Maciamo, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it is offered, but that is a hugely distorted view of even fundamentalist Christians. I don't know how you could have formed such conclusions.
First of all, no, it's not just my anecdotal experience from the bastion of a basically non-fundamentalist area like New England and the Mid-Atlantic states that tells me fundamentalist Protestants don't "hate" atheists, and don't want to harm them. Do you think that our liberal, mostly atheistic or at least agnostic members of the media wouldn't broadcast that if there were any indication of it. I've never heard of such a thing being reported anywhere in this country except maybe a group of a few hundred survivalist fanatics holed up in some mountain valley, or that weird cult that was going around disturbing the burials of war dead.
It just doesn't exist, period, and as a matter of fact I do know fundamentalists. My father's sister scandalized her entire family by marrying for the second time a man from Kentucky and converting to his religion. He was a member of the Pentecostal Church. I don't think you can get more fundamentalist, Bible Thumping, southern Evangelical than that. She annoyed the hell out of us by constantly trying to convert us, and yes, we found it beyond strange that an Italian would no longer drink a glass of wine, and her girls weren't allowed to wear make up and go dancing, which of course they wound up doing eventually anyway. Two members of my husband's family, in small town upstate New York have converted to a fundamentalist religion, and two cousins of mine, who moved to, and married, respectively, in West Virginia and Georgia, converted to the spouse's religion. And yes, we do discuss religion, and it can get a bit heated at times, but never, ever have I heard anything so outlandish as to wish to harm atheists. I'm telling you; they just want to persuade them to "see the light", and that includes non-fundamentalists Christians.
I think you have a "fundamental" misunderstanding of what is meant in modern religious parlance by "taking scripture literally". It's a term of art that has to be understood in context: you have to know what they mean by that. Fundamentalist Christians don't believe in ANY of those things: not one. Likewise they don't follow the dietary laws in Leviticus. What is meant by taking the Bible "literally" is actually not literally at all other than in the sense that SOME of them believe that the "story" of creation actually happened in the way described, that all the miracles that are described, such as the parting of the waters during the Exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments, Jonah and the whale, Joshua and the towers of Jericho etc. Likewise they believe in Christ's miracles. It absolutely doesn't mean that they follow the rules of the Old Testament.
What you say is very surprising because the very definition of Fundamentalism is taking scriptures literally. And literally does not have two meanings. If the Bible is considered the Word of God, then 100% of what is written must be accepted. That's the most essential difference between fundamentalist and liberal Christians. The former accept all unconditionally. The latter understand that the Bible was written by men and is not the Word of God, and therefore should be 'interpreted' or 'deciphered', either because it has been corrupted by men writing it, or because it is not be taken literally but figuratively. Like you I grew up with a Catholic education (my grandfather almost became a priest), had forced catechism lessons from six years old, then was sent to a Jesuit secondary school. Jesuit priests explained times ans again that for Catholics, unlike Fundamentalist Protestants in the (southern) USA, the Bible should be taken mostly figuratively.
I personally don't see how it's possible to accept that God created the world in seven days, that evolution isn't a thing, and that miracles do happen, if you also don't accept other parts of the Bible. The passages I mentioned are not even supernatural, and they don't seem to be subject to interpretation either. They are clear rules, just like the Ten Commandments. You say that Fundamentalist Christians don't take the Old Testament literally, but they do when it comes to Creationism and the Ten Commandments. They can't just pick and choose what they like. Otherwise they can't call themselves Christians anymore. They would be practising some form of free religion loosely based on Christianity. At the very best they would be very liberal Christians, not fundamentalist ones.
A few questions for you:
1) Were crusaders Fundamentalist Christians? If not, were they ever Fundamentalist Christians? If yes, can we really call modern Baptists or Evangelist Christians fundamentalists too?
2) Fundamentalist Muslims also take the scriptures literally. This is why some become modern Jihadists and suicide bombers. The Quran clearly says to kill the infidels and that Heaven will be the reward. Why would it be different for Fundamentalist Christians? Or are you really saying that they aren't true Fundamentalist Christians in the USA anymore?
As for guns and gun violence, there is no "causative" relationship between that and religiosity. It's correlation, not causation.
I didn't say causation. I also spoke specifically of fundamentalists, not all religious people. Fundamentalists take rules literally. Their mind is inflexible and they can't seem to think by themselves. They need to be told right from wrong, as if they missed the ability to judge that on their own. It is this mindset that makes them more likely to commit violence. The same is seen in Islam. Extremists or fanatics are always fundamentalists.
