Well, if you are going to call them terrorist then maybe we should all come up with our own church terrorist fantasies to help them out. I'll start with mine.

I would like to see Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness character from Legend (1985) come up through the floor of Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church with lots of pyrotechnics, the smell of burning sulfur wafting in the air and calling out various peoples names that their time has come to go with him. I sure the holloywood chapter could do the makeup, staging and special effects.

All jokes aside, I just don't think they are going to excel at terrorism so I wouldn't worry about it very much. Also, I'm a Christian myself and there are a lot of Christians that could wise up a little concerning a lot of things. Everybody has their share of faults, that's covered in the good book quite well as others have pointed out.

Originally posted by angel of lightangelo
Then why are you not curious. We have churches that have been burned and pastors mudered and it turns out that they molested kids. Sometimes they molested kids, covered it up, helped it happen again, and so on. We have Westboro that tramples soldiers graves even if they are straight. Sorry but I do not just assume that any "church" is automatically good in nature. Statistically speaking, the Catholic church is the largest, longest running, and most successful pedophile ring in history. You will have to excuse me if I might just think that both sides of this argument are wrong and that it is at least worth looking into.

But do not let my interest in the facts get in the way of your blind anger and bigotry. Please go on reading one side of the story and feeling empowered enough to espouse your well formed opinions about it. I am almost envious that you do not need all the facts to be so arrogantly opinionated.

Blind anger and bigotry? Are you serious? Seriously??????

Lets get something straight. You DO NOT know me at all!!!! You therefore have NO right to make such accusations toward me!!!!! Ya got that,buddy???? Good!!!!! Moving right along.

What other "facts" are there? I see none. Do you have some kind of evidence that the church in question has done anything other than hold the traditional view that most Christian churches hold in regards to homosexuality? If so then spit it out. If not, then stop trying to make accusations that you have ZERO evidence for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wanted to add one last comment to this thread. For everyone having a hard time looking at this with an unbiased opinion due to possibly having unfavorable opinions of Christianity, try to think of this: What if this story had been reversed and what was done to this church had been done by Christians to a group of homosexuals at their gathering place. You'd probably be pretty outraged. Instead of trying to find justification for whatever side you happen to be on, imagine if it was reversed and the group you disagree with was the perpetrator. Imagine what you would be thinking right now or what you typically think when you read articles where the victims are your group.

Originally posted by Lightmare


What other "facts" are there? I see none. Do you have some kind of evidence that the church in question has done anything other than hold the traditional view that most Christian churches hold in regards to homosexuality? If so then spit it out. If not, then stop trying to make accusations that you have ZERO evidence for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, I do not. THAT IS WHY I AM ASKING. The difference is that you have already decided that since you have not seen any evidence of wrongdoing, they have done no wrong. You already decided the church was innocent based on NOTHING. I am still trying to find out why this church was targeted. I already laid blame at the protesters. They were wrong, what else is there to say?
Now why is it so unfair of me to set my anger at them aside and then be curious as to why it was THIS church and not any other church?

Is it really so insane that here on ATS, I would question whether or not there is a reason this specific church was the target?

Given the fact that we know entire churches can be guilty of some rather heinous sins, it is not so far fetched for me to reserve jumping on the cross for them until I know a little more about the church.

Like I said, I am glad that you are satisfied jumping to conclusions and feelig justified.

Let me tell you a lil story. I used to work with a sweet lil ol lady. Her husband was a retired minister. They were the cutest sweetes couple and everyone in that town loved them. He was well known from working at the church. One day he was found beaten to death in his home. It did not take long before they had the guy. Everyone went nuts. This is NY, use the death penalty finally. It was a big deal in that town that this punk pulled this crap on this wonderful man. People were furious and wanted nothing less than the most vile of justices for this kid. It spread quickly to people that had no idea who either man was but heard about the kind minister getting killed. Weeks went by with editorials and slanted articles and letters to the editor spewing the kind of hate usually edited out. This man was scum and this minister was holier than Jesus for a short time here.

The problem came when the court proceedings revealed that the minister had been repeatedly raping this man from the age of 7 to 17. Of course that revelation lead to the list of other boys. Many that the church knew about but helped "hush up."

I am not justifying his getting beaten to death by any means. All I am saying is the before you jump on either side, perhaps you should stand across the street for a little while and look at the entire situation. You just may find that both deserve scorn and neither is worthy of any defense.

Again, since you seem to miss it...I am not justifying or sticking up for this pink mafia or whatever. I am simply asking to know more about this church since all churchs are different, there are plenty to choose from, there are no security guards here, and they did not do it to my church. So why did they pick this church?

Is that not a fair question?

I am absolutely not condoning or encouraging or supporting or agreeing or being an apologist to these actions; but the Churches have it coming.

It's that simple.

It's historically sound; the oppressed eventually 'fight back' against their oppressors. I prefer the peaceful approach from both sides!

---

BigWhammy, over dramatizing is definitely something I am used to from you So I won't dwell on this whole "terrorist" thing

Then pulling the fire alarm to induce panic and fear - thus endangering lives.

Case in point.

Let's try not to generalize (like you already did) the actions of a group to the whole entire body of homosexuals.

There is no Radical Homosexual Agenda shared amongst the whole of the gay community. Just remember we are all human, and both "sides" have radicals and extremists here and there.

[edit on 17-11-2008 by Lucid Lunacy]