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It just seems like once they reached a certain point, it was as if they just stopped everything and stuck their heads in the sand.
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Hasn't the same thing happened here with Christianity? If I'm not mistaken these fundamentalist groups began in the American south in the 1920s. They're stronger today than ever. In southern California they're everywhere you look. I was reading one of Joan Didion's collections of essays the other day. In one she pointed out that fundamentalist churches tend to thrive in places like Los Angeles, where Western culture has its weakest hold. In uncertain times, in the absence of tradition or education people grab whatever makes them feel better-- fanatical religious beliefs, heroin, whatever.