I had at first posted that he was dying in a not so nice post. I am not unhappy he is gone. He was one of the biggest hypocrites and hate-mongers.

Too bad so many people like following hate-spewers...

I find it kind of hard and inappropriate to speak ill of someone, especially when dying or dead but I have to admit Falwell is one of those exceptions. While I'm not into Christianity myself, I despise those who take a faith that is meant to preach love and forgiveness and warp it into their platform of hate and intolerance. I feel not one iota of sympathy for the man.

Sadly the hate spewers can be quite charismatic and cloak their message with religion or in the name of righteousness.

:devang:

Its tragic that so many examples can be made of this.

Anyhoo, time for fun and frolic along forum and the good people of the Region of Canada!

Nice av, Higs!
:fonz:

:rofl:

I am a huge supporter of free speech. I think Falwell had the right to say whatever he pleased, even though I personally disagreed with alot of it, I was granted with the ability to decide what to accept as truth or not. I fail to see how anyone can take any solice in the death of any person on the basis of their beliefs. :shrug: Although I find it hard to imagine, I am sure I have ideals that are not popular with everyone on earth, I surely hope my death is not celebrated over my right to express my individual beliefs. I hope Mr. Falwell did not suffer and has found peace with his maker, just as I wish any individual who did not physically harm others or cause harm the same.

Blake said that those who preached about hatred and the lowliness of human life and their eternal sin (yadda...) were in fact worshipping Satan himself as God only intends to bring joy to human life.

Unless you live in America :P

Well said and part of me agrees with you. It's hard at times to keep such a perspective.

One side points out, if one starts hating the hater, does one become a hater themselves?

Another side goes along with the dangers of the abuse of free speech. How far should one go to express their message? Should nothing be done to counter those who influence others to take these messages of intolerance? The tricky part is determining how much is too much?

Ahh, the eternal struggle with morality.

I can quite happily agree that the man on the bus has a right to listen to his radio, but still be happy when the noise stops.

And I have the right to say whatever *I* want to! He spread hatred and bigotry and added nothing but negative to this planet.

So there! :P

Not if it invades my peace and quiet unnecessarily! :no:

If you like the tune you'll hum along; if you don't, you'll ask him to turn it off/bear a grudge against him for causing a racket.

You are absolutley correct. I have no argument there (with your right to express your opinion)! However, I would note that he couldn't "spew hatred and bigotry" unless there was a willing audience to spew it to. Goes back to my point that I have the ability to decide what I agree to take as truth or not. We'll just have to agree to disagree on whether or not someone dying is a reason to be unhappy or not. But even though we disagree I'd still feel bad if you died. :lol:

I always think that people like Falwell are the tip of their respective icebergs. They were only important because they were exemplars of a belief that many, MANY people shared. I think that all that his death indicates is that another person with the gift of fiery and irresponsible rhetoric will step up and assume his functional place.

IMO, those that followed Falwell are just as bad as he was.

Blaming the followers or those who are vulnerable to the ideas of others may not always be applicable. There are those whose state of mind was made open to the hatred or dangerous ideals by external factors such as poverty, depression, abuse, etc. These are the prey of such monsters as Hitler, Bin Laden, Jim Jones, etc Falwell may not have been as nasty as what I listed but still he was quite a little hate monger. People in desperate straights will often be swayed by such people.

Sadly, Daemon, I agree with your point. There's bound to be another little hate monger stepping up in his place to spew their 'message'.

To me, free speech always hurts the brain. What would be considered, if at all, abuse?

On this forum, we're expressing our thoughts and view points, with some in disagreement with another. Still I must point out, we express our beliefs with respect to the other.

IMO, those that followed Falwell have conviction in their beliefs, even if I find them misguided. I do not beleive they are bad, just different. How can you justify labelling Falwell as a man who spewed hatred and bigotry and then label all his followers into one group as "bad", thereby expressing an underlying hatred for them? Is this not the same thing you dislike him for. I can understand someone saying they didn't agree with him, like I mentioned before, on most counts I am among those. I do however, believe him and his followers have the right to their opinions, a right to express them and a right to be treated as equal members of society. I am sure there are people here who have all kinds of personal beliefs I disagree with, that does not make them any more inferior or superior to me, just different.

