TV Preacher Jerry Falwell Critically Ill

I don't understand the joy over the death of people we hate. I understand hate- especially hatred of Jerry Falwell. I'm not exactly a fan, and believe it or not I believe that I liked him even less back when I was a Baptist. His hollow words and thinly veiled self glorification should be all the more disgusting to those who believe that legitimate devotion to God and glorification of God are what matter. But I digress. My real point is that for all my disgust with Falwell, I don't get anything out of his death. Maybe if I stood to win 50 dollars over it like our friend, I would care.

A man's wrongs do not cease to be just because he ceases to be. The repugnance of Falwell's flawed teaching and misdirection of both glory and currency is done. It has been wrought upon this world and though it will heal it will never be undone, and it will likely be done again by some successor to Falwell. So I don't care that he is dying- I'm not thankful for it. To tell you the truth, I'll be disappointed if he doesn't live long enough to really find a wise understanding of the God he thinks he serves, and to direct his ministry towards a message of love and a responsible and charitable management of its considerable assets.

Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority was neither moral nor the majority.

He is a hate monger and bigoted to boot.

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Vagabond,

you know what it is like to have a thorn in your foot inside your shoe?

Where you are not allowed to remove the shoe.
And everyone pretends you don't have a thorn inside there because they can't see it and don't want to be bothered to acknowlege it when you tell them.

And it bleeds, swells, gets infected, and horribly painful.

And it causes you to limp and not move freely.

And you live with this for years.
From adolescence to young adulthood to adulthood to middle and old age.

Believe me when that thorn is gone you take GREAT JOY in it.
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Originally posted by slank
Vagabond,
you know what it is like to have a thorn in your foot inside your shoe?

Bad analogy. The thorn is the direct cause of pain to you. Jerry Falwell is not. Jerry Falwell is just some annoying old jackass who most people would not even realize was dead unless his death were announced in the news. His removal from earth will not end the pain. So long as you choose to stew in your loathing for every worthless old fart who says something that upsets you, you will always be miserable.

I have hate for Jerry Falwell as much as anyone does in the sense that I despise him. But I do not hate him actively. I do not devote any real thought, energy, or time to anything related to him. He's insignificant to me. A lesser mortal, unworthy to be opposed by myself or even my dog.

I don't have to wait for him to die because he already can't hurt me. The real tangible damage he has done (in the form of people he has mislead) is done and can not be undone- his death won't fix it. The stuff that his death would supposedly fix can not actually be fixed until you choose to fix it for yourself, and it doesn't have to wait until he's dead to be fixed.

As nasty as all this seems Im sure this is all just venting. In my opinion its not the man these people are wishing ill on its the idea of the man. I'll admit my first reation was to laugh and do the figurative happy dance at this mans misfortune but then the mature comments of JungleJake poured cold water over my irational exhuberance. He made me ask myself why exactly I was celebrating this mans misfortune.

After some thought I came to the realization I wasnt celebrating the misfortune of Falwell I was celebrating what I had perceived as a blow for "my side". I dont hate Jerry Falwell the man I hate Jerry Falwell the idea. Jerry Falwell has dehumanized himself. He has successfully made himself a symbol of the religious right and the evil I believe they represent. Theres nothing wrong with hating a symbol but to hate a man irationally is wrong.

So I would like to say that although I hope Jerry Falwell the symbol dies a slow painful ironic and humorous death I hope Jerry Falwell the man recovers to see the error of his ways and lives a long peaceful life doing good for the world.

I understand the hatred for Jerry, and I understand why people rejoice upon hearing of his death.
I also understand there will, in the future, be rejoicing upon the death of a couple of prophets who will lie in the street; some of those here might be around for that time as well.

People want to hear every morally-relative feel-good BS, but they hate those who bring a thread of truth.

Jerry never called for the death of anyone, he never hurt anyone. As a matter of fact, he probably prayed for the salvation of those who now rejoice over his death.

Christ warned that if people would hate Him even unto death, how much more would it be for those who follow Him.
Therefore, I am not surprised at the irony - or the hypocrisy of those who spew tolerance for every evil thing, but hate anything that espouses Christian beliefs.

I'd just love to be there in the corner watching the miserable fart scratch for his next breath instead of embrace that white light that will take him where he supposedly wanted to go in the first place.

In regards to the forgiveness of those who trespass and the revelling in the subsequent future demise of a profoundly evil man, I'm agnostic.

I feel just as inclined to adhere to the ethics and moral pathos of Mr. Falwell's religion as he has in the past. And as an agnostic, I'm really not quite sure what MY rules are governing the subject of "karmic revenge" yet. It's like a whole gray area thing.

So, I guess I'll just have to wing it.

However, I'd be more than willing to trade up to for a Pat Robertson. I'd be even willing to go straight up sticker price for that one.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
People want to hear every morally-relative feel-good BS, but they hate those who bring a thread of truth.

Therefore, I am not surprised at the irony - or the hypocrisy of those who spew tolerance for every evil thing, but hate anything that espouses Christian beliefs.

