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Growing up in a Christian household (in Canada) it was common knowledge that Mary must have been really young. Not just my family, but family friends, talking a

Growing up in a Christian household (in Canada) it was common knowledge that Mary must have been really young. Not just my family, but family friends, talking about how people long ago had a shorter childhood. It was even mentioned in church. I've never run into a single person that was upset about it.

JabavuAdams 13y ago
Online, when someone writes "Christian", it's hard to tell whether they're referring to fundamentalists, or not. I'm from Toronto (Canada), and it would be a bit weird for someone in my social group to just offer "I'm a Christian" except in response to "What's your religion?". It seems that in a lot of the US "I'm a Christian" is short-hand for "I'm a Christian Fundamentalist."
- lotharbot 13y ago
  Fundamentalism is a small (but vocal) subset of Christianity. Despite the name making it sound "old", it's only been around for about a century.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    The subset is not particularly small in America. According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form". 32% think that "Humans evolved, with God guiding", which is still a lot of the religious in America, but far fewer than many seem to expect. Fewer than those who reject evolution completely. http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intel...
    - lotharbot 13y ago
      creationist often means fundamentalist, but not always. EDIT: there is definitely a lot of fundamentalist influence in the US on certain topics, particularly on literal creation. But that influence has been waning for 30-40 years. And many of those who have been influenced on one or two topics are nonetheless very much not-fundamentalist on other topics.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        That is subject to interpretation, but I disagree. If you can't consider your creation myth to be a metaphor, a nice back-story, or whatever... then basically you are unwilling or unable to budge on what should be a pretty uncontested point. Maybe you are progressive on other fronts, but at least in that regard you are a fundamentalist. I would say that fundamentalist does not imply creationist (you'll find fundamentalist Roman Catholics for instance), but creationist does imply fundamentalist. Creationism is one of many fundamentalist stances.
        lotharbot 13y ago
        > "you are unwilling or unable to budge... in that regard you are a fundamentalist." In Christianity, "Fundamentalist" refers specifically to a Protestant/Evangelical movement that was named for a series of essays published before and during WWI, which outline certain specific doctrinal positions. The movement arose largely in response to opposing beliefs which themselves date to the mid-late 1800s. Being "unwilling to budge" might make someone a literalist or a dogmatist, but being a Fundamentalist is more specific. Among Americans who call themselves Christian, few are anything close to true Fundamentalists [0]. Most are hybrids whose beliefs have been assembled in bits and pieces from pastors, books, etc. which includes some fundamentalist-inspired ideas, some ideas that resemble fundamentalist ideas but are actually much older, and some ideas that are completely opposite of fundamentalist ideas. People whose beliefs are mostly Fundamentalist are a very small subset of Christianity, both globally and in the US. [0] note that "no true Scotsman" is only a fallacy if one is using inappropriate criteria to determine group inclusion/exclusion. It's not a fallacy to point out that James Doohan wasn't really Scottish.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        If you want to define "Fundamentalist" to be something other than current real-world usage, that is fine. I'll just pick a new, less 'technical', word: Nuts. If you are a creationist, you are an utter nut, full stop. A significant portion of Americans are religious nuts. And, to clarify earlier discussion on the behalf of JabavuAdams, "Online, when someone writes "Christian", it's hard to tell whether they're referring to fundamentalists^Wreligious nuts, or not." All better?
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form". That's not particularly either Fundamentalist or fundamentalist; "Fundamentalism" is a particular school of Christian theology for which specific creationism of that type is not distinguishing, and "fundamentalism" in the generic sense inspired by Christian Fundamentalism is "the demand for a strict adherence to orthodox theological doctrines" and cannot be identified by simply belief in a particular doctrine on a matter of "what happened", its defined by beliefs of how you treat people who disagree with your beliefs on such doctrines.
  - vacri 13y ago
    Fundamentalism in Christianity stretches at least as far back as the Spanish Inquisition. Modern Europe has been shaped by centuries of infighting over the fundamentals of the religion. Similarly, Galileo is frequently proffered as an example of the church demanding its holy book's passages over actual observation. To describe fundamentalism as modern is flat-out bizarre.
    - rdouble 13y ago
      The term 'Fundamentalism' refers to a specific American religious movement that took off around 1920. It has it's roots in a series of essays called "The Fundamentals" which were published in 1909-1910. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals
      - vacri 13y ago
