BF2S Forums Jerry Falwell Dead

Stingray24 wrote:

HunterOfSkulls: I was addressing CPoe, but if the shoe fits . . .

People I disagree with don’t infuriate me to the level that I welcome their death.  I guess his assault on the teletubbies pushed you over the edge.

I actually feel the same way. If it was a matter of mere disagreement, I really wouldn't care one way or the other. I figured I adequately explained it was not mere disagreement. I wasn't at odds with Jerry Falwell because he liked vanilla ice cream and I like chocolate. I was at odds with him and his pinhead followers because they adhere to the notion that anyone unlike themselves in thought, religious belief and lifestyle should be under the boot of a Christian Reconstructionist theocracy. Since I and pretty much everybody I love and care about fall under that "unlike themselves in thought, religious belief and lifestyle" category, you bet I'm going to celebrate the idea of one less person in the world trying to make that a reality. Good try with the Teletubbies thing though; A for effort, F for actual effect.

Stingray24 wrote:

The US never has and never will be a Christian theocracy.  No one in mainstream Christianity has advocated such, even Falwell.

Falwell and his contemporaries like Pat Robertson are (mostly) smart and media-savvy enough to not come right out and say "We want to establish a Christian theocracy in place of the current government of the United States". At least Jerry had a lot fewer public gaffes than Pat anyway, sometimes Pat just can't seem to control himself. Instead they engage in dog-whistle speak, key words and phrases that sound innocuous to most people but are instantly understood by "believers". Shit like "family values" used instead of "banning same sex marriage and abortion", "values voting" for "only Christians are capable of moral leadership so vote only for them", "religious freedom" instead of "Christianity given primacy in public secular institutions like schools and courthouses", "States' rights" (one of the old catchphrases used to court segregationists in the South) instead of "we can't defeat/pass this at a national level so do it at a state level" ie. the near-total bans on abortion in several US states and bans on same-sex marriage and civil unions in many other states. Falwell and his ilk have learned the value of finesse` over bluntness; they can achieve through subtle means what they cannot through overt means.

Stingray24 wrote:

In the US, we still vote our leaders in and out without requiring the approval of any religion.

Which is why there was so much manufactured outrage over a decision to swear in a senator on a Quran.

Stingray24 wrote:

All citizens, religious or not, are free to mobilize to support or oppose the laws and statutes presented to and by our legislature.  You're making a mountain out of a molehill here.

Some citizens have enough power, influence and money to create a disproportionate influence over the laws and statutes presented to and by our legislature. I suppose it would be a molehill to you, since you all ready subscribe to the beliefs that folks like Falwell are attempting to enshrine in our secular laws. I think you'd have a serious problem if any other religious group were attempting to use the State to enforce or validate their religious dogma.

Stingray24 wrote:

Even with a man who claims Christianity as his religion in office for 6 years, the nation is still not even in the ballpark of a Christian theocracy.

Some of us would rather not wait until we're in the bloody ballpark and the gates are locked behind us before we announce that we don't feel like sitting through the game. We're digging in our heels now before it goes any farther because we're tired of politicians courting the tyrrany of the majority just to get more votes. We're tired of religious busybodies trying to create their own "protected classes" with "special rights" above and beyond those of other Americans while they claim that others are trying to do the same. We're tired of seeing religious loonies like General William "We're fighting Satan" Boykin and the higher-ups in the Air Force Academy rewarded instead of reprimanded for disrespecting the Constitution they took an oath to defend from all enemies foreign and domestic. We're tired of seeing governmental bodies created for the purpose of defining what a valid faith is and which ones deserve federal monies for "charitable" work. This is a dangerous and deadly power alliance to enable or ignore. Humanity does not need to go down this road again just because we've forgotten what it looks like; the scenery has not changed, it is still paved with corpses and bordered on both sides by tombstones. Dramatic? Maybe. So are the consequences of forgetting the lessons of history.

You believe tv preachers are speaking in code to instruct their followers?  Come on man.  Your theory sounds like the plot from FEAR where the soldiers are given their orders by mind control. Sorry, there's no secret code being passed over the airwaves and no one creating special rights for religious folks.   You must agree that people on the right and left have power and influence in our country.  If not, you haven't heard of the Kennedy family.  Sure, some have more money than others, but that's true of non-religious people, too.  Your paranoia gauge is pegged to the max.  Go out and meet some of the religious people I know.   They're not controlled by a secret society bend on the conquest of the US.  They're 9-5 people just like you and me trying to pay the bills and keep the lawn from growing too long.

