Falwell dies

[anodyne]

i can honestly say i wasn't wishing him dead. i wonder what larry flynt's take on jerry's passing is.

 

this is kinda cool in a way because he's the first high profile phony minister to kick the bucket since i got my ordination from the online church.

farewell colleague.

[Dude]

[EL the Famous]

Well done!

 

Thanks and God bless!

 

If you are Falwell and roughly 1/2 of the posters in this thread, then you use intolerance and fuck his eyesocket. If you are MLK or Gandhi, then tolerance and no eye socket fucking.

 

Fixed it!

[cryptique]

Fixed it!

You used to be nicer.

 

 

 

 

Maybe a little, anyway.

[owl]

Thanks and God bless!

 

I don't understand your random "God bless." Is it supposed to be some kind of insinuation or dig?

 

God bless you too, man.

[bobbob1313]

Thanks and God bless!

Fixed it!

 

I'm not saying I want to fuck his eye socket. But someone should.

[EL the Famous]

You used to be nicer.

 

I bet they said the same thing about Hitler.

 

Anyway, Falwell most definitely spewed a lot of horrible and unjust things in the name of God...he'll have to deal w/ that. That said, hateful rhetoric is hateful rhetoric be it aimed at one person or entire groups of people...glass houses, stones, etc.

 

God bless you too, man.

 

Thanks!

[bobbob1313]

[quote name='Đ

[Mrs. Peel]

This is about Jerry Falwell, not Harry Potter. Take it somewhere else, nerd.

 

Fan fucking tastic. The best part is that I was able to hear Harry reciting it in my head.

 

Oh, and screw decorum. Good riddance, Jer.

[Dude]

That graph is misleading. It never specifies how long it takes for a nazi reference to come up. For all intents and purposes, you could say the same thing about any conversation. If you discuss car keys for an infinite amount of time eventually someone will make a hitler reference. It's inevitable given the time frame.

 

I declare shenanagins on your statistical measurements.

 

If you discuss car keys long enough, both Hitler and eye socket fucking will come up.

 

An infinite number of monkeys banging away on typewriters will write about Hitler, eye socket fucking, and Hamlet's soliloquy.

[MrRain422]

I don't wish death on anybody, but at the same time I don't really see the point of feigning sadness over it. Is making a joke automatically the same as being intolerant? IMO, it is not.

[LouieB]

As much as I disagreed with Falwell, I still believe in public decorum... Rest In Peace, Jerry.

 

Isn't this the left's chance to show the difference between ourselves and his brand of hateful rhetoric?

You gotta give the guy credit for one thing...he sure knew how to organize his base.

 

I have always said there are far fewer differences on the right side of the spectrum than on the left. Leftists will slit each others throats over small sectarian differences of opinion, but those on the right are unified by a fairly unified set of beliefs that usually boil down to hating a relatively small number of things and then not giving up for anything.

 

RIP Jerry....his personal profile on the scene decreased considerably in recent years, but his influence continues unabated.

 

LouieB

[bobbob1313]

Basically my hatred of Falwell stems from the fact that ever since I was young(er) all I ever heard him say was hateful things in the name of Christ, and mostly against homosexuals and women. As an 11 year old going through something of a crisis of faith (I didn't know if I believed in God or not, and it scared the hell out of me) I've got one of the most vocal christians in the world telling me that everything I'm supposed to believe based on the religion I was raised as goes absolutely against everything I stood for and still do stand for. Couple that with the fact that I have 3 gay uncles (Out of 7, high ratio in my family) and I've got nothing but contempt for him.

 

Religion is supposed to be a beautiful thing, and I think for some people it is, but because of people like Falwell religion gets caught up with politics and hatred and all of these other awful things that take away from it.

 

Falwell was an awful, awful human being, and I while I feel bad saying awful things about him, I could really care less because here is a guy who lived his whole life in a position of power and did nothing good with it. He used the name of Christ to turn himself into a secular leader, but he didn't believe a single word of the bible. It's sickening the amount of wealth and power and fame he got from exploiting people's fears and beliefs.

[ction]

I don't wish death on anybody, but at the same time I don't really see the point of feigning sadness over it. Is making a joke automatically the same as being intolerant? IMO, it is not.

 

I'm pretty sure there's some middle ground between feigning sadness over his death and joking about it.

[MrRain422]

I don't disagree with that. But I still don't see anything wrong with cracking some jokes about it.

[Dude]

I'm pretty sure there's some middle ground between feigning sadness over his death and joking about it.

 

It's good to see that sean still assumes the role of VC's conscience.

[SlowBurn68]

BURN MOTHERFUCKER BURN!!!

[Saint Genevieve]

The population of Hell has just increased by one.

[myboyblue]

When I read the headline about Falwell this afternoon, I said to myself "I'll bet VC is on the 3rd or 4th page about this already".

