I think the word fundamentalist should be dropped from our lexicon. I mean, can anyone define exactly what fundamentalism is and isn't ? As far as I can tell, any religious person whom someone disagrees with is a fundamentalist, and considering the variety of opinions here on slashdot, just about anyone coule be a 'fundmentalist' in the view or someone else.
Now historicaly a 'fundmentalist' was a person in agreement with a work of theolgy called 'The Fundamentals' that was written by a theology professor at Princeton. But I don't think the parent poster was saying that Princeton theologians are anti-science, so again, lets find some more meaningful words to use in this debate.
Yes, there are two presuppositions that you mention
that travel within right-wing christianity.
First comes from an interpretion of the Book of the Revelaton to St. John (commonly mis-called Revelations). There are several major schools of interpretation of this book, and one of the most popular (and definately the loudest) is that this book describes events of the literal end of the world, or at least an end to the world system that is not directly directed by God. Authors throughout the last two millenia have taken this approach, and then tried to tie the book's events to current events. The Jehovah Witnesses proclaimed the end of the world around a half dozen times last century.
The Worldwide Church of God magazine (the name escapes me) used to feature commentary on current events in such end of the world schemes.
Hal Lindsey's also made such attempts at tying Biblical prophecies to current events in his early '70's best seller 'The Late Great Planet Earth,' and subsquent books. You would think that after so many times in history so many authors made false predictions, authors would have a sense of caution about creating such works, but no, Hal wrote that the Ten Horsemen of the Apocolypse are the ten nations of the European Commoan Market. Of course,
the ECM is now the EU and numbers many more than ten. I'm still waiting for Hal to issue a retraction.
But the basic idea is that the Ten Horseman are national leaders or nation states, and that they unite behind the AntiChrist, which in this school of interpretation is always considered to be a single individual, often of demonic origen. Writers of this school often embellish the scriptures to suggest that this antichrist is a polician who comes to sudden absolute power while posing as a reformer, a la Adolf Hitler. (Hitler was widely speculated at the time by some to be the AntiChrist).
So any wide international body can be seen as a platform for the AntiChrist to grab world political dominance and begin a reign of terror.
Again, within the group of scholars who accept the notion that this revelation really did come to St John of Patmos who recorded it faithfully, there is great variety of ideas concerning how to interpret it. Most accept that chapters 1-3 concerned contemporary 1st century events. The rest of the chapters garner great controversy.
The second notion you mention is often referred to as Leadership. This is an idea that, first the US is the most Christian nation on the globe, and therefore, strengthening the US's global position is important to promote Christian values.
This arose largely during the Cold War, since it pitted the largely church going United States versus the officially Athiest Soviet Union. A victory against the Soviet Union meant to some a victory against atheism, so for those folks the end began to justify the means.
But this idea has outlasted the Cold War, and leads many Christian thinkers, including those who
influence our current president, to condone polocies that are very hard to justify when compared with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Personally I determine accuracy by, yes, reading the stories. Since I'm sure you did this before posting,
you must have noticed that they reference sources.
First, they list the media stories through which the
Project Censored committee heard about the stories. Then they list supporting info.
For example: #24, Reinstating the Draft.
They list Salon.com and buzzflash.com as being news sources. This would not be enough for me to lend credibility to the news item, but they are only places where their committee learned about the item. They substance comes in other, verifyable references.
The body of the story, and the aftercomments, list
several Primary sources. For example: Congressional motions (S 89 and HR 163) If you wish to you can look at congressional web sites and read the full text of those. They also list links to the web site of the Selective Service Agency. Look them up.
This is how you can know if they are accurate.
"It seems to me, however, that this list is nothing more than a couple of authors whining about their stories not running as widely as they had wanted."
No.
A story in journalistic lingo can mean a topic, not just a single collection of a few hundred words. What is being deened 'censored' is not a single story written by a single author, but a topic that was not covered in the mainstream media.
And it is not those authors 'whining,' it is a student commitee that finds stories and and collects them.
I must admit that Curse of Chalion left me rolling my eyes until I just quit on it, but I thought that the Vorkosigan series had pretty well spun out. It was very much a character driven affair, and incredible as Memory was, it seemed to me that Miles' personal conflicts had been pretty much settled.
A Civil Affair was just a Soap Opera in Space, and should not me mentioned again, but Diplomatic Immunity had a great scenario - at least one of four very important countries was about to be embarrased, and how Miles handled the situation determined who and how much. Great, tense reading.
But the best part of the series was feeling some of Miles' pain and frustration as his life just seemed to get more and more stuck in awkward situations. Now Miles' home life and career are settled, so unless Bujold shakes things up in a major way (like offing the Emporor or starting a war with the Cetagandans) that Miles is just gonna get old and fat from here on out.