Last edited by Stingray24 (2007-05-15 19:55:15)

FYI:

If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, USA Today Chat, quoted from The Religious Freedom Coalition, "The Two faces of Jerry Falwell"

The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, Sermon, July 4, 1976

If we are going to save America and evangelize the world, we cannot accommodate secular philosophies that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth ... We need to pull out all the stops to recruit and train 25 million Americans to become informed pro-moral activists whose voices can be heard in the halls of Congress.
I am convinced that America can be turned around if we will all get serious about the Master's business. It may be late, but it is never too late to do what is right. We need an old-fashioned, God-honoring, Christ-exalting revival to turn American back to God. America can be saved!
-- Jerry Falwell, "Moral Majority Report" for September, 1984

It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.
-- Jerry Falwell, Listen, America!

We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism ... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today ... our battle is with Satan himself.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The

Stingray24 wrote:

You believe tv preachers are speaking in code to instruct their followers?  Come on man.  Your theory sounds like the plot from FEAR where the soldiers are given their orders by mind control.

Actually it's a recognized phenomenon in political campaigning and other areas of society.

Dog-whistle politics

The idea behind it is to use key phrases that on their face are innocuous but are intended to resonate with specific groups of people. Bush's continuous use of biblical phrases in speeches, politicians that use terms like "Culture of Life", "Culture of Death", "traditional values", "people of faith", et cetera. Which is pretty much how I stated it; never mentioned anything about a "secret code" or mind control, but nice try attempting to paint me as a paranoid crank. I guess if you can't refute the point there's not a lot of options left eh?

Stingray24 wrote:

Sorry, there's no secret code being passed over the airwaves and no one creating special rights for religious folks.

Covered that first bit all ready. Second bit, well let's see, we have the groups trying to use our government to promote Christianity by disengenously claiming that the Decalogue is the basis of all our laws, saying it should be placed in federal buildings like courthouses and public buildings like schools, while ignoring the fact that only three of the ten strictures in it actually pertain to secular law. We have other folks trying to get federal money (our tax dollars) for their charitable work (usually something doomed to ridiculous failure like abstinance-only birth control programs for teens) while pressuring the government to make sure that only those from their own particular religion are eligible for those federal dollars. We have more groups trying to make their beliefs regarding homosexuality, abortion and a whole host of other things that are none of the government's business into the law of the land. As I said in my last post, I'm pretty sure if this was some other religious group attempting to foist its beliefs upon the entire country through force of law, you'd have a frickin' stroke.   

Stingray24 wrote:

You must agree that people on the right and left have power and influence in our country.  If not, you haven't heard of the Kennedy family.

ROFL.

Okay, lemme explain my laughter. I can SAY I'm Catholic. I know all the basic tenets, I know the lingo, the holidays, I even went through the whole baptism and confirmation thing. Does it mean I AM Catholic? No. It just means I can convince you and other people that I am if I feel like it or I need to. Plainly put, a clan of old money wealthy white folks who haven't worked a real job among them since before Prohibition are about as leftist as I am Catholic.

Stingray24 wrote:

Sure, some have more money than others, but that's true of non-religious people, too.

It's not just money. It's influence. It's having a President's ear anytime you want it. It's having people so convinced that you know the way to heaven that they'll not only send you millions of dollars of their own money every year for promises of something wholly intangible, they'll also vote any way you tell them to (or hint that they should) even if doing so is plainly against their own interests. I doubt you can find more than four people at least considered to be "left" that you can say that about.

Stingray24 wrote:

Your paranoia gauge is pegged to the max.

To paraphrase from one of my favorite pieces of literature, sometimes paranoids just have all the facts.

Stingray24 wrote:

Go out and meet some of the religious people I know.   They're not controlled by a secret society bend on the conquest of the US.  They're 9-5 people just like you and me trying to pay the bills and keep the lawn from growing too long.

I think you've got the wrong idea here chief. I don't think religious Christians are monsters or zombie drones. I know they're regular people. I also know that over the last few hundred years of human history those same regular 9-5 people trying to pay their bills and keep their lawns trimmed have turned a blind eye to the worst atrocities imaginable because they were told it was necessary to combat "evil", to preserve "traditional values" and because it wasn't happening to them. This is the problem I have with Christianity: its adherents all ready view those not adhering to it as at best flawed and incomplete and at worst wicked hellbound sinners in the thrall of Satan. This is not a good jumping-off point for dealing with other human beings of different paths of faith or different ways of life. It is a good jumping-off point for justifying their elimination from society by whatever means necessary and it's not like it would be the first time someone decided to take it that far and the "regular people" just stood back and let it happen.

