posted
For those of you who do not or can not get The Times, this was in Giles Coren's diary on the 19th:
quote:Giles Coren, The Times, Wednesday 19th September 2001: Just in case unbalanced media coverage has been giving you the impression that Islam is the only religon with a significant bonkers wing, this is what the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the founder of the conservative pressure group Moral Majority, said about the twin towers attack on an American television programme hosted by the evangelist Pat Robertson:
"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians and the American Civil Liberties Union - all of them who have tried to secularise America - I point the finger and say 'you helped this happen'."
Now, once we've all stopped laughing...
First, this does seem to be shifting the blame on a massive scale. There can be no doubt exactly where the culpable persons lie: in small pieces in the rubble of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Presumably, Rev. Falwell is quite happy that Mohammed Atta and his associates are now facing God's justice, if not that of the American courts. If not, I would like to hear how Rev. Falwell presumes to doubt God's right to judge all his creations.
Secondly, I wonder how Rev. Falwell, the pious, God-fearing man that he is, managed to summon the nerve to attest as to the Almighty's emotional state. Unless, of course, Rev. Falwell is God, in which case he has bigger problems than we can help him with (like referring to Himself in the third person).
Thirdly, 'secular' is precisely what the USA has to be in order for religous freedom to flourish: a secular state with occasionally religous inhabitants. Or perhaps Rev. Falwell would prefer an official and established state religon? If the USA had one, we can be pretty sure that it wouldn't be whatever perverted and bastardized version of Christianity he practices, since such a state religon would have been adopted along with the Constitution.
I can only hope that the show's audience had the sense to mock Rev. Falwell as much as he claimed the world to be mocking God.
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posted
Unfortunately when you place dumb humans in a group, called an 'audience', their most likely reaction is to look to see if anyone else is clapping, and then clap, because if other people are clapping the guy must be right. And I'm sure Falwell pays some guys to clap to get it all started
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posted
There really isn't a great ideological gulf between people like Robertson and Falwell and people like the Taliban clerics, except the Taliban inspires a better class of terrorist, and all Falwell and Robertson can inspire are a few idiots who shoot doctors.
They're both Fundies of one sort or another, they both believe that they hold the one direct conduit into the Brain of God, they both believe in treating people who aren't just like them as second-class citizens at BEST, and they're not above using fear and scare tactics to get what they want (Rember Robertson threatening FL with hurricanes and meteors?).
Sadly, it's probably too much to hope for that some smart guy in D.C. will class Fundies in with other terrorists, and act accordingly.
posted
What an absolute fucking bastard Falwell is for making that statement. I hope any credibility he ever had gets flushed down the toilet.
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capped
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I could understand people being al ittle intimidated by the more liberal elements of our society, especially an old guy faced with a world of eroding family structures and new attitudes about sex, but..
i mean really.. feminists and the ACLU?
equal rights for all humans apparently make God mad? He just basically declared that his belief that civil rights and feminism are wrong.. i.e women make babies and non-whites pick cotton?!. And he gets published!?
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posted
Well, he has one of those "the Founding Father's intentions over all else" ideals ... you know, except he recognized that the Founding Fathers meant "all white, Christian men created equally."
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Well, 'secularizing' america is not really hard to do, since the concept of separation of church and state started in the 1600s on this continent.. well before the founding fathers
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Mike Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz, Village Voice September 21, 2001
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians ... the A.C.L.U., 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.'"
-- Jerry Falwell, September 13th, on The 700 Club about last week's terrorist attacks
"I sincerely regret that comments I made ... were taken out of their context."
-- Jerry Falwell, September 14
Nine Possible Contexts:
1. "...NOT."
2. "You know, I'm really high right now, so this may not make any sense, but..."
3. "Keeping in mind that today is Opposites Day, I emphasize that..."
4. "My son showed me this cool thing on Alta Vista, where you type something in English and then have the computer translate it into French and then into Spanish and then into German and then back to English-it's kinda like 'Telephone,' you know?-and something that made sense at the beginning will come out sounding like..."
5. "If an infinite number of monkeys typed on an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would write..."
6. "I want to take a break from the grim events of this week, and salute the brave people who've spent years making America a better and more tolerant place. Who's done this, who's helped this happen? Well, I'll tell you: ..."
7. "An insane man off camera is pointing a gun at my head and forcing me to read this statement. Quote,..."
8. "Please join me in praying that, in the wake of this horrific tragedy, Christ's message of peace will prevail, our entire country can unite in compassion, not aggression, and that no misguided person will state..."
9. "I truly believe that if Osama bin Laden had been born in America, right now he'd be saying..."
I wonder if his statements would qualify him as a target under Bush's "hard on terrorism, hard on the causes of terrorism" scheme? Please... it would so amuse me
posted
*sigh* You people really haven't gotten the hang of moral ambiguities, have you? That was different. They were freedom fighters then, when they were just killing Russians. Now they're terrorists.This is why the IRA don't kill Americans, or the Royal Family. If they do thay'll be downgraded in status, and McDonalds won't be able to give them money anymore.
posted
Question: how can you call someone a religious fundamentalist when their beliefs have nothing to do with the religion they claim to espouse? The term is completely inaccurate. Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, and therefore can not be called a Muslim fundamentalist, no?
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