Jerry Falwell Dead at 73

If it’s wrong, then I’m wrong, and proud of it. I’m incredibly glad that he’s now a corpse.

How can you sit there and say that you are happy that someone is dead? Especially a man who has done more for this world, and helped more people than you can even imagine! Dr. Falwell was the most selfless, ambitious, giving, loving, kind-hearted man that has ever walked this earth. He gives to those who have nothing, I know- he gave me a full scholarship to his university because he cared. And in reponse to your comment about him forcing his religion on others- that is abosolutely obsurd. As an atheist I am sorry for you that when you die, you will not get to spend eternity with the people who care about you. Do I know where you will end up, no. I can assure you that no one of the Christian faith would EVER be joyful of your death though. My prayer is that you will see that there is more to life than yourself.

How can you sit there and say that you are happy that someone is dead?

How can you not be? Isn’t he with Jesus now?

Kristen,

You do it like this:

Hooray! Hooray! Jerry Falwell is fucking dead! Yay!!!!!!

I only hope that someday I’ll get to dance on his grave and sing a little song, that goes a little something like this:

You’re dead
I’m not
I thrive
You rot
You promoted hatred all of your years
Making money from peoples’ fears
Jesus didn’t save you, that you’ve learned
Now you’re just going to feed some worms

Hooray, Hooray, Hooray!

Somehow, I’m happy that I was born in a third-world nation who didn’t get a lick of what Fallwell had to say. haha

Dear respondent’s to Mr. Falwell’s death:
I really don’t see how anyone can post a genuine response to this person’s death since who can say they knew this person. Here,some of you may say that you did not care for what he stood for, and that is only an opinion not substantiated by any true facts besides pure hatred or disbelief. Other than that, the only other things mentioned here are silly cliches that are nothing more than a game of tit for tat. As for me, death is a reality of life for everyone. And no one knows what will happen to Mr. Falwell now that he passed besides God. In addition, I refuse to dance on someone’s grave as I have better things to do with my time. However, I encourage those who have a vendeta against anyone, that they should seek counseling as mudering someone’s reputation or personhood is an anti-social behaviour that leads to discord and violence, which is supposedly the very thing the rspondents here are trying to avoid and prevent. Thus, making your actions look like mere transferring of feelings that perhaps you yourself are feeling inside.

In Christ,
Tina

He was one of the first to purposefully mix church and state.

How do you figure? Hasn’t that been going on for thousands of years?

I love how Larry Flynt calls him Rev.Fartwell (lol)

One thing I’ve learned. I always seem to wind up liking people who introduce themselves as Christ-followers.

Welcome, Anne!

Hear-hear, Radical.

In-group amity is no excuse for out-group emnity.

I don’t like it when religious folks do it, so I don’t like it when we do it.

It’s an unattractive trait.

Sadly human, though.

“A sub-community that fails to honor such basic human traits such as respect, compassion, goodwill to other members of a sub-community, regardless of points of agreements, does a disservice to all human communities!”

How does someone who acted so far out of these guide lines by bashing homosexuals and dehumanizing such ‘sub -communities’ deserve any respect? What, once he dies we’re suppose to sit idle and pay homage? Do you think Mussolini didn’t deserve the meat hook?

I think that ethically we should learn great tolerence when giving respect to those who deserve it, but as i think Karl Popper said we should not be tolerant of the intolerant. I would never think someone who seeks my submission deserves my respect.

How does someone who acted so far out of these guide lines by bashing homosexuals and dehumanizing such ’sub -communities’ deserve any respect?

The question is, how do we teach the proper behavior? How do we model for others the proper behavior? How do we show those who expect us to dance on Falwell’s grave — and indeed will snort with self-satisfaction upon hearing that we atheists are already piping up a tune — that we are also worthy of respect?

Even the very respect that Falwell never stooped to show us.

To the most recent comments – do all human beings deserve respect, regardless of their actions? If so, to what extent?

I think “respect” might be too strong a word for me to use about Falwell. He opposed the civil rights movement, strongly supported apartheid in South Africa, bashed homosexuals, espoused theocracy and held lots of attitudes that I find repugnant and simply cannot respect.

However, he was a human being deserving of freedom, and as a member of that free society I would certainly stand up for his right to hold whatever beliefs he chose, so long as he didn’t attempt to inflict them on others by force. He might have liked to do the latter, but thank goodness our democracy didn’t give him the chance.

In terms of being “happy” that someone is dead, I must defer to John Donne:

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

One thing I’ve learned. I always seem to wind up liking people who introduce themselves as Christ-followers.

That’s probably because most people who use that term (including myself) do so because they’re more sensitive to all the stupid things “Christians” often say or do and they’re looking for a better way to follow Jesus without having to buy into all the stupidity. Thus they often tend to share some of the same critiques of Christianity that many atheists do.

I don’t even think it’s as complex as that, Mike C. I just think it signifies someone not content with a label like “Christian”, and is searching for a term that reminds them of the path they’re walking rather than the tribe they belong to.

Anyway, so far it’s been a good indicator for me.

Logos wrote:

Siamang Why are you bursting our bubble?

I felt like someone would chime in soon with “Duuuude, you’re totally harshing my mellow!”

😉

I don’t even think it’s as complex as that, Mike C. I just think it signifies someone not content with a label like “Christian”, and is searching for a term that reminds them of the path they’re walking rather than the tribe they belong to.

Yeah, I thought that’s what I said. 🙂

I hear everyone suggesting that Falwell deserves basic human dignity and respect, and continuing this weird idea that just because someone is dead, we can’t critique his life. I understand that in an intellectual way.