Stingray24 wrote:

I will never be convinced of your conspiracy theories, so we can agree to disagree on that one.  American Christians advocate everyone being able to express their opinions and we freely express ours in society, also.  You can attribute sinister motives to us, but that does not qualify it as reality.

There are activists on both sides of abortion and homosexuality who are “trying to make their beliefs the law of the land”.   That’s how our political process works.  If I disagree with someone, I need to get out there and present my view, not rail against their right to express their position.  And I’d just vote like usual, not have a stroke. 

Edward Kennedy is not a leftist?  Now it’s my turn to laugh.

I can find four and then some . . . environmentalists.  Believe that religious folks will vote any way their told if you want.  I don’t and no one else that I know who is religious does that either.  We look at the candidates and vote for the one we agree with most, just like everyone else. 

I do not view someone who does not adhere to Christianity as flawed or wicked and certainly not marked for elimination.  Just because I choose to adhere to a set of moral beliefs doesn’t mean I look down on anyone else.  When I speak to people about my beliefs, it’s from a perspective of helping them understand what I believe.  Not to brand them as lesser than me, wicked, or whatever.  All the Christians I know want people to come to salvation of their own choice.  We don’t advocate forced conversion or elimination of those whom with we disagree.  Most of us do believe that those who don't believe are going to hell.  That's why we tell others about our beliefs - because we don't want them to go there.  It's about welcoming everyone, not labeling the outsiders and slamming the door.

You need only look a little ways back up the page to see some of the real gems that Falwell has spewed.  He didn't believe in separation of church and state, and would have made the US a Christian version of the Muslim world if he could have.

IonYou wrote:

FFLink13 wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e … ustler.jpg

Is that real?!

Wait... Maybe I read it wrong... Someone please tell me that's not talking about what I think it is...

A real ad? Probably. First time I've seen it. Real quotes from Falwell in the ad? Not a chance.

It is a real ad.  It is/was satire.  There was a huge free speech case resulting from this ad.  It was in Hustler Magazine.

Stingray24 wrote:

I will never be convinced of your conspiracy theories, so we can agree to disagree on that one.  American Christians advocate everyone being able to express their opinions and we freely express ours in society, also.  You can attribute sinister motives to us, but that does not qualify it as reality.

Saying I'm going to suffer eternal torment by the judgement of your supposedly benificent deity and at the hands of the being of ultimate evil said supposedly benificent deity created simply because I don't believe the way you do is plenty sinister enough for me, thanks. Again, you seem to think I have this cartoon villain view of religious Christians. I do not. I simply recognize that they see me and everyone even remotely like me as at the very least hellbound, something you yourself freely admit. I also recognize that such a view of other people makes it very easy to turn a blind eye as those other people are abused and justify it as "God's will" that they be punished.

Stingray24 wrote:

There are activists on both sides of abortion and homosexuality who are “trying to make their beliefs the law of the land”.   That’s how our political process works.

That the Decalogue is the sole or primary basis for all law of the United States is a belief, not a proveable fact. That this was meant to be a Christian nation is a belief, not a proveable fact. That abortion is murder is a belief, not a proveable fact. That homosexuals marrying will "destroy the institution of marriage" is a belief, not a proveable fact. That homosexuals shouldn't adopt because they'll harm the child is a belief, not a proveable fact. That birth control encourages promiscuity is a belief, not a fact. American Christians attempting to set public policy keep falling on the opposite side of the line from facts, and facts are what our secular laws are meant to deal in. This line is being distorted by those with the money and clout to present their beliefs on a massive scale to the public as facts, no matter how fallacious they may be. This is why we live in a nation where people think it's a fact that homosexuals want to randomly ass-rape straight men and small boys and people think it's a fact that atheists and non-Christians are trying to erase Christianity from the pages of history.

Stingray24 wrote:

If I disagree with someone, I need to get out there and present my view, not rail against their right to express their position.  And I’d just vote like usual, not have a stroke.

You can express yourself all you want. When your religious leaders tell people that they're going against "God" if they vote for a certain candidate or vote a certain way on an issue, use their millions to create media campaigns full of half-truths or outright lies, or they make million-dollar contributions to politicians to essentially buy their views primary consideration, we're gonna call bullshit on that. And yes, it's bullshit no matter who does it; the only people our governmental officials should be beholden to is us the people who vote for them and pay their salaries with our taxes, not whoever can throw the most cash at them.

