Topic: Fred Phelps Is Dying

[Healergirl]

What Lux12 said.  One point of WBC theology that is often overlooked is their doctrine that God Is Hate, not Love.

[Callie Del Noire]

What Lux12 said.  One point of WBC theology that is often overlooked is their doctrine that God Is Hate, not Love.

Really?

Definitely clarifies some of the things I've had been wondering about over the years.

[Oniya]

Well, they've been going on and on about what 'God Hates' for how many years now?

[Callie Del Noire]

Well, they've been going on and on about what 'God Hates' for how many years now?

Well I'm working from 40+ years of more traditional christian upbringing. Love and tolerance.

[Oniya]

Well I'm working from 40+ years of more traditional christian upbringing. Love and tolerance.

This is why I hesitate to even call them 'Baptists', let alone a 'Church'.  Where-ever they got this from, it certainly wasn't the Gospels as I remember them.

[Healergirl]

Fred Phelps is/was all about hate, right from the beginning.  His unabashed espousal of the belief that God Hates Us All is a prime reason why the Evangelical Right never embraced him.  Thankfully.

[Retribution]

I sort of view WBC like a streaker seeking attention. If you show your bare ass someone is going to give you attention and if one is depraved enough they like the attention and seek more. I honestly do not think that religion really enters into the equation other than as a handy excuse. I mean even if they were legitimately opposed to same sex marriage the protesting of military funerals is a pretty tenuous link at best.

But sadly there is always someone else showing their ass for the attention so I doubt they go away.

[Callie Del Noire]

I had a friend that worked the honor guard unit tell me about the very big lecture they'd get anytime the WBC had a chance to show up. He said it was the hardest thing he had to do to ignore them. Till one chief told him about how they were looking for attention.

He said it was like a ray of light then. Since then he had run into them as a civilian. He said it was fun working with a couple friends to do 'normal' stuff around them. He said one woman looked like she was going to pop a vein in her forehead. (He stood in front of them while they were protesting..and he is a BIG bodybuilder.. so he was blocking them from the cameras.)

[Valthazar]

Maybe now that Fred Phelps is excommunicated, they will "Thank God" when he passes away.

[Chris Brady]

I don't know if the WBC ascribes to this, but there are/were several roadside 'preachers' up here in Canada, going on about how the opposite of Love is not Hate.  It was Apathy  So it was 'OK' to hate.

As I had a confrontation with one a while back, my understanding that Love is about Peace, Tolerance and Understanding.  Where as the opposite, Hate, is about Fear, Anger and Violence.  Which to me, the latter is definitely not a healthy mindset.

[ThePrince]

Does that imply that the WBC might indeed collapse as a hate-group without him at the helm?  (fingers crossed!)  Or are there some still in the second generation who are just as entrenched as he was?

I've been studying the WBC as they have always fasinated me. I think they are a cult (or very close to fitting the definetion) and cults usually dont out live the cult leader.

Undoubtively his dautghter is currently leading the church but I dont think she can command the same respect that they had for Fred.

Time will tell.

[Callie Del Noire]

I've been studying the WBC as they have always fasinated me. I think they are a cult (or very close to fitting the definetion) and cults usually dont out live the cult leader.

Undoubtively his dautghter is currently leading the church but I dont think she can command the same respect that they had for Fred.

Time will tell.

Also, such groups tend to be patriarchal in outlook. Odds are she'll lose some of the flock when he finally shuffles off to his reward. Fred also had, as has been pointed out, media contacts and connections I don't think will work with her as happily.

But, as long as they can fleece money out of folks suing them.. they will continue to work their scam.

[Lux12]

I've been studying the WBC as they have always fasinated me. I think they are a cult (or very close to fitting the definetion) and cults usually dont out live the cult leader.

Undoubtively his dautghter is currently leading the church but I dont think she can command the same respect that they had for Fred.

Time will tell.