Naturally I speak only for myself, but I don't think the problem is that Jerry Falwell says people are going to go to hell. If I were still a Christian I'd say that's only just fair warning. Being that I'm not one anymore I don't find his message insulting or threatening- maybe a little humorous if anything. The teaching of moral absolutes is not the problem for me. The problem is that I believe his profession flys in the face of a great deal of what Jesus was all about. At the very least I would call him misguided. The worst case scenario would be that he might be a complete hypocrite (Speaking of my beef with tele-evangelism, did I ever tell you that I'm from the city where they caught Jimmy Swaggart picking up a hooker?)

Jesus was not a wealthy man for starters. Although there is nothing wrong with having enough money, it could be argued that having financial ambitions or too much care for luxuries can be a burden and a distraction to a minister.

Jesus was all about the Father. Jesus didn't spend his life glorifying himself. Tele-evangelism seems to involve what you might call cults of personality. The men become larger than life. When you say Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell etc. it's not like you're just talking about a man- there's a whole idea built around it. I think its a lot harder to reach people or to turn their attention towards the guidance of the Holy Spirit when you are a preeminent figure in and of yourself.

Jesus had compassion for sinners. He wasn't out to ostricise them and make them an cautionary example to "the righteous", instead he was out to enlighten and redeem them. If you read the gospels, Christ's biggest quarrel was always with the Jewish religious authorities. I believe that Jesus would have almost as much quarrel with some Christian authorities today, possibly including TV evangelists. I believe that because they seem to be very much about "righteousness" and very much about doctrine and dogma and sometimes maybe even profit and personal glory. Where is the redemption or the outreach to sinners in that?

Just my opinion. As I have made clear I won't celebrate his death. I do have issues with his profession however.

Groupies:

Remember it was Mr Jerry Falwell himself who blamed "homosexuals" for 9/11 ("when the Lord our god closed his wings of protection over America because of the gays and their heinous satanic agenda to promote their disgusting lifestyle...polluted our blessed nation...") and other such vomit of intolerance-of-difference in the US------an attitude which has caused untold horrors of suffering among gay men and women of all ages in America:

What this overweight demagogue never learned in Seminary class was a working knowledge of paleo-Hebrew or even basic Koine Greek derived from Aramaic apparently.

He did not know, for instance, that his bearded hero "Jeezzuzz" had a male "disciple whom he loved...who leaned on his breast" during John's rendition of the Last Supper and with whom he apparently shared whispers about who it was who was going to turn him into the authorities....and speaking of the Son of David...the Fruit (as they say !) apparently does not fall far from the Tree.

Falwell conveniently forgot (or did not even not know in the first place!) that David, the arch-Adulterer- (Bath-Shebiti) Murderer- (Uriah)-hero of the Old Testament, wrote some very moving Hebrew homosexual love poetry (as a funereal dirge) to his one time male boy-friend Jonathan, a young man "whom David loved as his own soul" :

It helps to read it in the original Paleo Hebrew------ but see the kind of trranslated watered down English language edition in the King James 1611 Version and others closer to the original poem:

e.g. II Samuel chapter 1:v. 40ff "Oh Jonathan, Jonathan ! My Passion for you was Full of Wonder ! It far surpassed that of mere Woman !!"

or the infamous dinner tirade in 1 Samuel 20:21-40 from that nosey old man Saul, the Baal worshipping clan-chief-king of "Yisro'el" who once caught his princely son in bed with David, doing lots more than holding hands, it seems!:

"You son of a peverse and unclean woman! Do you think I do not know that what you have done with the Son of Jesse (David) is Confusion (i.e. cross dressing) and an abomination to your mother's Nakedness---as well as to your own sexual confusion? How will your kingdom be established (="how are you going to make sons?") if you continue in this way?"

And yet this same "peverted" David could still be called by YHWH (the viscious Amalekite genocidding clan god of the Jews--whom Jerry Falwell just loves to pieces) "a man after mine own heart" !

Unfortunately, ignorant swine like Fallwell are still on the American airwaves preaching their ignorant venom of intolerance to gullible masses who willingly lap it right up without even knowing what they are doing:

And of course once Falwell goes the way of all flesh-------and the worms start their dirty work on his fleshy tissues, there will be others just like him eager to take his place among the tax free business owners on TV known as "Evangelical preachers" whose key word is not LOVE but rather HATE especially of anyone who is different from themselves.

The question of the day is:

Does Jerry have enough time left of his squalid life to repent of all his sins of pig-ignorance and untold crimes-of-intolerance which he perpetrated against humanity?

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Vagabond,

This man (pig) built his entire phony morality crusade on the backs of homosexuals. He was very quite about government corruption, church corruption and everything else.

He paraded guys in gold lame' thongs as 'the gay lifestyle'
but didn't call the hookers on 42nd street as 'the straight lifestyle'.

COMPLETE HYPOCRACY.

He didn't take on the tough powerful evils of the world,
He chose to be a bully to those who are easiest to pick on.

He is a porky little pussy.

Gays on average are the most sensitive and caring people around.

Most those boys marching for black civil rights in Selma Alabama were gay boys. You know the ones that were murdered.

When this pompous little wind bag is suffering FOREVER in hell
then and only then will i believe there is somekind of justice and fairness.
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