Christian fundamentalism is on the rise culturally in the USA. How can we turn the tide?

Question

Specifically, what do you think would need to happen to stop their influence? International peeps, please feel free to chime in!

Answer 1

Stop broadcasting NASCAR for a while, they'll end up killing each other in anger.

Sorry to Southerners who are not fundies :P

Answer 2

Teach good and accurate History. Remember that those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it.

(course, idk you might consider me a fundamentalist, but the ignorant lack of understanding of the roots of Christianity and Islam is at the foundation of many huge errors about both religions)

Answer 3

Get rid of that moron president and sort out the horrendous failure of the current education system.  

Answer 4

Getting the information out to the general public about the political agenda of the ID/Creationist proponents.

And how this process downgrades the quality of education for our children.

Answer 5

If the Russians take over and rule.

Answer 6

Organize a new crusade to take over the holy land, so most of them can die off like the last time?

Or a civil war like someone else said.  Revolution has to happen every once in a while.  And THE LORD JEBUS KNOWS WE NEED IT!

Answer 7

A good old civil war would sort it all out.

Answer 8

Education, education, education, especially in the sciences.  

Answer 9

Education on the downfall, religion on the rise.  Interesting correlation.

Answer 10

You can't stop it...it is something that is an attitude and a belief and people have a right to those...yeah...they do...

Answer 11

Stop tolerating them.  Stop giving religious fanaticism undeserved respect and carte blanche to interfere with public policy, education, and people's private lives.  Stop beating a path to religious fundamentalists' doors whenever a controversial moral or scientific issue comes up.  They are no more experts on either one than I am.

Elijah: Religious fundamentalists haven't always had the influence they have.  What I want is to take that influence from them.

GWhiz: did you bother to see how many of those scientists actually believe in a personal god of some kind?  I can tell you Einstein did not.  The religious community hated him for it, and many wanted him to leave the United States because of it. Quote mining is unimpressive and dishonest.

Answer 12

Vote them out of the government and show them a better example of how to live our lives.  

Answer 13

Education is the enemy of 'christian' fundamentalism. Put more emphasis on education, put better teachers in the classrooms, emphasize science and math, and fundamentalism fades into obscurity.

Answer 14

The REAL question is, WHY would you want to?

Since God only provided ONE way to be reconciled to Himself, why would you want to STOP people from knowing about it? That is, unless you don't understand the real issues YOURSELF.

You will never be able to stop God from reaching the hearts of those who are listening to what He has to say.

www.graceteacher.com

Answer 15

No easy answer to this.  I believe that education and time will do it.  

Essentially, we will have to breed it out of them.

Answer 16

You see, Christian fundamentalism is not on the rise culturally in the USA.  Where did you get the information that it was?  Less and less every year is our country becomes less and less Christian than it used to be.  Take the media for example.  When our parents were children half of the movies out now would not have been able to come out, and don't even start on the music.

Answer 17

If you would like more answers, consider asking around this site as well...

http://christianforums.com/

Answer 18

Tide coming in, for the usa's legalism, is "wrath to come";

Notably for saying Peace and safety (in law worketh wrath).

God hath not appointed us to wrath, only them: 1Th 5:3,9.

So leave both Them1 vs Them2 for "Us-ward" = Salvation;

For in them (as in Adam) all die = Extinction, not salvation.

Leave both Adam1 vs Adam2 for Christ = End of the law;

for as in Adam all die, but in Christ all made alive: 1Cor 15.

Answer 19

Christian fundamentalism is on the rise?

But so is crime, immorality (g*y marriages), natural calamities, global warming, wars, fears, gas price, food price.....you name it.

What solutions do you have? Do you know how the laws operate in the moral world? If you think only physical laws operate in this world then why not try solving the above problems using scientific methods.

