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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 23, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If anyone is interested, mister Turok is over on the SSC open thread complaining about us: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-409/comment/180699602

I'm curious, why on earth do people think this is a "hugbox for fundamentalist Christians"? If anything I see progressive folks get more leniency. Anyway, sad to see.

There's definitely a fair amount of talk about Christianity, but that word "fundamentalist" is doing a lot of work there. Just looking at the Wikipedia pages on Christian Fundamentalism makes my head spin, because I have literally never heard of 99% of the people mentioned. There's like a tiny amount which I know from reading about creationism.

Look at the page for the admittedly ancient essays described as "widely considered to be the foundation of modern Christian fundamentalism." It's just a long parade of names that I've never heard about.

This is something that I've noticed about people who criticize "evangelicals" too. I hear a lot of talk about them, but I almost never hear names of actual evangelical writers mentioned, much less their specific ideas. It looks a lot like there's a rich history there that I'm just unaware of, and I suspect that's true for a lot of people on The Motte.