Don,

You know I love you, man, but every time you describe your experiences with "fundamentalists", though I've met people of the ilk you describe, I never concluded -- probably because I lived among them -- that those you described were the rule and not the exception.

And fundamentalists are divided, NOT monolithic -- even (especially?) over issues like the subject of this thread. I mean, fergoshsakes, robomatic started the damn thread with a quote from one of 'em.

This constant mudcat drumbeat of the redneck, sheepfucking, green-toothed, undereducated, mean-spirited, brutal fundamentalist is just not the description of the people that I grew up with. Did I mention "undereducated"? Don, it sounded to me like you are the one who came out of the situation you described in such detail with the elevated hubris to think that you started a whole Christian movement in response to your brilliant Bible knowledge! ...and yet, somehow you came away with the impression that it was the Christian who lacked the humility. The fundamentalists I know who do like to have a good discussion don't shrink at another's Bible knowledge. But then I guess I haven't met as many from the sheep-fucking side of the "family" of god. :^)

Even the ones I know that may bristle at the notion of "Bible as Literature" would not be doing so because of the possibility that you were going to outwit them -- though many, many I know would be the first to admit to being susceptible to the outwitting.

I know arrogant ThMs and ThDs and I know humble ones.

I also know that those same fundamentalists that you all are saying are running the world sounded exactly like you in the 80s and 90's. MUCH ink was spent describing the government's intervention in the rights of Christian parents to homeschool. The liberal juggernaut with it's Christian hating agenda was just as feared as you fear this notion of a fundamentalist government taking over.

It's a good time to be alive in that regard -- if, after living these last 20 years, you can't see the hypocricy on both sides of an issue then you probably are an extremist.