        Perhaps as a label, which I guess is what's being referred to here, but the ethic goes back a much longer way.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  This is very true and is something I notice online a lot. People often bring up that Christian's don't believe in evolution and they believe the earth is only 5000 years old when that's not true of all of them. Catholic's for example follow scientific teaching on evolution. I think the reason all Christian's have been lumped together is US Politics. Candidates want to show they believe in God but don't want to side with any particular faith and therefore use the Christian moniker..
  - derleth 13y ago
    Moreover, the only candidates who do take a stand as being of a specific faith are doing it to appeal to voters who largely fit the Young Earth Creationist/The Bible Is Literally True In Every Word mold, so that's the faith they profess. Then, when they win, say, a House seat on the strength of a single district (a small part of a single state), they automatically have a national platform they can parlay into a global platform if they say something batshit crazy enough, thanks to the global 24-hour news cycle and the endless linking and repetition in the blogosphere. It's a classic case of a very loud minority making the uncritical thinkers of the world believe "They're all like that".
- rhizome 13y ago
  I don't think that holds. I would see "Christian" as implying they're evangelical, where fundamentalists have a specific code they're living by and proselytizing, so they tend to use their specific denomination. There are lots of different kinds of Christian fundamentalists, but the specific fundamentals of their church differ between groups (7th Day Adventists, etc.).
  - te_chris 13y ago
    I agree with gp, over here the evangelical churches are almost always more extreme in their doctrine so myself and my friends perceive them as fundamentalists. You often find other Christians present themselves by their sect to distance themselves from the evangelicals.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      I understand, but my sense is that fundamentalists are separatists where evangelicals are communitarian and trying to build the flock, so to speak. Fundamentalists are "you're with us or you're with the enemy." Maybe I have only experienced relatively friendly evangelicals, though. :)
      - socceroos 13y ago
        Well, my specific denomination named themselves evangelical presbyterian, but we're fundamentalists. While you can glean that we have a Presbyterian form of government and purport to be evangelical in nature, to be honest, you cannot read too much into a name - a group of Christians are best understood by their fruits. I've always struggled to reconcile how someone could suggest they're Christian but only choose to believe certain parts of the bible and dismiss the rest as just stories (note, I'm not referring to how specific parts of the bible are illustrative in nature). For me, the whole thing crumbles away if you dismiss parts of it. I've heard people suggest that it's more important to take away the good things and good examples than to actually believe in the stories as facts. Anyway, that's just a slice of my opinion. I'm interested in your statement that evangelicals are communitarian and fundamentalists are separatists, I see this practically in some church communities - but I see the opposite in others. I would consider my church more on the separatist side than communitarian.
cschwarm 13y ago
Since the term 'Christians' captures a sample of about 2.35 billion people, differences are to be expected. I admit I should have added a qualifier somewhere. Anyway, there's also a difference, in my opinion, between the more fuzzy term "very young" and the more concrete term "13 years old". For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. I guess, a comparison of the different Bible translations could also produce some evidence. In general, more literal minded Christians seem to prefer ignorance about many details discovered by scholars in the last 100 years or so. Another indicator is the look of actresses playing Mary in movies and documentaries [1]. More "realistically looking" actresses appear only rather recently, for instance in BBC1's 'Nativity' [2]. Still, even the young actresses act mature; for instance, in this short clip from the U.S. TV series "The Bible" [3]. Whether maturity can be expected in such a culture is open to debate, of course, but I have my doubts. [1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-youngest-mary-of-them-all.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-you... [2] http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nativity.html http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nati... [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY
- ChrisClark 13y ago
  When I say very young, I actually mean people talk about her as if she was 12-14 years old. I should have mentioned that more clearly. That age was mentioned a lot. I see you must be talking more about the crazy Christians you have in the US though.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. In quite a large number, Mary looks like a woman of young-but-marriageable age of either the same culture/ethnicity of the place where the depiction was made or one idealized there. > Still, even the young actresses act mature Which, given the depiction of Mary in the Bible, is unsurprising; even if social context didn't play a role (along with brain development) in maturation, it would be inconsistent with the source material to depict Mary as typical of her age.
ixacto 13y ago
What about Joseph's age... If it had happened today both Joesph and Muhammad would both be considered pedos.

