re: Is there any movie out now worth seeing

That's more like it.

You have the balls to demand sources from me, when you have ignored every single one of the previous? And what's more, you attempt to restrict my selection by placing your own arbitrary conditionals.

I've got an idea, I'll back up what I said; and not some arbitrary pigeon hole that you wish you could force me in so as to window dress this crime scene of a thread. Sorry friend. You've done nothing but make a further fool of yourself.

Let's see, what did I say. Oh, right:

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what has come to define the term is not a specified flavor of Christianity so much as a particular religious zeal, typically, though not always associated with conservative political views. I be more than happy to link examples of this translation if you're unaware of them.

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Which you never directly refuted by the way; (smart) instead, now you're attempting to get me to defend your original definition. Good form and a decent argumentative strategy, though I'm afraid it's not going to help you today.

A few examples of the phrase explicitly defined as I used it.

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an area chiefly in the southern United States whose inhabitants are believed to hold uncritical allegiance to the literal accuracy of the Bible

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Merriam-Webster

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an area of the U.S., chiefly in the South and Midwest, noted for its religious fundamentalism.

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Dictonary.com

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The term Bible Belt is a colloquial expression in the United States referring to the region where a majority of people are fundamentalists.

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About.com

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those regions of the U.S., particularly areas in the South, where fundamentalist beliefs prevail and Christian clergy are especially influential

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YourDictionary.com


And just in case you don't think that south Louisiana, and you personally don't fit that definition:

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Residents of Mississippi ranked first among Americans in all four measures of a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, with 82% saying religion is very important in their lives. Five other states had at least seven in 10 people stating that religion holds that kind of importance for them: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and South Carolina.

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While 77% of Mississippians said they pray at least once a day, they're followed closely behind by residents of other Southern states with more than 70% claiming to be as prayerful: Louisiana

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More than nine in 10 Mississippians say they believe in God "with absolute certainty (91 percent), but several Southern states have more than 80% who hold a similar belief: South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana

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And on
and on
and on

quotes from an article in USAToday
stats provided by The Pew Charitable Trust Forum
and the gaping anus was courtesy of TulaneLSU



P.S. "Your little five minutes of Wikipedia research will fail you when pressed."

Not a single source you link would be acceptable in any academic paper. Those are extremely broad, sweeping statements that have no local nuances, no knowledge or appreciation for the vast difference between southern and northern Louisiana. Your sources use one or two sentences to make a huge conclusion about the entire South, forget specific state history; forget what the term Bible Belt means; forget the very distinct history, political, social, and cultural, that separate north Louisiana from south Louisiana. Forget it all because it's much easier, much lazier to make statements like Louisiana is part of the Bible Belt. After all, there's no real difference in history, culture and politics between New Orleans and Shreveport. They're the same! They're both in Louisiana, and by God, About.com doesn't distinguish between the two, so why should we?

Well, I'll tell you why. It's because we should not be lazy. We should not fall into stupid stereotypes. We should not use encyclopedic sources as conclusive sources because such sources are too general and lack local knowledge, local nuance. How can anyone who has ever lived in south Louisiana say that "christian" fundamentalism has a hold in south Louisiana? South Louisiana has traditionally been, and still is, Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism is entirely against the biblical fundamentalism by which you define the Bible Belt. Why? Because biblical fundamentalism undermines the authority of the Church. It undermines the authority of the Hierarchy, and puts any one person's interpretation of the Bible as equal to another's, regardless of apostolic succession or education.

You obviously do not know much about the social, political, religious, or cultural history of Louisiana if you continue to make the absurd, a-historical claim that south Louisiana is or ever has been part of north Louisiana or the Bible Belt. If you feel so confident that south Louisiana is part of the Bible belt, why don't you e-mail Gaines Foster in the LSU Department of History or Rodger Payne in the LSU Department of Religious Studies. Both are experts on the history, sociology, and religion of the South, but especially of Louisiana.

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can't think of anything worth a damn

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you are correct sir

You do not speak for Roman Catholicism. You lack the critical insight or foundational theological understanding to understand why Roman Catholicism is opposed to biblical literalism. You are a moron, and for you to speak for anyone or any institution would be to insult that person or institution. You are also desperate for someone else to humiliate me because you are at least smart enough to realize that you do not have the intellectual capacity to do it. Sorry to inform you that the person who believes south Louisiana is part of the Bible Belt isn't the person to do it either.

The topic of biblical literalism is a very big topic, one that can carry many different definitions. To say that the R.C.C. is an institution that upholds biblical literalism because it believes in a literal interpretation of the Eucharist is not to understand what is generally understood as the term biblical literalism. In the context in which biblical literalism is being used in this conversation, in the sense of the beliefs of the majority of Protestants in the Bible Belt, of which south Louisiana most certainly is not a constituent part, biblical literalism would, I believe, point to an understanding of the Bible that arose in the late 19th century as a result of scientific discoveries and theories and social trends in America. Distinct beliefs in such a literal fundamentalism would include creation in seven 24-hour days (a response to Darwinism), a belief that anyone is capable of reading the Bible and interpreting it word by word on their own (rejection of Roman Catholic view of authority and tradition, as Catholicism was spreading in 19th century America, which had been predominantly Protestant, as a result of Irish, German and Italian immigration to the U.S.), and belief that the history contained in the Bible is completely accurate (a response to the rise of the histo-critical method of reading the Bible, which originated in Germany, but had spread to divinity schools at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton).

The Roman Catholic belief of the transubstantiation of bread and wine was not a concrete teaching of the R.C.C. until Thomas brought an Aristotelian understanding of accidents and essence. I'm not saying that the Roman Catholic Church only took on the belief that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ after Thomas, but there wasn't a real, complex discussion about whether or not the elements really were the body and blood. It wasn't definitive until Thomas, and Thomas did not base his reasoning in a literal interpretation of the Bible, but rather, an application of Aristotelian philosophy.

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Sorry to inform you that the person who believes south Louisiana is part of the Bible Belt isn't the person to do it either.

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You might want to retrace this thread champ. Your blood is all over the place.

To continue with this thread's theme (my deft illustration of that which is obvious to all):

It's irrelevant that there are competing definitions. The fact remains that I both contextualized and defined my meaning. I then enlightened you as to it's relevance in the national language, of which you were apparently unaware. End of story. Whether you disagree with the translation or not makes zero difference in the scope of this argument. Although; to be honest, I don't blame you for your desperate attempt to cling to it. Granted, it's pathetic, but it's clearly all you've got left, no wait... scratch that; it's all you ever had.

Now, if you haven't grown weary of the savory flavor of my e-penis; then by all means, please continue.

Normally, if I say something insulting to a person like, you're a moron, I later regret it and feel bad. In your case, I don't.