Jerry Falwell dead at 73
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Sunday, May 20, 2007 16:55
VIEWED: 18266
PAGE 14 of 17
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
As far as I'm concerned you don't know how to read.
I'm a selective reader, much like yourself.
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Quote:Finn, sa I recall you HAVE condoned mass murder. It's just that those you want to murder are not 'people' in your mind, so it's OK.
.... which you’ve taken out of context and now you’re accusing me of condoning mass murder
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Always look upstream.
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Quote:I have come to realise that all hate is counterproductive. We often hate that which we fear. ETA: However, there is a HUGE difference between silently fantasizing about someone getting their just reward (while recognising that is a bd thing) and actively promoting hate and intolerance on a national platform. And if you try and argue that they're THE SAME :rollyeyes: then you have just committed the fallacy of slippery slope.
Do you agree that to hate Falwell because Falwell hated homosexuals is counter-productive?
Quote:Perhaps they don't like hypocrites who cloak their venom with a religion of compassion and forgiveness. Like treacle on poison.
I quoted your posting from the Dead Terrorists thread because this thread on Falwell lead me to draw some interesting conclusions. A number of Posters in the Dead Terrorists thread condemned the perceived relief other Posters drew from the death of al Zarqawi. This thread on the death of Falwell has been a complete 180. Why do you suppose that is? Perhaps we are so completely locked into our partisan prisons that there can be no middle ground. Perhaps Posters feel more sympathy for a man who murdered people than they do for one who called for murder. Perhaps their convictions are not as set in stone as they think they are.
Quote:Maybe you should rename yourself big damn bonehead bc this is the second argument in this thread that you seriously flubbed. BTW I don't hate you. You just made me giggle.
Actually a majority of the Posters in this thread used the word hate which means your statement was erroneous. Not in your opinion though because you changed the meaning to Posters specifically stating that they hated Falwell, kudos. Another in a long line of goalpost shifts which you have slickly perpetrated in this thread IMHO. Up to and including the following,
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Quote:It makes it easy to hate people you don't agree with if you concoct lies about them, doesn't it?
Originally posted by SignyM:
Finn, sa I recall you HAVE condoned mass murder. It's just that those you want to murder are not 'people' in your mind, so it's OK.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Falwell's group, the Moral Majority, spread a tremendous amount of information via mailings. They hit their high water mark pre-widespread-internet-usage. In that time period, putting together an effective mailing list of thousands of households (hundreds of thousands?) was extremely difficult and time consuming.
It is fascinating, for me, to read some of the early mailings that Falwell's group was sending out. Here's a link to a transcript of a brochure, aimed at public school children, that the North Carolina branch of the Moral Majority was distributing in 1981.
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1443
A few of these "Don'ts" are just good common sense but many of them are aimed at trying to keep children from any type of speculation (and it's funny how they are so against science-fiction). You can get a feel for the kinds of children that the Moral Majority were hoping to raise, those that accept without question what their spiritual leaders tell them.
It also reminds me vividly of the general perception of the US government that was present in the denomination I grew up in. During the seventies it was accepted fact (gospel, if you will) that a good Christian should stay as far away from politics as possible. That you only rendered unto Ceasar that which was Ceasar's, but you never actually worked for Ceasar if you could avoid it. It was also accepted, though not discussed with outsiders, that the government would be the agent of persecution of the faithful during the time of troubles.
That view was radically altered by Falwell (and other charismatic evangelical leaders) over just a short span of time. So radically altered that the focus shifted to coopting the power of the United States government to convert people to Christ. The perception changed from the government as necessary evil to be tolerated to the government as an entity instrumental in spreading evangelical Christianity.
Vectors. The vector that Falwell was on, and trying to move the country towards, was a seventeeth century combination of church and state. The full power of the United States working to convert the world to Christianity, and destroying those who resisted.
Falwell: rock throwing villager writ large.
edit to add: The true danger that Falwell represented was as an authority figure who gave the green light to the crazies. It's not an accident that the rise in Christianist terrorism that the United States experienced (abortion clinic bombings and assassinations a la Eric Rudolph) followed closely the exhortions of Falwell and others concerning the evils of abortion and homosexuality. Falwell never committed hate crimes or terrorism himself but his message gave legitimacy to these harmful actions.
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Quote:
Finn, as I recall you HAVE condoned mass murder. It's just that those you want to murder are not 'people' in your mind, so it's OK.-Signy
It makes it easy to hate people you don't agree with if you concoct lies about them, doesn't it?-Finn
How about...
Quote:Damn few. But you kind of gloss over all that collateral damage, which amounts to several million people killed over the past 50-some-odd years, not counting WWII and the Korean War. Why?
Yes the US has invaded many countries in the last 100 years, so what? How many of those countries remained independent or became independent with free governments follow US invasion?
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Quote:Points for desperation, but no dice.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Damn few. But you kind of gloss over all that collateral damage, which amounts to several million people killed over the past 50-some-odd years, not counting WWII and the Korean War. Why?
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:Perhaps they don't like hypocrites who cloak their venom with a religion of compassion and forgiveness. Like treacle on poison.
I quoted your posting from the Dead Terrorists thread because this thread on Falwell lead me to draw some interesting conclusions. A number of Posters in the Dead Terrorists thread condemned the perceived relief other Posters drew from the death of al Zarqawi. This thread on the death of Falwell has been a complete 180. Why do you suppose that is? Perhaps we are so completely locked into our partisan prisons that there can be no middle ground. Perhaps Posters feel more sympathy for a man who murdered people than they do for one who called for murder. Perhaps their convictions are not as set in stone as they think they are.
So Falwell was a radical christian who interpreted the bible his way. Much like al Zarqawi was a radical muslim who interpreted the Koran his way. So why is one more hate-worthy in your opinion than the other?
Quote:
Maybe you should rename yourself big damn bonehead bc this is the second argument in this thread that you seriously flubbed.
In your not so humble yet slighty slanted opinion.
Quote:
BTW I don't hate you. You just made me giggle.
You sure it wasn't just gas?
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Quote:But that's not my opnion. Did you see anywhere in this thread where I said I hated Falwell? What I said about Falwell- "I'm glad he's not around mucking up other people's lives", was perhaps a bit less harsh than what I said about al Zarqawi being killed, which was "It's about time." I should not have said that about either but at least I'm consistent in identifying hate-mongers of any stripe. What about you?
So Falwell was a radical christian who interpreted the bible his way. Much like al Zarqawi was a radical muslim who interpreted the Koran his way. So why is one more hate-worthy in your opinion than the other?
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Always look upstream.
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Quote:What's the difference between killing 3,000 civilians for political or military gain, or killing 3,000,000? Beside the number, I mean? One you find abhorent the other excusable.
But you kind of gloss over all that collateral damage, which amounts to several million people killed over the past 50-some-odd years, not counting WWII and the Korean War. Why?- Signy
Points for desperation, but no dice. - Finn
This is where your definitions gets you in trouble. Because you don't believe in killing people... except that people are more people-like when they're innocent (and the more innocent the better, like the unborn) and besides it's not really killing if we had a good enough reason even if they were innocent.
But if you were to stand before the Almighty (assuming you believe in such) and He were to ask you for your rationale for excusing and condoning the killing of millions, what would you say? "We didn't mean to"? "We had good reasons"? "We were defending you"? "Oops"? The innocent peeps- women, children, and your very favorite person: the unborn- are just as dead. So what is that? Serial manslaughter? You didn't learn lessons from the first 1,000,000 times? You're still making excuses?
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Always look upstream.
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