There's this website called Fundies Say the Darndest Things (fstdt.com). They also have on their website "Racists say the Darndest Things" and "Conspiracy Theorists Say the Darndest Things". I have to say, some of the quotes are hilarious (and kind of scary). But a lot of the comments for each quote are just mean. There seems to be a perception on there that all Christians are intolerant Fundamentalists. That is not a rare perception. It's, of course, not true. I'm Christian. I have a bunch of tattoos and play in a punk band. Politically, I'm a libertarian, and I don't believe in any government enforcement of morality. I have to wonder exactly what the real numbers of fundamentalists are. First let's look at America. According to Wikipedia, 76.5 percent of Americans are Christian. About 2/3 of the Christians (roughly half of the total population) attend a particular church. Evangelicals represent 40.1% of that number, meaning about 20% of America. Now many black churches are considered evangelical, and blacks make up about 12% of America. Blacks generally not what we think of when we talk about these fundamentalists, so we should take about 10% off evangelicals as a percentage of Christians, leaving them at 30.1%. Not everybody who belongs to an evangelical denomination is a fundamentalist in terms of their own thought and lifestyle. I think it's fair to take off another 10%, making it about 20% of Church affiliated Christians. Morman's make up about 4% of these Christians, and probably half of them have similar ideologies to the fundamentalists. That makes about 22%. Probably about 10% of Catholics are in this group, putting the number at about 27%. What the hell we'll go to 30%. This means 30% of Church affiliated Christians are fundamentalists. Church affiliated Christians are about 2/3 of Christians. This means 20% of Christians in America are fundamentalists. A big number in absolute terms, but percentage wise not that big. And you can't necessarily assume that all fundamentalists are the obnoxious kind. Even if they are, you can't judge a group by 20%, especially when the non-fundamentalists are clearly willing to stand up to the fundamentalists, and especially when that 20% is for the most part, not really harmful.
Not all Christians are fundamentalists.
By donttreadonme - Posted on November 29th, 2008
I gotta tell you, your blog seems more like an example of how you can scew statistics. While it is good that you did your research, I would recomend a different site than Wikipedia, which many users tend to mistrust due to its nature. Also, use more emotions and be a bit more personal than just listing numbers.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
i find those websites you mentioned are interesting.
How do you define a fundamentalist?
I guess the defining feature of a fundamentalists is the belief in the inerrancey of the Bible. Evangelical has a somewhat more complicated meaning, as many more celebratory forms of worship, regardless of ideology, could be counted as evangelical. Evangelical is of course related to the word "evangelizing" or preaching your religion, but could also refer to going out and doing good works.