They died. A very loud death. A death (er, 7) recognized worldwide. So then you say something controversial about their deaths and instantly everyone is demonizing you. That means your name, and in some cases a brief history of your being on Earth, get coverage. People start talking about you; your message is delivered for free and all you had to do was spout irrelevant bullshit.
Except that most of us have gotten rather tired and bored from Fred’s one-trick pony. “Phelps damns [insert person/people]” is no longer news. But since the newsmedia know they’ll get viewers if they say the name “Fred Phelps” or “Westboro Baptist Church”, my guess is they’ll keep on reporting the stories, needless though they are to so many of us.
Personally, I’d like to see something happen such that his message is ended and his followers change their ways. Whether or not he stops living is rather irrelevant if the message ends. Let other people get their fun little “I hope he gets his eyes poked out by children with shark poking sticks!” kicks in. That’s hate, too.
It’s pretty obvious that Fred Phelps is mentally ill and thus not responsible for his actions. Nobody with an onuce of sense can take his paranoid ravings as anything other than an expression of his deep psychosis.
Good lord, I didn’t realise Fred Phelps was mad. I don’t really know who he is, other than someone you merkins rant alot about on here (generally I don’t read the threads with him in the title).
I just imagined he was some uber-conservative preacher man. Not a fucking FREAK.
What an appalling, appalling thing for him to say, as a religious leader.
(and ditto the mad mullah in the UK, everyone hates him and wants him deported).
OK, let me get Mr. Phelps’ take on my situation clarified:
I am an American (and I don’t even hate homosexuals), and America is a “fag-enabling” nation, therefore, I’m gonna burn in hell. OK, so I could always move to a nation where gays are, oh, burned at the stake or some such, then I would be saved, right? Oh, no, probably not, because then I would most likely be living in a “non-Christian nation”, which would condemn me to hell.
So, what, in Phelps’ twisted outlook, would I have to do to “save my soul”? My guess: For one thing, I’d have to convert (IANAC), then I’d probably have to go beat some homos to death with sharp sticks or something, then I’d have to join his church which means I’d have to marry into his “extended family”. Yikes!
Uh… I don’t think “religious leader” is all that accurate since his “congregation” is primarily made up of his own extended family. Not someone anyone really looks to as a credible “leader.” And even the most uptight religious right-wingers see him as a fringe wacko, I think.
So not “religious leader” more like “head of the raving loony pack.”
I had no idea that Phelps was a Primitive Baptist.
At least in my limited experience, one of the big differences between the Baptists of, say, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Primitive Baptists, is the predestination business, and its intellectual consequence regarding whether there’s any point to evangelism. (If humans are moral free agents, as the SBC believes, then yes; if we’re all predestined - as the Primitives believe - as either part of the saved elect, or damned, then no.)
So I have a hard time seeing why Phelps makes such a mission out of protesting everywhere. If no souls will be rescued from depravity by his message, then what’s the point, from his POV? I’m clueless here.
Honestly, I’m not actually that offended if some U.S.-hating extremists in the Middle East say they are glad this happened. I get where they are coming from, even though I think they’re small-minded little pinheads. But for this guy to have these seven burning for all our sins–it’d be offensive if it weren’t just so laughably ridiculous.
Okay, I never payed any attention to Phelps before, but now he goes on the list of people who get kicked right in the goddamned nuts if I ever meet them.
(Right behind Elliot Abrams, former assistant Secretary of State.)
—From Bush down–preachers, priests, rabbis, politicians, pundits, reporters–all suddenly become theologians preaching lies and spinning fables about the meaning of the space shuttle tragedy.—
Well, i don’t much like Bush’s seeming desire to set himself up as national theologian and tell us all about how god thinks and works, but is it really that odd for preachers and rabbis to be theologians? I mean… isn’t that what a lot of them DO?