His legacy lives on, unfortunately. The radio is quieted, but the song goes on.

At least he now knows what happens when people die.

I don't think that anything is 'bad', I think that badness is merely an observation of an incompatible difference in beliefs.

I have not met any of Falwell's supports, but if they were anything like him, they had long ago stopped to think about what they saw, and instead saw whatever they believed. They are homophobes, racists, and completely without compassion or tolerance. Strange, for the follower of a religion based on the teachings of Christ.

Exactly!

D:

I stand by what I said - they are just as "bad" if they go about spewing hatred as Falwell did.


D:

Even if those beliefs were spreading the hate you so dislike to millions of people?

So, it's ok with you to "mentally" hurt people? How do you know his hatred didn't lead to "physical" harm? How do you know that when Falwell announced it was the gays and feminists, etc., who were responsible for 9/11 - see here - that no one was attacked??

Just sayin' :shrug:


D:

Thanks, man!! :D

Maybe I should add here that I am not religious, so it's not a case of "my religion's better than his". :P

:rofl:

You're gonna love Christopher Hitchens' take, D! :P

People perhaps being killed because of him?! :no:

I kinda got mixed reactions from Hitchens. Great points about Falwell preying on the impressionable and distorting the bible (or the Christian faith) to meet his ends.

Still I find Hitchens is a wee bit too pompous and arrogant for my taste. The title of his book doesn't exactly endear him to me.

While I don't take on any faith I don't agree on putting them down either.

Either way, we're pretty much finished with this topic.

Some exceptionally interesting and valid arguments were made and I look forward to reading and perhaps participating in future posts.

Higs

Hitchens is arrogant and pompous but the title of his book does endear him to me. :)

From my perspective as an atheist that has recently discovered militant atheism, the most important thing about religion is to understand what it is. A religious belief, value or faith, is based on a premise for which there is no empirical evidence, that is nevertheless held to be true. Freedom of religion is therefore the freedom to construct and believe in your own separate set of facts.

Religion is therefore capable of motivating individuals for both good and bad, in the same fashion as astrology, racism, bed-time stories, nazism or any other fantasy based value system will. It is no surprise therefore that Religion has arguably been one of the worlds most destructive forces since the beginning of documented and organised human conflict.

Personally I long for a world where religion has finally been destroyed. When I say destroyed, I don't mean by censor, murder, oppressive laws and destruction, but rather by reason, logic, genuine non-coerced love and empathy. Being a good person out of fear of eternal punishment after death is not an acceptable value system for me.

The madness continues. Apparently Falwell (among others such as Billy Graham) didn't hate fags enough or preach enough hate.

Fox has the story

You can try godhatesfags.com, but I have a feeling their bandwidth is done gone by now.

I'm pretty sure God doesn't really care for Fred Phelps.

My favorite part of the Westboro Church is their reasonableness.

okay now i can't resist.

you ain't seen reasonableness till you see them folks over at landover baptist. Their thoughts on falwell.

yes i know that they are a parody site...i know that the founder of landover baptist is an atheist.

Landover is the STILL best deep parody site on the Web, IMNSHO.

why am i not surprised...

Because JD had already posted that link?? ^^^^^ :P

:hide:

woulda helped if i had actually clicked Jd's link... :lol:

There has got to be a contest going on with who can be the most extreme, deluded self-righteous, nut job. :wacko:

What's the prize for first place?

The Presidency? *ducks*

:lol:

:huh: :(

Take one "sad but true" point, sir!

All things considered I'd be satisfied if the west could cut it's losses with the status quo until someone succeeds Bush. Along with a few Democrats that I like, a Republican ticket of Chuck Hagel and Bloomberg would be solid gold.

It's a mad mad world.

It always astounds me why a president who plays Russian roulette with the world would have seemed more desirable than one who had trouble determining what constituted as a sexual act. :wall:

Ya know, looking back at my question regarding who was the most extreme, deluded self-righteous, nut job I should have realized what the response would be! :rofl:

I just heard about this Falwell guy earlier today. I had seen this thread, but never looked in it before.

Lucky you!