Master AJ writes: The myriad pastors who work in this mass-religious field all *work the crowd* and are master psychologists and manipulators.
Because you have supreme difficulty reading and understanding what others write, and because you consistently rephrase what they say into terms of your own *hearing* -- that is you respond not to what they are saying but in a response to what your own personal ideological battles are as an Evangelical -- you likely cannot really understand what I am getting at in the larger sense.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:12 pmIf you get your view of what Christians are from watching televangelists, you'll be sadly misled as to what most of them are like. The secular world is rife with charlatans and used-car salesmen...you don't take them as indicative of every Atheist, or even of most of them, I presume.
However, this is of no consequence to me. Because I am here for my own purposes and I have defined my interest and my objectives and I stick to them. This is a solid advantage when dealing with a public forum like this one where, suddenly, those of somewhat unbalanced mind can insert all sorts of lunacy and divert the conversation into the inane. (Sorry, that was a bit of grandstanding and commentary on recent posts).
Modern American Evangelical Protestantism is a mass-religion. You cannot separate it from its context within the mass-media world. Therefore, it is imperative to watch the televangelists and also to study and become aware of the transformation of Evangelicalism over the course of the last 100 years.
It does not matter a great deal (though it does matter some) that you propose that there is a chemically pure and uncorrupted version of Evangelical Christianity which is the *true Christian form* (in fact this is your stated position). From a cultural and sociological perspective what matters is what is actually going on today. Again, I have clarified my own area of interest: the contemporary world.
You also make another large mistake. You suppose that I (the marvelous quixotic Alexis Jacobi) have an issue with Christians. You seem to take my critical position as a call to arms against all those you are personally battling here as well as *out there* in the secular world. And very often you misread what I say so that you can make statements of defense against your anti-Christian enemies.
When I describe you as a religious fanatic I am, I think, using a bold but a fair & honest term. Religious fundamentalism has, I suppose I'd say, its place and it is not my objective to overturn it. My objective is to *see* it and describe it fairly. I have been involved in studying various fundamentalisms because these arise in the Culture Wars. I am not interested so much in abstract debates over their varied core ideas as I am in understanding how their ideas and their activism dovetail with contemporary events and issues. Obviously, you are a religious fundamentalist. Your fundamentalism takes shape within biblical inerrancy.
The Genesis narrative, for you, is 'real history'. And as this seems to be so it then follows that you accept a whole range of different interpretive tenets that are foundational to Christian belief but more specifically to Evangelical interpretations of Bible prophecy. Here, I present you with an opportunity to clarify your exact position but I believe that you won't. Why? Because you seem to shy away when you are asked to make definitive statements. (And here I notice a sort of deception and double-talk).
It is not at all unfair and it is definitely not a vain or senseless attack to focus on the outrageous beliefs of the mass of Evangelical Christian believers and to *locate* you and your apologetics within this larger movement.
When I say I do not have issues with Christians what I mean is that I am aware of my own position and location (these are special terms and I do not mean physical location). I am outside of the fray insofar as, to use a colloquial expression, I do not have a pony in the race. Since you are so inclined to misread, and mis-rephrase, let me clarify: I try to observe what is going on, and understand each person's of each group's stated position. I find that in service to my project (understanding) to remain largely neutral serves my purposes better. There is more to be gained from arriving at understanding of varied positions than there is to become a partisan of specific positions. (But I am not opposed to partisan positions).
However politically, socially and culturally I am aware that "we must take a position". Yet I do not mean myself (necessarily in my context as investigator and observer). I mean that the present demands that people take positions and sides. An example of this would be James Lidsay who 'rises to the occasion' and makes the effort to work through a complex history of ideas in an attempt to clarify ideas which he then offers to people involved in *defensive activism* in our present. That is to say a counter-movement against what he identifies (too broadly in my own view) as Marxian revolutionary movements. It is a question of painting with too broad a brush and not that I do no understand, appreciate and agree with significant parts of his analysis.
You are not *removed from the fray* insofar as you have a whole range of opinions (political, social, economic, ideological, religious) that you regularly express in other threads on this forum. Therefore, it is fair to describe you as an ideologically activist Evangelical who has operative stances that coincide with ideological positions outlined by Evangelicalism generally. And these are ideas and views communicated through mass-media channels.
It is true, nonetheless, that I cannot accept *rationally* the metaphysical basis of your belief-system -- insofar as you are a biblical literalist. This is impossible for me and will remain so. And in this my critical position undermining or exposing Hebrew idea imperialism and the idea-tribalism of the Hebrews -- and my exposure of the character of Yahweh as a perverse demiurge -- is a necessary component of my larger analysis and project. Obviously, this places me vis-à-vis you and your entire apologetic project as an enemy. That is, you have no alternative but to assign this role to me. And as I say this fits into your larger Evangelical project of 'battling the world' and, naturally, satanic power.
If you get clear about these things -- you often seem not to be that clear about what, in reality, you are doing -- it will make any conversation that develops here (between all those who participate) a bit less -- what is the word? -- cluttered and confused.
