• Art48
    458
    This article is about fundamentalist religious belief. It mentions homosexuality, but the point has nothing to do with homosexuality.

    A preacher once said that gays are mentally ill and God will punish them forever in hell.

    Now put yourself in the mind of a fundamentalist Christian sitting in the pew. He hears “Gays are mentally ill” and his heart nods in agreement. He hears “God will punish them forever in hell” and his emotions agree.

    His emotions have spoken. They agree. But his mind is sleeping and dormant, the habitual state of some fundamentalists Christians.

    Now, imagine his mind awakes. He puts two and two together and gets four. That is, he puts “homosexuals are mentally ill” together with “God punishes them forever in hell,” uses elementary logic, and arrives at the obvious, logical conclusion: “God punishes the mentally ill for being mentally ill.”

    Ba Zing Ga. The Awakened Mind Attacks! Attacks? Not really. Rather, the mind is merely doing what God created it for. It’s doing what any healthy mind would do. It hears two and then another two and calculates, almost automatically, the answer: four!

    Elementary logic destroys some Christian belief. Who knew? Fundamentalist religion is often emotion-based and makes no logical sense. Christianity: The story of God impregnating a woman who wasn’t his wife so he could sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself. Maybe it should be called “Funny-Mentalist” religion?
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  • T Clark
    13k
    A preacher once said that gays are mentally ill and God will punish them forever in hell.Art48

    Perhaps some preacher somewhere said that, but I doubt it is the position of any conservative church. For them, I think homosexuality is a sin, not a mental disease.
  • Rocco Rosano
    51
    RE: The Dormant Mind of a Fundamentalist
    SUBTOPIC: Views on Fundamentalism?
    ⁜→ Art48, ArielAssanete, et al,

    I cannot adopt the idea that the Supreme Being is Omnibenevolence – all-loving and all-forgiving. So, rather than argue that point, I will avoid it.


    Christianity: The story of God impregnating a woman who wasn’t his wife so he could sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself.
    [/quote]
    (COMMENT)

    In any belief structure, the first imperative is the notion of belief.

    A preacher once said that gays are mentally ill and God will punish them forever in hell. — Art48
    (COMMENT)

    While this sounds very like and is framed in its delivery as a religious fable, it is actually a Product Liability issue. It implies that the Supreme Being (the manufacturer) be held liable for placing a defective lifeform into a situation in which the Supreme Being is actually responsible for the defect that caused an injury or other inappropriate outcome.

    Rather, the mind is merely doing what God created it for. It’s doing what any healthy mind would do. — Art48
    (COMMENT)

    This is close to the actual conditions IF you assign the "God Power" properties (omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.).

    .......... ◈ IF the Supreme Being was not all-powerful, THEN it may have been too complex a problem to create a lifeform that will always follow the Supernational intentions.

    .......... ◈ IF the Supreme Being was not all-knowing THEN that sets the conditions that the Supreme Being could not avoid a future obstacle and deviate from that path of action.

    .......... ◈ IF the Supreme Being was not everywhere in space and time.

    movies-similar-That-Malicious-Age-1975.html
    Most Respectfully,
    R
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  • Fooloso4
    5.4k


    The assumption you make about mental illness may not be the assumption made by the preacher. Your assumption seems to be that since this person is mentally ill they are not responsible. But the preacher might think of mental health in other terms, that the sick can be made well.

    I do not support this position, but it is not clear that what you take mental illness to be is what the preacher means.
  • Yohan
    679
    I define fundamentalism as believing something because others believe it.

    Few people, far as I can tell, are not fundamentalists of some form or another, including myself.

    Its not easy for me to free my mind of blind beliefs when they were poured into me from such a young and impressionable age.
  • Art48
    458
    Perhaps some preacher somewhere said that, but I doubt it is the position of any conservative church. For them, I think homosexuality is a sin, not a mental disease.T Clark

    You may be correct but I used what the preacher said merely as one example of the fundamentalists' dormant mind. Many other examples could be given.
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