Answer 20

You can not,no one can erase God.To the dumb people who say education lets look at history.Scientists who believe in God,Planck,Copernicus,Kelvin,Bacon,Keple... I go on,Not to mention the brilliant Scientists and Theologians of today.Permit me to quote Albert Einstein " I want to know how God created this world" " I want to know Gods thoughts " "Science without religion is lame,religion without science is blind." God Bless, have a nice day.

Answer 21

As the other posters pointed out: better education.

But there needs to be more than whining about it. People en masse are going to have to lobby to see this change.

It's not like a majority are happy with Bush, but I have not seen any action from up here in Canada to impeach him.

Answer 22

Hi Laptop, just saw this one.

The market can play a part. Governments will coddle fundamentalists unless there is a dollar in it. Take stemcell research. A US government can pay lip service to the fundamentalists because they vote, but if Americans have to start buying medical cures from the south koreans or singaporeans or chinese because they are making stem cell discoveries, you can be sure the US Government will find a way around any objections. Similarly, you have had several presidents that are "pro life", but nobody has legislated to reverse Roe vs Wade. They're not THAT committed.

Yes, education, but I have no experience there.

Finally, just as with radical islam, radical christianity needs to be challenged by the christian moderates. Call their bluff on the biblical basis for their opinions/actions, and repudiate them. Methodists, anglicans and other moderate branches of christianity in America need to smack them down biblically. Much of what they take as literal in the Bible is not, and can be shown to be so. Also, moderate Christianity needs to remodel itself to provide an attractive alternative to the fundamentalists. Many people are searching for something more in life, and for some bizarre reason finding it in pentacostalism. They need to offered something better by moderate christianity.

Cheers.

Answer 23

You can't turn the tide. It has been tried for 2000 years yet here we stand and here we will stay. :) Have a nice day.

Answer 24

Atheists speaking out for really the first time helps.  We can't coddle the deluded any longer.  It's past the time we stop indulging their mental illness.

Answer 25

i disagree with you that christianity is on the rise.  

i would agree that there are people who want you to think they are christians who are on the rise but they are not.  it is a sham like obama and company,

if you are patient, all the real christians will go away.

keep in mind, a person is not born a christian, they make a life commitment to honor Jesus and follow his commandments. hence, christianity is always on the verge of extinction.

also, you can not turn the tide for you war with an enemy you will not even concede exists.  if that enemy is real, then you are defeated since that enemy is able to operate without your perception, interdiction or knowledge.

i spent the last 7 years of my life trying to find and kill terrorist, i know something about religious warfare, learn from me,

i'm not PC,  in fact i see pc as a prescription for losing our war on terrorism.  i'm prejudiced, and i'm your best defense

Answer 26

You can't. God won't let you.

Answer 27

It's not so much that fundamentalism is on the rise as is fundamentalist political activism (dominionism) which, at its extreme, would chuck the Constitution in favor of running the country on the Bible (and a fundamentalist interpretation of it at that).  Dominionists feel that they have a mandate from God to do so.

Example:  Mike Huckabee ("take this country back for Christ!") is unabashedly dominionist; Sarah Palin is not.

People of faith have no greater or less right to a voice in national government than anyone else.  The solution is not to vote them out and replace them with atheists, but to recognize dominionism -- which the majority of Christians in this country do not support -- and expose its agenda. Even if a candidate is pro-life, that doesn't automatically make them a dominionist.  They represent a large constituency but are also obliged to put the Constitution first.

Answer 28

Makes me thankfully there are very little fundies over here.

Well seeing as they don't believe in evolution maybe they won't evolve and will die out. The chances of that though.

Answer 29

dynamite

Answer 30

Perhaps the single biggest effort americans could make along these lines, while remaining within moral bounds of course, would be to revamp the education system. I've found that even here in Canada, public schools tend to actually train kids to see learning as a chore and ignorance as a virtue, and in the United States the situation is probably even worse. If people were taught from an early age to have a better understanding of the value of knowledge and reasoning, maybe we'd see fewer people turning to ancient holy books to answer questions that are supposed to be covered by logic.