I'm copying verbatim a couple of paragraphs from a book I'm reading right now, called Introduction to the Bible (A Catholic Guide to Studying Scripture by Stephen J. Binz).
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The fundamentalist way of thinking about the Bible is winning more and more adherents throughout the world. People use the Bible to support their own social and political agenda in a rigid and uncompromising way. There are many ways that contemporary Christians can fall into the trap of fundamentalism. When we allow the words of the Bible to mean only what they seem to say on the surface, we are tending to fundamentalism. When we read the Bible as if it had all been written in our contemporary culture to communicate to us enough facts to answer every question we might encounter in life, we are reading the Bible as a fundamentalist. Such distortion of the Scriptures must have been present in the early church as well. The Second Letter of Peter speaks about the writtings of Paul when it says, "In them there are somethings hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do other scriptures" (2 Pe 3,16). Simplistic Christians have been around for a long time.

The Christian Challenge is always to interpret Scripture faithfully, with the living community of faith guided by God's Spirit. The Bible is not a handbook of simple answers for life's complex questions. The Bible cannot be used as a weapon by taking passages out of context to defend one's own personal stances. The Bible must ever be used to close minds, it must always open them.

A reverential approach to the Bible places us in the presence of the mistery of God. It calls us into the same relationship that God made with His people centuries ago. It calls us to struggle of wrestling with God's word, allowing it to slowly change our hearts and transform our lifes.

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The intention of this post is to show that not all christian are the same.
Maybe all of us believe that Jesus is the Lord and Savior, but it does not mean that everybody thinks the same way.
One thing is black another is white, and in the middle there is grey.
Fundamentalism can be used also by nonbelievers when they take verses or passages from the Bible out of context to support their personal agendas.

TLW

Lonely, one can really not take a bible verse out of context. It is written ambiguously so that any interpretation can be right.

I agree in the sense that all interpretations are right for the person who gets what they need from it. Religious belief is very personal and each person is different and needs different things so this concept of accepting all beliefs as right is a good one.

This is so true. This is why I try to avoid discussing the Bible scripture or picking apart certain verses, unless they are tossed up and offered as proof or reasoning for something.

People are people, and we know how to love.

Infinity is an unimaginable long time, and to think that we were born only once, have only one single life to live, and then we will be tossed into an agonizing torturous hell for eternity is absolutely ludicrous.

Oh! Unless we become one of the few who are real true Christians and believe and profess to believe the unbelievable story of a virgin birth, a human sacrifice for our horrible sins, of which we were born into. Then we might be saved.

If this is the case, and I had had a choice I would have chosen not to have ever been born at all.

But this is not the case. This is the greatest lie ever told.

JB

we will just know when we pass away. So far believing the unbelievable works fine for me.

Miguel.

Fundamentally, one must be born again.

That is not a slow wrestling with the Word, it is a transformation at the heart of the gospel message.

Growing in all knowledge and understanding towards wisdom is a process, but one guided by the Holy Spirit, not by scripture alone, independently of that transformation.

Fundamentally, that is a difference between "fundamentalism" at it's core, and the Roman Catholic Church.

There are Catholic fundamentalists, just as there other fundamentalists not recognized by the apotloic authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

Which, by the way, also shares a similar scism with the Greek Orthodox Church, from which it diverged as well.

Ignoring Jesus' words is dangerous for any that profess to know the Mind of Christ and overlook the reminder of scripture about being born again, not of the will of the flesh but of God, in spirit and in truth.

Without knowing the writing that you are quoting, I won't assume that such a prerequisite is absent, but I would be mindful to look for how that very prerequisite is addressed in it, if at all.

It leaves me with the impression that it may have been overlooked.


learn, grow and b at peace.

That statement is meaningless.

What you and other "born again" Christians propose is that not only are very few Christians saved from eternal hell and damnation, everyone else, every other religion, every other non-believer will spend eternity in hell if they do not adhere to your requirements of what it is to be a "true Christian."

That is the biggest lie ever told.

It amounts to EXTORTION.

It is the biggest threat imaginable to all people, Christian and non-Christian alike.

It is a threat that promises eternal agony after one life if you do not bend to this requirement and believe this unbelievable illogical lie and profess this to be the truth.

It feels like extortion. If feels like brainwashing. It feels like "Do this, be this, think this or else you will go to hell for eternity.

It is not freedom of will. It is not loving. It is not Godly.

You deny that anyone can know God, feel God, but you and you alone. This is pure delusion on your part and pure arrogance.

It must make you feel very superior and special. Good for you. I don't believe you.

JB

Fundamentally, I read the Bible at face value. In other words, I read the Bible as I would a newspaper. The Bible has various figures of speech, which must be understood as such. The words in the Bible sometimes were translated "close enough" by the translators. For instance: when Jesus said "everlasting life", life is "zoe" in Greek, which means "of the absolute fulness of life". I think that taking the Bible at face value makes more sense and is more scripturally sound than taking the Bible as to be entirely allegorys. For instance: Jesus's ministry makes it clear that Jesus believed in Adam and Eve. To say that the entire story of Adam and Eve was an allegory would be to question Jesus' authority and knowledge.

I consider myself to be a fundamentalist, because look to the foundations of Christianity and I view that foundation as sacred and unchanging.

I have to say very very personally that it would be vert selfish of me saying that just and only just christian will be saved.
I can't comprehend an idea of God who is going to punish with eternal hell let's say african people who have never had contact with the Lord. They are not at guilt.
And those who know the Lord but deny Him. Well the Lord Himself asks forgiveness for them in the cross because they don't know what they are doing.