[MrRain422]

I like this article:

 

The stone is cast

Jerry Falwell spent a career demonizing others. Upon his death, what else could he expect in return?

 

By Alan Wolfe

 

 

May 15, 2007 | One never wants to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Jerry Falwell, how can one not? Falwell will always be remembered for his "700 Club" comment in the wake of Sept. 11: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" Even though Falwell later apologized, the damage had been done: A sacred moment had been used for profane purpose.

 

And that, really, is Falwell's legacy. To the religious life of the United States he made no significant contribution. But to the political life of the country, he made one: He founded the Moral Majority. In so doing, Falwell managed to take something holy -- one does not have to be a Christian to admire the life and teachings of Jesus Christ -- and turned it into something partisan and divisive. Falwell, the quintessential conservative Christian, was always more conservative than Christian. To the extent that history will remember him, it will be as a politician, not as a preacher.

 

Even Falwell's political contribution, despite the success of the Republicans during the Reagan years, left a mixed legacy behind. But the Moral Majority disbanded in 1989, prompting the inevitable thought that Falwell's ideas were neither moral nor in the majority. The movement of conservative Protestants into the base of the Republican Party was far too important a task to be entrusted to a man as oblivious to public relations as Falwell. Once the Ralph Reeds and Karl Roves took over the task of blending religion and politics, there was no room for Falwell. Longing for Washington, he had to settle for Lynchburg, Va.

 

But then there was cable television, the perfect medium for someone as shallow as this man. Falwell appeared so many times on cable news that one tended to forget how little influence he actually wielded. Had it not been for cable television, Falwell would have been forgotten long ago (and I would not be writing about his legacy). He was perfect for the world created by Fox: extremist, polarizing, Manichaean. (The Manichees, a Persian sect that for a time attracted the great Saint Augustine, adhered to a black-and-white reality in which evil was always in an endless struggle with the good.) Five minutes of hate followed by a commercial break: It is not a format fit for all, but for Falwell, it fit like a glove.

 

Conservative Christianity has been trying to recover from Falwell for the past two decades. Just as his political views were too buffoonish to make the Moral Majority a reality, his religious sensibilities were too shallow to spread evangelical Protestantism. Evangelicalism grew in the exurban megachurches, and the megachurches, implicitly and occasionally explicitly, rejected Falwell's approach to the faith. Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Bill Hybels -- these inclusive preachers inherited the mantle of Billy Graham, not Falwell and his great rival Pat Robertson. With the maturation of American evangelicalism has come an interest in social justice, environmentalism and peace. The people who represent evangelical Protestantism's future want little or nothing to do with injustice, pollution and war.

 

Of course America's megachurches offer a thin theology equivalent to twelve-step theology. But Falwell's contribution to American religion was even less than that. Falwell's university -- Liberty University -- never achieved anything resembling serious academic status, although it did produce a decent enough basketball team. Falwell's church, Thomas Road Baptist Church, with its Scopes-trial era insistence on hell and damnation, was not what American Christians wanted to hear. Falwell's 1980 book, "Listen, America," is an embarrassing string of clich

[Boots]

I don't disagree with that. But I still don't see anything wrong with cracking some jokes about it.

 

Indeed. Plus since we are all going to die it's good to have a laugh about it

 

If Jerry was right those who mocked him will burn in hell anyway so I'm sure he doesn't mind

If he was wrong he's got bigger problems to deal with or doesn't even exist.

 

Upon my death, feel free to have a laugh or two

[Guest Speed Racer]

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen."

 

The joke will be on him when I make it a motherfucking mainstream lifestyle.

 

That being said, I hope I can live just as long and do twice the good he did; I think if we each pick someone and do that, the world will be a better place*.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* requisite joke: I guess you could say I aim low.

[uncle wilco]

billy graham is the only famous preacher i've ever respected. billy made a point of preaching to everyone regardless of their status. in fact billy had issues with mr. falwell publicly over his politicizing the pulpit.

 

jerry was human, like the rest of us. i can think of bigger a-holes in the world than him, but cloaking himself under the guise of a man of God made him a bigger target than most. i never saw him as a humble man or one to care much for those who were really seeking answers. if you didn't fit his profile, he'd rather point a finger at you than give you a hand up. that's just my perception of him. despite that, his fate isn't in our hands. spewing hate towards that man now that he's gone doesn't make you any better than he was. it's kind of pathetic really.

[Saint Genevieve]

The joke will be on him when I make it a motherfucking mainstream lifestyle.

 

That being said, I hope I can live just as long and do twice the good he did; I think if we each pick someone and do that, the world will be a better place*.

 

Let's see, two times nothing is... carry the one...

[awatt]

He's a cherry ghost so will give it some time before really calling him out as the asshole he was while alive. Sadly, he will only grow in stature as a Christian hero in death, someone who will live on in the memory of more Americans than any of us on VC, except for maybe one or two of our more famous and beloved posters...