Stingray24 wrote:

Edward Kennedy is not a leftist?  Now it’s my turn to laugh.

Like both Clintons, Edwards, Kerry, et cetera, he can talk a good line of shit when he needs to get votes. But like all of the above would do or have done, if he sees the tide going against him he'll ditch those supposedly strongly-held principles so fast he'd get friction burns on his hands. He's a professional politician, just like the rest of them, and ultimately only in it for himself. You wanna believe otherwise, go right ahead, just try not to get distracted when those windsocks I mentioned up there start fluttering in the wind again.

Stingray24 wrote:

I can find four and then some . . . environmentalists.

I'm guessing that one of their names begins with "George" and ends with "Soros".

Stingray24 wrote:

Believe that religious folks will vote any way their told if you want.  I don’t and no one else that I know who is religious does that either. We look at the candidates and vote for the one we agree with most, just like everyone else.

You know what one of the easiest ways is to get someone to do something? Convince them that it was their idea in the first place. Of course you're not told explicitly to vote a specific way. It's understood that most people at least like to have a convincing illusion of autonomy. That's why nobody (at least nobody gone half-senile) stands up during a debate and shouts something like "John Edwards is going to hand our country over to the queers!". Instead we get stuff like "We've had a congress that spends more money than John Edwards in a beauty shop", the wink-nudge-yeah-he's-a-fag-and-he-stands-for-fags bullshit of dog-whistle politics. The only people who don't engage in that kind of coded phrase crap are politicians so old they lived when such things were spoken aloud and can't adjust themselves to be subtle or media pundits like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh who don't have to worry about being re-elected to anything.

Stingray24 wrote:

I do not view someone who does not adhere to Christianity as flawed or wicked and certainly not marked for elimination.

But you still believe we're going to Hell. That's not exactly a time out in the corner as far as the literature on the subject is concerned.

Stingray24 wrote:

Just because I choose to adhere to a set of moral beliefs doesn’t mean I look down on anyone else.

Except for the fact that if they don't change and start believing like you, they're going to Hell.

Stingray24 wrote:

When I speak to people about my beliefs, it’s from a perspective of helping them understand what I believe.  Not to brand them as lesser than me, wicked, or whatever.  All the Christians I know want people to come to salvation of their own choice.

And if they don't, they're going to Hell. Of their own choice of course, but still Hell.

Stingray24 wrote:

We don’t advocate forced conversion or elimination of those whom with we disagree.

You just advocate that they're going to Hell.

Stingray24 wrote:

Most of us do believe that those who don't believe are going to hell.

And since I'm pretty sure at this point that "hell" isn't a euphamism for "all you can eat steak buffet with open bar and strippers", that's not exactly a nice thing to believe about other people who've really done you no wrong.

Stingray24 wrote:

That's why we tell others about our beliefs - because we don't want them to go there.  It's about welcoming everyone, not labeling the outsiders and slamming the door.

No, the door-slamming usually comes after someone tells you "Thanks, but I'm fine out here.". Look, I'm sure you and your friends are all generally decent folks and you don't go out of your way to fuck with other people. But at the end of the day, you still look at us non-believers and see incomplete people. You see people that no matter how much good they do in their lives will still end up consigned to the firey pit for all eternity if they don't accept your deity. It's not actively malignant, but rather the smug and self-righteous "I respect your right to be wrong" attitude that allows for the dismissal anyone who's just as strong in their beliefs (or non-beliefs as the case may be) as you are in yours. Some of the greatest atrocities in human history have been built on a foundation of that dismissal. Other people far more intelligent and eloquent than myself have studied it and written about it; the first one that comes to my mind is Francis Lieber and his studies of the idea of "unbaptized stuff" and his observations of how Christendom has treated other societies and peoples through history. It's not exactly a very pleasant history but maybe it just might give you a better idea of why us nonbelievers are more than a little concerned by modern American Christianity's aggressive political and social stance. We don't feel like watching history repeat itself.

I'm gonna let this go at this point since I've said all that I can on the issue without ceasing to be polite about it.

He was Gay, right????

IonYou wrote:

FFLink13 wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e … ustler.jpg

Is that real?!

Wait... Maybe I read it wrong... Someone please tell me that's not talking about what I think it is...

A real ad? Probably. First time I've seen it. Real quotes from Falwell in the ad? Not a chance.

It's a Hustler magazine parody.

CameronPoe wrote:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,272477,00.html

It has been a good week. Wolfowitz looks like getting nailed, Blair steps down, Jerry Falwell dies. Whatever next?

Doom 2 becomes reality?

Get your shotguns...