Slashdot Mirror
Either that or the data was fudged to undermine/discredit OsX
I think the word fundamentalist should be dropped from our lexicon. I mean, can anyone define exactly what fundamentalism is and isn't ? As far as I can tell, any religious person whom someone disagrees with is a fundamentalist, and considering the variety of opinions here on slashdot, just about anyone coule be a 'fundmentalist' in the view or someone else. Now historicaly a 'fundmentalist' was a person in agreement with a work of theolgy called 'The Fundamentals' that was written by a theology professor at Princeton. But I don't think the parent poster was saying that Princeton theologians are anti-science, so again, lets find some more meaningful words to use in this debate.
Yes, there are two presuppositions that you mention that travel within right-wing christianity. First comes from an interpretion of the Book of the Revelaton to St. John (commonly mis-called Revelations). There are several major schools of interpretation of this book, and one of the most popular (and definately the loudest) is that this book describes events of the literal end of the world, or at least an end to the world system that is not directly directed by God. Authors throughout the last two millenia have taken this approach, and then tried to tie the book's events to current events. The Jehovah Witnesses proclaimed the end of the world around a half dozen times last century. The Worldwide Church of God magazine (the name escapes me) used to feature commentary on current events in such end of the world schemes. Hal Lindsey's also made such attempts at tying Biblical prophecies to current events in his early '70's best seller 'The Late Great Planet Earth,' and subsquent books. You would think that after so many times in history so many authors made false predictions, authors would have a sense of caution about creating such works, but no, Hal wrote that the Ten Horsemen of the Apocolypse are the ten nations of the European Commoan Market. Of course, the ECM is now the EU and numbers many more than ten. I'm still waiting for Hal to issue a retraction. But the basic idea is that the Ten Horseman are national leaders or nation states, and that they unite behind the AntiChrist, which in this school of interpretation is always considered to be a single individual, often of demonic origen. Writers of this school often embellish the scriptures to suggest that this antichrist is a polician who comes to sudden absolute power while posing as a reformer, a la Adolf Hitler. (Hitler was widely speculated at the time by some to be the AntiChrist). So any wide international body can be seen as a platform for the AntiChrist to grab world political dominance and begin a reign of terror. Again, within the group of scholars who accept the notion that this revelation really did come to St John of Patmos who recorded it faithfully, there is great variety of ideas concerning how to interpret it. Most accept that chapters 1-3 concerned contemporary 1st century events. The rest of the chapters garner great controversy. The second notion you mention is often referred to as Leadership. This is an idea that, first the US is the most Christian nation on the globe, and therefore, strengthening the US's global position is important to promote Christian values. This arose largely during the Cold War, since it pitted the largely church going United States versus the officially Athiest Soviet Union. A victory against the Soviet Union meant to some a victory against atheism, so for those folks the end began to justify the means. But this idea has outlasted the Cold War, and leads many Christian thinkers, including those who influence our current president, to condone polocies that are very hard to justify when compared with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Personally I determine accuracy by, yes, reading the stories. Since I'm sure you did this before posting, you must have noticed that they reference sources. First, they list the media stories through which the Project Censored committee heard about the stories. Then they list supporting info. For example: #24, Reinstating the Draft. They list Salon.com and buzzflash.com as being news sources. This would not be enough for me to lend credibility to the news item, but they are only places where their committee learned about the item. They substance comes in other, verifyable references. The body of the story, and the aftercomments, list several Primary sources. For example: Congressional motions (S 89 and HR 163) If you wish to you can look at congressional web sites and read the full text of those. They also list links to the web site of the Selective Service Agency. Look them up. This is how you can know if they are accurate.
"It seems to me, however, that this list is nothing more than a couple of authors whining about their stories not running as widely as they had wanted." No. A story in journalistic lingo can mean a topic, not just a single collection of a few hundred words. What is being deened 'censored' is not a single story written by a single author, but a topic that was not covered in the mainstream media. And it is not those authors 'whining,' it is a student commitee that finds stories and and collects them.
I must admit that Curse of Chalion left me rolling my eyes until I just quit on it, but I thought that the Vorkosigan series had pretty well spun out. It was very much a character driven affair, and incredible as Memory was, it seemed to me that Miles' personal conflicts had been pretty much settled. A Civil Affair was just a Soap Opera in Space, and should not me mentioned again, but Diplomatic Immunity had a great scenario - at least one of four very important countries was about to be embarrased, and how Miles handled the situation determined who and how much. Great, tense reading. But the best part of the series was feeling some of Miles' pain and frustration as his life just seemed to get more and more stuck in awkward situations. Now Miles' home life and career are settled, so unless Bujold shakes things up in a major way (like offing the Emporor or starting a war with the Cetagandans) that Miles is just gonna get old and fat from here on out.