Will GOP Implosion Contribute To The Decline Of Fundie Xianity?

[stopbush]

The trends are certainly there. First, most of the Western world is abandoning Xianity, and -according to the NYT- the fundy
movement in the USA is quickly losing its teen aged adherents. The Xian Coalition has ceased to exist, and it's open season
on belittling "nuts" like Robertson & Falwell.

Moral scolds like Dobson suddenly become moral relativists when it's their ox being gored...where pedophilia is called "a prank"
because it's a RWer being accused of the sickening action.

And now, the book "Tempting Faith" tells the world what many of us have long suspected: that fundy Xians in this country have been
played for saps by the RW machine for years and years.

Belief in a god has always dipped after major wars. People see the horror and wonder what kind of loving god could allow it to happen. They
wonder how an all-powerful god can allow millions of people to starve to death and to be bombed into oblivion while working "miracles"
on the individual basis (like curing someone's cold...or helping their HS football team eek out a victory).

People in general don't like to be associated with a loser, and the Rs right now are big-time losers. For worse, the Rs and the fundy Xians are
tied at the political hip. The ongoing disintegration of the GOP could well have the consequence of a significant amount of people
losing faith in more than the political process.

Religious belief goes in cycles. Is it possible that rather than seeing bush's "Third Great Awakening" we could be seeing the beginning of the
movement to a more-secular based US society, à la western Europe?

Comments?

(NB: please refrain from posting "don't count your electoral chickens before the hatch" responses. I'm fully aware of that, so it's a given.
I don't believe that starting a thread like this somehow "tempts fate" and will somehow blow the election for Ds.)

[Vexatious Ape]

1. A start of a good thing.

To add to this post I found this the other day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/us/06evangelical.html?ex=1317787200&en=51a7c2fe01e8148c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
It's a article about Fundie using their damn heads--unlike their parents.

[whistle]

2. RW fundies will go more extreme into the very throat of fascism

[twilight_sailing]

3. In a word,

no.

[silverweb]

4. We can hope.

I don't think the hard-core fundies are going to disappear, but they might be realizing about now just how badly they've been used and that they are NOT going to get their theocracy.

We might just get lucky enough that they'll crawl back into their caves and leave us alone. I'm not really counting on it, though. At best, I think their influence in the political arena and in society at large is going to seriously wane.

[Sam1]

5. Or is this a scare tactic to wring a little more in the way of effort and

commitment out of the faithful. I don't believe that the Fundies be they Christian, Muslim, or Jewish are going away any time soon.

[NAO]

6. Personally, I'm hoping for a "Second Enlightenment"

or a second "Freethought Movement", in which popular religion will be abandoned and ridiculed by a vast majority, even if many retain harmless "deist" type "natural religion".

[Igel]

7. No. Fundie Xianity

has deep roots in the US.

The "Religious Right" business wasn't an increase in fundamentalism; it was a change in fundamentalist attitudes, from quietist to activist. They perceived themselves as being able to take advantage of the franchise, not deny it to themselves for religious reasons.

The worst that would happen is that they revert to having a greater percentage of their congregations be quietist again--not as it was, but in that direction. That is, they'd live in the US, participate in many activities in the US, work, raise kids, pay taxes, but not vote.

I consider this bad. In a democracy, having every group fully participate in elections is important. More important, IMHO, than having 'my' party win; it's a matter of principle, as far as I'm concerned. The church I was in for over a decade stressed not voting and raised it virtually to the level of doctrine; nonetheless, I voted.