisation
      In this world, what you know to be true often conflicts with the reality
      around you. To be a soldier for Christ it will help enormously if you can
      master the technique of mental compartmentalisation. This means you must
      be able to keep your scriptural knowledge away from the secular knowledge
      that allows you to function in wordly matters, e.g. at your place of work.
      For example, even though science is clearly mistaken about the processes
      involved in radioactive decay (see the "carbon dating" example above), if
      you worked at a nuclear power plant it would be necessary to assume the
      opposite was true - otherwise it would be impossible to build nuclear
      reactors. Likewise, a good fundy astronomer knows that the correct date of
      the universe is about 10,000 years at most, but must be able to examine
      galaxies millions of light-years away and explain them according to the
      secular model of cosmology. Being able to hold two (or more) sets of
      mutually exclusive thoughts at once is extremely beneficial to the
      up-and-coming fundy on the internet.
      Remember, something might be "true" while you're at work or sitting an
      exam, but it's still completely wrong, and you should switch back to the
      "Christian Compartment" in your brain whenever possible.
      Wilful ignorance
      Ignorance is bliss, and what is more blissful than reading the Word Of
      God? You will often find yourself accused of this "crime", but why should
      you waste time trying to learn how the unbelievers lie to themselves? You
      don't need to read a book on evolution to know that it is wrong. You don't
      need to read a book about the so-called Big Bang to know that it is a
      delusion.
      It is the atheists who are wildly ignorant for not reading the Bible!
      Sure, many of them say they have read it, but this is clearly a lie - if
      they've read it, how come they don't believe it?
      Don't waste your precious time trying to get to grips with their
      overly-complicated theories, when you have a much simpler theory that you
      already know is true.
      Conclusion
      There you have it - Fundy Think For Beginners.
      All you need to do now is decide how to sign off your devastating
      arguments. There is classic arrogant abuse, such as "Ha ha ha what an
      idiot! God made it all! Get an education."; or patronising the opponent -
      "I'll pray that God opens your closed mind and eyes"; a selection of
      obscure Bible verses, maybe; and finally, the ever popular subtle threats
      of hellfire - "Well, I've told you the Truth, I only hope you like it HOT
      after you die".
      Don't forget what you've learned : return a week later and post exactly
      the same assertions that you started with.



      ⌐ Adrian Barnett 2001