JabavuAdams 13y ago

Online, when someone writes "Christian", it's hard to tell whether they're referring to fundamentalists, or not. I'm from Toronto (Canada), and it would be a bit weird for someone in my social group to just offer "I'm a Christian" except in response to "What's your religion?". It seems that in a lot of the US "I'm a Christian" is short-hand for "I'm a Christian Fundamentalist."

lotharbot 13y ago
Fundamentalism is a small (but vocal) subset of Christianity. Despite the name making it sound "old", it's only been around for about a century.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  The subset is not particularly small in America. According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form". 32% think that "Humans evolved, with God guiding", which is still a lot of the religious in America, but far fewer than many seem to expect. Fewer than those who reject evolution completely. http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intel...
  - lotharbot 13y ago
    creationist often means fundamentalist, but not always. EDIT: there is definitely a lot of fundamentalist influence in the US on certain topics, particularly on literal creation. But that influence has been waning for 30-40 years. And many of those who have been influenced on one or two topics are nonetheless very much not-fundamentalist on other topics.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      That is subject to interpretation, but I disagree. If you can't consider your creation myth to be a metaphor, a nice back-story, or whatever... then basically you are unwilling or unable to budge on what should be a pretty uncontested point. Maybe you are progressive on other fronts, but at least in that regard you are a fundamentalist. I would say that fundamentalist does not imply creationist (you'll find fundamentalist Roman Catholics for instance), but creationist does imply fundamentalist. Creationism is one of many fundamentalist stances.
      - lotharbot 13y ago
        > "you are unwilling or unable to budge... in that regard you are a fundamentalist." In Christianity, "Fundamentalist" refers specifically to a Protestant/Evangelical movement that was named for a series of essays published before and during WWI, which outline certain specific doctrinal positions. The movement arose largely in response to opposing beliefs which themselves date to the mid-late 1800s. Being "unwilling to budge" might make someone a literalist or a dogmatist, but being a Fundamentalist is more specific. Among Americans who call themselves Christian, few are anything close to true Fundamentalists [0]. Most are hybrids whose beliefs have been assembled in bits and pieces from pastors, books, etc. which includes some fundamentalist-inspired ideas, some ideas that resemble fundamentalist ideas but are actually much older, and some ideas that are completely opposite of fundamentalist ideas. People whose beliefs are mostly Fundamentalist are a very small subset of Christianity, both globally and in the US. [0] note that "no true Scotsman" is only a fallacy if one is using inappropriate criteria to determine group inclusion/exclusion. It's not a fallacy to point out that James Doohan wasn't really Scottish.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        If you want to define "Fundamentalist" to be something other than current real-world usage, that is fine. I'll just pick a new, less 'technical', word: Nuts. If you are a creationist, you are an utter nut, full stop. A significant portion of Americans are religious nuts. And, to clarify earlier discussion on the behalf of JabavuAdams, "Online, when someone writes "Christian", it's hard to tell whether they're referring to fundamentalists^Wreligious nuts, or not." All better?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form". That's not particularly either Fundamentalist or fundamentalist; "Fundamentalism" is a particular school of Christian theology for which specific creationism of that type is not distinguishing, and "fundamentalism" in the generic sense inspired by Christian Fundamentalism is "the demand for a strict adherence to orthodox theological doctrines" and cannot be identified by simply belief in a particular doctrine on a matter of "what happened", its defined by beliefs of how you treat people who disagree with your beliefs on such doctrines.
- vacri 13y ago
  Fundamentalism in Christianity stretches at least as far back as the Spanish Inquisition. Modern Europe has been shaped by centuries of infighting over the fundamentals of the religion. Similarly, Galileo is frequently proffered as an example of the church demanding its holy book's passages over actual observation. To describe fundamentalism as modern is flat-out bizarre.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    The term 'Fundamentalism' refers to a specific American religious movement that took off around 1920. It has it's roots in a series of essays called "The Fundamentals" which were published in 1909-1910. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals
    - vacri 13y ago
      Perhaps as a label, which I guess is what's being referred to here, but the ethic goes back a much longer way.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
This is very true and is something I notice online a lot. People often bring up that Christian's don't believe in evolution and they believe the earth is only 5000 years old when that's not true of all of them. Catholic's for example follow scientific teaching on evolution. I think the reason all Christian's have been lumped together is US Politics. Candidates want to show they believe in God but don't want to side with any particular faith and therefore use the Christian moniker..
- derleth 13y ago
  Moreover, the only candidates who do take a stand as being of a specific faith are doing it to appeal to voters who largely fit the Young Earth Creationist/The Bible Is Literally True In Every Word mold, so that's the faith they profess. Then, when they win, say, a House seat on the strength of a single district (a small part of a single state), they automatically have a national platform they can parlay into a global platform if they say something batshit crazy enough, thanks to the global 24-hour news cycle and the endless linking and repetition in the blogosphere. It's a classic case of a very loud minority making the uncritical thinkers of the world believe "They're all like that".
rhizome 13y ago
I don't think that holds. I would see "Christian" as implying they're evangelical, where fundamentalists have a specific code they're living by and proselytizing, so they tend to use their specific denomination. There are lots of different kinds of Christian fundamentalists, but the specific fundamentals of their church differ between groups (7th Day Adventists, etc.).
- te_chris 13y ago
  I agree with gp, over here the evangelical churches are almost always more extreme in their doctrine so myself and my friends perceive them as fundamentalists. You often find other Christians present themselves by their sect to distance themselves from the evangelicals.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    I understand, but my sense is that fundamentalists are separatists where evangelicals are communitarian and trying to build the flock, so to speak. Fundamentalists are "you're with us or you're with the enemy." Maybe I have only experienced relatively friendly evangelicals, though. :)
    - socceroos 13y ago
      Well, my specific denomination named themselves evangelical presbyterian, but we're fundamentalists. While you can glean that we have a Presbyterian form of government and purport to be evangelical in nature, to be honest, you cannot read too much into a name - a group of Christians are best understood by their fruits. I've always struggled to reconcile how someone could suggest they're Christian but only choose to believe certain parts of the bible and dismiss the rest as just stories (note, I'm not referring to how specific parts of the bible are illustrative in nature). For me, the whole thing crumbles away if you dismiss parts of it. I've heard people suggest that it's more important to take away the good things and good examples than to actually believe in the stories as facts. Anyway, that's just a slice of my opinion. I'm interested in your statement that evangelicals are communitarian and fundamentalists are separatists, I see this practically in some church communities - but I see the opposite in others. I would consider my church more on the separatist side than communitarian.