This is my very personal point of view I'm not talking for any other christian or christian denomination whatsoever.

I believe the Bible should not be subject to interpretation based on the reader’s mood, circumstances and personal agendas. Instead, interpretation should be based on authorial intent. When we read the Bible we should interpret it the way the author intended to be interpreted. (This is not always easy!!) That is not to say that our mood, circumstances and personal agendas will not and should not influence the impact that it has on us as individuals. The same verse read by 10 different people MAY be interpreted 10 different ways however we should ask ourselves “What was the author trying to say here?” There should only be one answer. That one answer might resonate deeper within and speak more personally to 1 or 2 of those 10 based on their mood, life circumstances, etc. and mean virtually nothing to the other 8 or 9 and there is nothing wrong with that but the author’s intent of the message remains the same.

Thank you LonelyWalker.

Only God knows what is in a person's heart.

If I were to believe in the Fundamentalist's Biblical God, and if I believed the story told by those who call themselves "born again true Christians" then I would have to believe that their God hates all other people who do not worship him and profess to believe in him and this unbelievable story passed down for thousands of years.

I do not believe a loving God would condemn everyone else to eternal hell for their unknowing or their unbelief.

But lets assume he would. If so, then we must assume that the stubborn ones who do not bend to the threats of eternal hell and fall in line with the requirements, are basically lost, hopeless souls in league with Satan his arch enemy.

Then they are to be considered the enemy of God and not worthy, and they must be hated by God to be abandoned to Hell.

If they are hated by God, then why should the true Christains love them or care anything about them either? If God hates us, then I have to assume that his true faithful ones hate us too, for they must be faithful to their hateful God.

That is why I don't believe them when they pretend to care about other faiths, or people who do not believe as they do.
They are siding with their God who intends to abandon all who do not believe in him and worship at his feet.

JB

Yes I agree with this, but I think the Bible is not the end all to spiritual enlightenment. It was written for people thousands of years ago. It mostly does not apply or speak to mankind as they live and think today.

The Bible is a collection of Books written by different authors. Each book has a different flavor and meaning. Most of it is stories or parables meant to be interpreted as a whole, but could be interpreted many different ways.

That is why there are so many different religions that all count the Bible as their source of information, and they all see its meanings differently.

I am glad for you. But I don't think that all knowledge of the universe becomes ours after we pass away.

That is illogical.

I would agree with you Lonely that just because you are not a Christian doesn't mean that you are going to hell. I do not believe that those individuals that have never had the opportunity to read God's word and meet him in their lifetime will go to hell. I believe that they are innocent and God will welcome them into heaven and there is a special place for them up there. However, those who have met him and have denied him to their moment of death, that is a different story. I have spoken with several people that have lost loved ones who were concerned about their loved ones eternal fate because they were not sure if their loved ones were "saved" at their time of death. In these cases, we don't know what happens in those final moments between life on earth and the judgment that awaits us. I like to believe that we are given one last opportunity after death to believe or deny at the gates. At that time, while standing at the gates, it would take a pretty cold heart to deny and those I believe are condemned.

I have told you before lovely lady what is illogical for you is logical for me, and what is illogical for me is logical for you.
That is called diversity.
I need to add something. Even if it's illogical for you. It's my position and it deserves respect.

if anybody has time to read. even if you don't agree. it's always good to know the opposite's side position
It's very long though.
http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20080416_1.htm

According to Robert Monroe, who wrote three books about his journeys out of the body, there are many places that souls go after death.

He said that on one level, (he called it level 26) all the heavens for all the different religions existed. When you die, you go to level 26 if you believed in a certain religion. When you got there, you can only see the heaven you believed in and none of the others.

Where you end up after you die largely depends upon what you believe. If you believe in nothing, you might find yourself in the middle of nothing, and not be able to see anything.

He tells of seeing a soul sitting and crying and proclaiming "I knew it! I knew there was nothing after death!" He said she could not see anyone or anything around her.

So it is better to believe in something than nothing. Christians will go there and they will find their heaven because that is what they believe.

I suppose people who believe in Hell will find it. But all of that is just temporary and will pass away and Hell is not eternal. You can walk out of it any time you decide you have had enough of that nonsense.

Above level 26 is level 27. There, are many things there, but one specific thing is a huge library.

Level 27 is a resting place for souls on their way to the higher self, and you can live there as long as you want until you decide to leave to the higher self and other density worlds.

JB

Very true. What is logical to me is illogical to you and visa versa.

All I say in these forums are from my point of view and all are my opinion, nothing more.

I do respect your position. All paths lead to God. It is when I hear people declare they do not that I disagree.

You see I find all this illogical. But it's what you believe or at least you agree with the author, and that for me is very respectable.

LOL

I don't blame you a bit. It is illogical. But no more illogical that Christianity, Heaven and Hell.

One is just as illogical as the other.

I did not say I believed in this. I do consider it as a possibility.

I consider all information. This information comes from a man who was an average Christian before he began finding himself getting out of his body and exploring other worlds.

It is his personal experience. He started the Monroe Institute that teaches people how to experience the same thing, which is, to experience themselves as more than the physical body.

His method is called the hemi-syc technology which uses sound to raise consciousness levels.

Yes it is illogical because it is non-physical.

But this too will one day be pure science of mind and consciousness.

JB