I hate to say it, but even if they do split up a lot of them will probably find another group that decides to preach about how they hate some other group or the same group they claimed to hate when they were still members of the WBC. Some people will go on hating and raging against a group they see as the "other" if they're hell bent on it. It's not a pleasant truth, but it's possible. I'm praying that instead a good number of them will open their hearts to the love of the Divine and forgo this hate. Only time will tell what they do after this.

[Oniya]

There's an amazing number of former Westboros who have not only rejected the hate, but have become LGBT activists.  The son that was quoted early on in this thread is one.

[ShadowFox89]

Chances of that happening are next to zero. No media company with a brain at the helm would touch that "church/family". They would not bring ratings or money to whoever tried to air such a show.

 You overestimate the intelligence of mass media.

[Iniquitous]

You overestimate the intelligence of mass media.

Far from it. I know how it works and while there would be those that would watch out of sheer morbid curiosity and for the laugh, the protest against it would be so loud that any company that tried to take it on would find it nothing but a headache.  Not too mention, if a broadcaster does put it in their lineup cable and satellite companies can choose to not run their programming in protest.

I do not see this happening.

[Silk]

The man died a long time ago, he's just a existing ball of hatred now.

[Retribution]

He is dead all the way around now http://news.msn.com/obits/anti-gay-pastor-fred-phelps-sr-dies?ocid=twmsn

What I find interesting in this article is where he is quoted as saying god is hatred or something along those lines....funny thing is historically Christianity was one of the first religions to preach tolerance.

[Florence]

Out of respect, I won't specifically mention which musical number from a certain classic movie involving witches and tornadoes I'm listening to at the moment.

That said, I do suppose I feel a smidgen of sadness at just how wasted this man's life was. I can't even imagine living my entire life consumed with that kind of hatred.

[Valthazar]

I read somewhere that he himself was homosexual.  He probably turned out the way he did, because he felt shame about his identity.

[Sara Nilsson]

Out of respect, I won't specifically mention which musical number from a certain classic movie involving witches and tornadoes I'm listening to at the moment.

That said, I do suppose I feel a smidgen of sadness at just how wasted this man's life was. I can't even imagine living my entire life consumed with that kind of hatred.

well i lack such respect, ding ding the witch is dead and good riddance to trash.

i am spiteful enough to want to show up to picket his funeral, after all they can't complain after pushing their own picketing all the way to the supreme court. but.. it would only validate their hatred, so i will sit here happy that he is dead.

what that makes me a bad person? *shrugs* i been beaten up enough in my life over his kind, thanks to bigots like him i am afraid to walk out alone for fear of being beaten up or worse.. again.

[Lux12]

He is dead all the way around now http://news.msn.com/obits/anti-gay-pastor-fred-phelps-sr-dies?ocid=twmsn

What I find interesting in this article is where he is quoted as saying god is hatred or something along those lines....funny thing is historically Christianity was one of the first religions to preach tolerance.

I pray that he passed into the next world in some kind of relative peace that his soul leaves others in peace. I weep for him, not because he is gone from this world, but as I have said before, because he wasted his life being so filled with irrational and violent hatred that consumed him and in it's own way must have been some kind of hell.

[HairyHeretic]

i am spiteful enough to want to show up to picket his funeral, after all they can't complain after pushing their own picketing all the way to the supreme court. but.. it would only validate their hatred, so i will sit here happy that he is dead.

I believe I read that he'd been excommunicated from his church (or whatever it is they do) and the other church members were planning to picket his funeral as it is.

[Kane]

I believe I read that he'd been excommunicated from his church (or whatever it is they do) and the other church members were planning to picket his funeral as it is.

Unlikely. I don't think he is going to have a funeral as such. WBC members don't have them anyway, as 'they don't worship the dead'

[Oniya]

I believe I read that he'd been excommunicated from his church (or whatever it is they do) and the other church members were planning to picket his funeral as it is.

That's - terribly ironic.