Reddit reviews Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back

While this book is kind of loony, Frank Schaeffer is an interesting guy and not an idiot. I recommend his other book, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back

It's actually impressive how far he has come since he was a big shot in the Christian Right.

Check out a book called Crazy For God by Frank Schaeffer. He explains how the eveangelical movement got going so heavily in America and how abortion was used as the binding rallying cry. Its told from an insiders perspective that he has since left behind.

https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0306817500/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crazy+for+god+frank+schaeffer&qid=1557866357&s=gateway&sprefix=crazy+for+g&sr=8-1

I think he's genuine. Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back

He put that out in 2008. And he's been vocal about it for quite a while.

I haven't read it, but this might be a start.

https://www.amazon.ca/God-Our-Side-Religious-America/dp/0767922573

Frank Schaeffer might be worth checking out too.

https://www.amazon.ca/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0306817500

Why I Left/Why I Stayed by Tony and Bart Campolo (father and son, Bart left the faith and is a humanist chaplain and has a podcast)

Crazy For God by Frank Schaeffer

I mostly listened to podcasts of those personal stories. If you want some recommendations let me know.

There's a great book out there called Crazy for God that goes into some of the political conservative takeover of Christian votes via the work of Billy Graham, James Dobson, Francis Schaeffer and others.

It's written by the son of Francis Schaeffer, who notes that his father also came to quite regret allowing himself to be drawn into the shenanigans, regarding many of the behind the scenes goings on as wholly un-Christian.

It's a terrible shame - even for Christians - because there are many parts of Leftist philosophy (and even history) that have a more natural alignment with Christian values, but these highly successful efforts seem to have dulled much thought around that.

As for anti-theism, I'm anti-fundamentalism and anti-theocracy, and some would say that makes me an anti-theist.

I think some theism is mostly harmless, and some is very harmful. As long as the mostly harmless ones decry the harmful ones along side me, I'm fine with them. What pisses me off is when liberals dare not speak against fundies. I'm quite happy to see books like The Anointed(which I'm currently reading) and Crazy for God(which I haven't read yet), where non-evangelical believers rip fundies a new one. I hope they will take it a bit more seriously then they do when atheists point out their lunacy.

At minimum, 2/3 of the planet is totally wrong about the "true" religion. The groups who want to war over the fact that theirs is correct are dangerous on all sides, and every side is convinced that their way is the true way. They all can see how each other's god concept is totally crap, but can't see that their own tribal god is false.

If you like singing songs and having pot-lucks together, and want to think you live forever without that stopping you from caring about justice and love and excellence in the here and now, good for you. If your goal is to pass laws and indoctrinate until the whole world believes in your tribal god, and not care about this world because the next one is going to be so much better, go fuck yourself.

Frank Shaeffer's book, Crazy for God is a must read.

I'm currently reading Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0306817500/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256016284&sr=8-1

And I quote (page 31, paperback version):

"Fundamentalists never can just disagree. The person they fall out with is not only on the wrong side of an issue, they are on the wrong side of God."

"A church split builds self-righteousness into the fabric of every new splinter group, whose only reason for existence is that they decide they are more moral and pure than their brethren."

Just my humble opinion, but any belief system that takes itself so seriously that it can't tolerate dissent or satire deserves to be ridiculed. I think George Carlin and Bill Hicks would have agreed with this.

Here's a great book from the other side. Frank Schaefer, a founding father of the religious right and the American Right to Life movement, recently wrote Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back

He went from rabidly anti-choice to, while still not fully in support of abortion, supports a woman's right to choose in early stages.

For every woman who regrets that she had the abortion, there are many others who do not. Those who do not, will regret that they were in the position to require an abortion, but they value the life they were able to have because of their decision.