Some southern states, where, if you ask people, black or white, if they believe that the Bible is literally the word of God, almost all of them, imo, would say yes, although as I pointed out they really don't mean "literally" in the way you think.
Is it because they don't understand the meaning of 'literally' (like people who say "I have literally been waiting forever")? Or are they just hypocrites?
Maciamo, people who wouldn't get medical treatment for their children are predominantly Jehovah's Witnesses; they're a splinter group from a splinter group. They're not "at all" representative of most fundamentalist Christians. Of course evangelicals get medical help for their children. They also believe in the power of prayer, of course. Believing that there is a God who can change the laws of nature if he so chooses doesn't necessarily have anything to do with believing that God gave men brains to make medical discoveries.
Once again, if they are Creationists (and that's not just Jehovah's Witnesses), why would they accept anything to do with genetics? You cannot accept that genetic engineering works if you reject the scientific concept evolution. So are they just big, fat hypocrites who claim to be creationists but really do accept evolution when it suits them? Or are they completely schizophrenic? If so, should they be interned to be treated? I truly believe that creationists should not be allowed any medical treatment relying on any scientific concept that contradicts their beliefs unless they are willing to be treated for mental disorders too. This is not just my personal view. I know that a lot of Northwest Europeans agree with me on this.
No, religious belief is not more likely to make you racist. Not today.
But it did until recently, didn't it? Otherwise why were Martin Luther King and others fighting about? Racism has always been stronger in the former slave-owing states, and they happen to be the states with high percentages of fundamentalist Christians? Or are you denying this part of American history too?
In my experience, all I've ever heard in church is about the "brotherhood" of man.
From the country that produced 'Black Lives Matter'. Yep. Not very convincing.
As for socializing with people on a daily basis who might not believe in evolution, why not? When would the subject come up? If the neighbor, for example, is considerate, polite, sociable, even kind and helpful, why the heck would I care what he or she believes about evolution. I have fundamentalist friends now, people who have converted. We just don't discuss religion. It's a free country; you can believe whatever you want to believe so long as you don't hurt other people.
You don't seem particularly selective when choosing your friends. I agree that in a free country people can believe whatever they want, but that doesn't mean I will become friend with whoever whatever they believe.
Maciamo, I live in Long Island. I know "precisely" what the weather is like. It snows maybe three or four times a year if you mean something other than a few inches. We have a beautiful, long, autumn, and our springs are cool. We don't get really hot weather until the end of June to the end of August.
Almost every winter I see in the news how New York is under several feet of snow. Here are news articles confirming it from
2014,
2015,
2016,
2017,
2018, and
2019. And that's in the last few years when global warming already kept temperatures above freezing for most of winter in Belgium.
I could also, btw, never, ever, live in the Pacific northwest. The sun never shines there practically. It's always raining, and if not raining, it's grey and overcast.
It may just be an impression because the
climate stats for Seattle show 2169 hours of sunshine per year, which is not bad. Winters may be darker in Seattle, but from May to September Seattle has more sunshine
than New York. The number of rainy days is not that different (152 vs 125) and New York actually gets more inches of rain overall. Also NYC gets 12 days of snow in average.
Maciamo, was Germany a developed country in the 1930s? I would say yes. Yet, they elected Hitler and the Nazi party. Within a few years they were living in a totalitarian regime. Even if they wanted to resist, to protect their disabled children from the gas chamber, they didn't have the means to do it. Why is that? It's because once again they took away everyone's firearms. Mussolini wasn't "elected" but the same thing happened there.
Germany was seriously impoverished in the 1920's and '30s. In 1923 Germany's GDP per capita
had fallen to $2300 against $6100 for the USA. That's lower than Congo-Brazzaville or Papua New Guinea today. So I am not sure Germany could still be considered a developed country back then.
It's different to some degree in the northeast. It's much more settled, much further from pioneer days, much less rural.
That's also why it's more similar to Europe. Less rural, less pioneer/frontier mentality.
I'll tell you one thing, though, after seeing the riots in New York City, the looting of the flagship Macy's store, the bands of anti-fa and BLM young people harassing diners on the street etc. gun ownership is shooting up.
What I don't understand is why it didn't shoot up, pun not intended, in France after all those riots and killings in Muslim ghettos. People here would have been up in arms, again, pun not intended. Americans just won't put up with that for long.
Are you suggesting that people should buy guns to shoot demonstrators or rioters?