cschwarm 13y ago

Since the term 'Christians' captures a sample of about 2.35 billion people, differences are to be expected. I admit I should have added a qualifier somewhere. Anyway, there's also a difference, in my opinion, between the more fuzzy term "very young" and the more concrete term "13 years old". For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. I guess, a comparison of the different Bible translations could also produce some evidence. In general, more literal minded Christians seem to prefer ignorance about many details discovered by scholars in the last 100 years or so. Another indicator is the look of actresses playing Mary in movies and documentaries [1]. More "realistically looking" actresses appear only rather recently, for instance in BBC1's 'Nativity' [2]. Still, even the young actresses act mature; for instance, in this short clip from the U.S. TV series "The Bible" [3]. Whether maturity can be expected in such a culture is open to debate, of course, but I have my doubts. [1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-youngest-mary-of-them-all.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-you... [2] http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nativity.html http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nati... [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY

ChrisClark 13y ago
When I say very young, I actually mean people talk about her as if she was 12-14 years old. I should have mentioned that more clearly. That age was mentioned a lot. I see you must be talking more about the crazy Christians you have in the US though.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. In quite a large number, Mary looks like a woman of young-but-marriageable age of either the same culture/ethnicity of the place where the depiction was made or one idealized there. > Still, even the young actresses act mature Which, given the depiction of Mary in the Bible, is unsurprising; even if social context didn't play a role (along with brain development) in maturation, it would be inconsistent with the source material to depict Mary as typical of her age.

ixacto 13y ago

What about Joseph's age... If it had happened today both Joesph and Muhammad would both be considered pedos.