Posted by Pat on October 23, 1999 at 17:55:44:
In Reply to: Sagan's Contact posted by Tom on October 22, 1999 at 23:11:50:
Tom:
I agree with you that the movie does provoke a powerful sense of the nouminous. I liked it a lot actually, and I must admit that the Sagan of Demon Haunted World was much more temperate than the younger Sagan of the Cosmos series.
Pat:
You should read the book; the screenplay, I understand, was not very true to the original. I have Demon-Haunted World but haven't had time to read it yet.
Tom:
The term "fundamentalist" has a number of meanings. For me it means a biblical literalist. I get the sense that many skeptics use the word to refer to anyone who genuinely holds a traditional religious belief in God.
Pat:
Fundamentalism is a recent religion, no older than this century. Almost all Christian traditions are older than fundamentalism. And fundamentalists rarely espouse complete literalism; most do not accept the literal meaning of "death" in Genesis, for example.
Tom:
I'm acquainted with an evolutionary biologist
here at the University of Georgia who is also an orthodox Christian. His colleagues refer to him
as a fundamentalist. I find that puzzling.
Pat;Pat:
I know several fundamentalists who accept God's creation as it is. Denying evolution is not a requirement for fundamentalism, even if fundamentalists do mostly insist that evolution is not true.