The Dimensions of Fundamentalist chrisTian Deceit

[Ian David]

The Dimensions of Fundamentalist chrisTian Deceit
By: Hrafnkell HaraldssonMay 7, 2012

If you have been watching the discussions revolving around David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies (2012), you will have witnessed an interesting phenomenon: Barton’s book rises to bestseller status and the book by two conservative Christian scholars refuting it goes comparatively unnoticed. The reason becomes clear readily apparent: Barton told fundamentalists what they wanted to hear; Throckmorton and Coulter had the nerve to give them the straight facts, something they absolutely did not want to hear.

It is astonishing to witness the reaction to David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies (2012). It is equally astonishing to witness the hostility to Getting Jefferson Right (2012), the latter book being a refutation of Barton’s by two Christian scholars who teach at conservative Christian colleges. Defending Getting Jefferson Right – in other words, defending a fact-based reality and also (more importantly) truth itself, one is perceived as being (and accused) anti-Christian. More amazingly still is the fact that a book by two conservative Christian scholars can be referred to as “leftist lies” simply because it contradicts what fundamentalists wish to be true.

Despite the abundant evidence in Jefferson’s writings that he was not a Christian (admiring Jesus’ moral teachings does not make one Christian – Christianity is attached to a belief in Jesus’ divinity that Jefferson mocked – fundamentalists continue to insist that Jefferson believed in Jesus as they do, in the sense of a modern Evangelical – that despised divinity intact. It is that part of the Bible – the miraculous, including Jesus’ divine status, that Jefferson significantly referred to as “a dunghill” from which he would extract the diamonds “the very words only of Jesus” as he puts it in an 1813 letter to John Adams and numerous places elsewhere. For Thomas Jefferson, it was quite evident that Jesus’ followers failed to understand what he said – and Jefferson did not keep ALL Jesus is supposed to have said.

From his collection of Jesus’ sayings he eliminated the ubiquitous John 3:16; he eliminated John 14:6 and its “I am the truth and the life” and perhaps most importantly, he did not include Matthew 28:19, the Great Commission, the single most dangerous passage to religious freedom in the entire New Testament. In fact, Jefferson did not include anything from after Matthew 27:60 “and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher…” Jefferson left Jesus safely dead and buried.



More:
http://www.politicususa.com/the-dimensions-of-fundamentalist-christian-deceit.html

See also:

John (3:16)
"God so loved the world, that he gave his His only begotten Son."
As an example to parents everywhere and to save the world (from himself), God had his own son tortured and killed.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/jn/3.html

John (14:6) "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/jn/14.html

Mat (28:19) "Teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/mt/28.html

Mat (27:60) And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/mt/27.html

[JDPriestly]

1. I am not an expert on Jefferson, but I have read enough of his writings

including the Jefferson Bible and Jefferson's correspondence with Adams as well as other selected original texts to know that Jefferson believed in the morality of Jesus but not the divinity of Jesus.

I don't see how anyone can read Jefferson and think otherwise. It's just silly to argue to the contrary.

Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment. He has to be understood in the context of the authors he read and the friendships he held dear.

Ignorance sells.

[edhopper]

2. As an atheist

I think a large majority of people in this country believe in things that just aren't real. But the can be rational about other things and compartmentalize or adapt their beliefs to not be blind to obvious truths.
But there is a large majority that will accept falsehoods, no matter how extraordinary and counter to all the facts. They will choose the lie that comforts their warped, bizarre worldview over the truth every time.
That they are not marginalized but instead have control over one of our major partied is a burden we might not survive.

[meow2u3]

3. Fundamentalist Christians are modern-day Pharisees

http://www.noelbagwell.com/blog/?p=5143

Dealing with Modern-Day Pharisees
Who Is A Pharisee?

The first thing we should do is identify who qualifies as a “Modern-day Pharisee” (“modern Pharisee”). I believe we can extrapolate from the discussion above a fair definition. A modern Pharisee is one who:

Puts rules – particularly spiritual or religious rules or “laws” – before principles;
Demonstrates, through their words or behavior, an attitude that indicates a belief that people should follow rules regardless of their effects (a “rules are rules” attitude);
Demonstrates, through their words or behavior, a failure to understand that rules exist for people, not vice versa;
Places undue importance on specific religious doctrine(s), Scriptural interpretations, religious customs, etc., rather than simply following a rational, common-sense approach to understanding the teachings of the Bible (or whatever other religious text to which you want to apply this… it doesn’t have to be the Bible); and
Equivocates between Scriptural truth and their (or anyone else’s) interpretation of Scripture, religious doctrine(s), religious customs, etc., etc.