Mario, the whole notion of the early Christians as being fundamentalist is bunk. The early Christians saw scriptures as a source of inspiration, to be sure, but they did not believe that the correct interpretation of a scripture was literal (i.e., fundamentalist). If you look at each of the Messiah prophecies that the Christians used as evidence of Jesus' ministry, the scriptures were all taken out of context and the correct context was correctly understood at the time.

In addition, Jude mentions an Apocyrpha book as though it was inspired, which shows that early Christians did not limit themselves to just the 66 books of the KJV of the bible. The situation only worsened as the Church aged where there were many various disputes about which books should be included as part of the canon. What is very clear is that fundamentalism was never a major aspect of Christianity until the Protestant period when the bible became widely available with the advent of the printing press.

Fundamentalism is just plain wrong. It is not part of the history of the Christian church, and even today, fundamentalist churches are still a minority of the whole Christian church. They try to promote the image that they are the true Christians, but it is just hogwash. Don't believe it.

Taking this as the most basic, simple definiton, all the intolerance and bigotry you call unChristian is part and parcel of the source of the Christian faith. Ah, the irony. Think of the irony..

I guess it depends on what you mean the source. I see God as the source of the Christian faith, which is why we have a free society and a scientific enterprise that was given birth in such a culture (science tried to spurt up in many places and times, but all failed). It was only after the invasions of Europe ceased that the Christian mindset took over Europe and created universities, science, philosophy, etc. Jesus' ministry, I think, is responsible for all of it. Think of the irony of that.

• Fundamentalism is still a threat - yanniru - October 30, 2003 - 18:36 UTC
• Perhaps, but it's not an aberration - stormcrow - October 30, 2003 - 20:55 UTC
  • Nothing fun about fundies - harvey1 - October 30, 2003 - 21:37 UTC
    • Spirituality - stormcrow - October 30, 2003 - 22:24 UTC
      • No - harvey1 - October 30, 2003 - 23:13 UTC
        • No? - stormcrow - October 31, 2003 - 01:23 UTC
          • Mario - harvey1 - October 31, 2003 - 12:41 UTC