One of the interesting things about fundamentalist Christianity (primarily Protestants) as a movement, an ideology, is that it was a conscious "invention", a late 19th century -- early 20th century reaction against several 19th century ideas and movements, including the theory of evolution, feminism, and universal suffrage.
Shock and outrage at the allegation that blacks are the same as whites under the skin, that we both evolved from the same species, is reaction that has been discredited in the 21st century, but it was overt in the 19th century.
As a practical matter, in the USA we are almost all practicing feminists now, so that you could argue we're actually post-feminist, but you and I were both born in an time and place where women were discouraged from taking "men's jobs."
Evolution is one of the last stands for Biblical literalism. The polarization between "anti science 6 day creationists" and "anti God atheistic evolutionists" is an artificial construct, but that doesn't mean that "anti science 6 day creationists" don't exist, and so do "anti God atheistic evolutionists".
The main reason I keep a toe into this debate is that I like to remind people that in this, as in so much else in life, the middle ground is far larger than the poles.
And then, there are the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Jains, the Zoroastrians, the Animists, and so on and so forth, for whom this debate is just silly.
Do they really care about their magic turtles and magic ravens and magic elephants and multi-armed deities enough to kill each other? I have no idea. Probably some do. |