But FUCK THAT. He thinks that people like me are the reason for 9-11 and Katrina. If he can dehumanize the rest of us, I don’t understand why we can’t pay him back in kind. Dead people cannot defend themselves, but that doesn’t mean we cant mention all the terrible mean shit they spewed in life.

This has nothing to do with his Christianity, and everything to do with his asshole-being.

Here,some of you may say that you did not care for what he stood for, and that is only an opinion not substantiated by any true facts besides pure hatred or disbelief

Tim,
This opinion is based on what the man said and did, to me those are facts. I disagree with the negative and mean responses to his death, but there are real reasons to hate what he stood for and what his did during his life.

Kristen Harker,

You didn’t answer my question. Why aren’t you overjoyed with Falwell’s death? Isn’t that God’s plan and His chosen time of Falwell’s departing? Isn’t he with Jesus now?

I really don’t get this aspect of Christianity. According to doctrine, the greatest thing that can ever happen to Falwell happened yesterday, and yet the news reports people in mourning over it.

There wasn’t much in the way of weeping and gnashing of teeth in the US and its “coalition of the bullied” when Saddam was hanged. And while I certainly wouldn’t say with authority that all Christians rejoiced, I can say with some certain that a goodly number of folks who represent themselves as Christians did indeed celebrate. Do you think George W. Bush, our Christian-in-Chief, felt remorseful? But I suppose it was considered acceptable to be happy over Saddam’s demise because he was our enemy and a bad man and not even a Christian. But because Mr. Falwell represented himself as a “man of God” and carried his bible about with him, he is supposed to get a free pass now that he is dead, and treated with some sort of respect? When a person is a high profile public figure as he was, then one does not need to know or even care what he was “really” like personally. All one can reasonably go by are the things he wrote and said for public consumption, his beliefs, and his intentions as he stated them in public. Based on these things, there is little doubt that most reasonable people, Christian or otherwise, would find him nothing more than vile. Now that he is dead, his memory is vile.

There will never be any way to quantify the amount of pure misery he contributed to by his constant denunciation of gays – and that’s just one example. No one “makes” a person commit suicide, but I wonder how many suicides he helped provide the fodder for?

Small minded, anti-intellectual, hate-mongering – that’s just the top of the list of terms to describe this…man. At the moment of his death, the world was, for a few seconds perhaps, one ten thousandth of a percent a better place. Unfortunately, his successors are already lining up, I’m sure. Perhaps they will meet a similar fate, only much earlier in their lives than did Mr. Falwell. These people can call themselves what they want, but they are not Christians.

Nor was I happy when Hussein was hanged. Even though we tried to pretend it was “Iraqi justice” rather than the outcome our administration wanted, most of the world wasn’t fooled. However, you and I can only speak for ourselves. I’ve seen and heard and read about folks who gloated over his death, and it wasn’t just a small number either. How ironic that some of the crimes he committed and was executed for would have been more difficult to do if we hadn’t helped him out by providing him with chemical weapons when we considered him a “friend.”

Saddam may have been a lot of things, and not many of them good, but he did not insist that he was enforcing God’s rules during his brutal dictatorship. I don’t recall reading anything by him indicating that he felt he was channeling the Divine.

Falwell wasn’t executed, as far as we know. He lived a fairly long life, doing a great deal of damage to this country, to Christianity, and to human progress. He died, it seems, a natural death. So, perhaps I shouldn’t be happy. But I feel what I feel. I detested this person and everything he stood for. Unlike him, I’m not condemning entire classes of people. I’m specifically targeting him – Jerry Falwell. How dare that cretin set himself up as arbiter of God’s will, and God’s intentions, and of who will and will not “get into heaven.”

Wow, where’d all the trolls come from all of a sudden?

Logos, I was mostly referring to “Jane” (who I’m glad to see Hemant deleted).

I don’t think my joke deserved to get deleted it didn’t even have any dirty words in it!

Well, it was not a great laugh. but still it think it was a pretty good one

Forgiveness is for the living. Falwell never repented for any of the terrible damage he did to the good name of Jesus of Nazareth, the horrible false witness he bore against his creator, sustainer, and redeemer.

Jesus suggested– very nearly commanded– that when our neighbor repents, we ought to forgive him, to which I would only add, “if you can. Don’t strain yourself too much, okay?”

Forgiveness of the unrepentant, then, should be viewed as optional. That doesn’t mean one can’t do it. In fact, forgiving someone, even though it may seem quite irrational, may be of great benefit to the one who forgives. In many cases, I’ve noticed, forgiveness seems to do far more for the forgiver than for the forgiven, but this doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, just that the projected or anticipated results may not be accomplished so easily. In any case, talk of forgiveness of the unrepentant ought never be accompanied by that sometimes-evil word “should.”

I choose not to forgive Falwell for the many evils he did. I choose not to have any opinion whatsoever about what kind of forgiveness God ought to practice on the Irreverend Falwell. That’s God’s business, not mine; “judge not, that ye be not judged.”

Who am I to say how God should judge the man? Or, say, Christopher Columbus, often hailed as a great wonderment, but also a practitioner of genocide? The plain fact is, for all I know, if I’d been in Columbus’ or Falwell’s shoes, I might have behaved just as badly as they did, or worse.

But wherever Falwell is now, he doesn’t need my little forgiveness, and I don’t feel any need to give it him. He’s dead. Let the dead bury their dead. I’d sooner practice forgiveness, and generosity of spirit, or at the very least, some kind of tolerance, toward the persons of a thousand living Falwells, than one dead one.

Lotus in a sea of fire, indeed. I’ve been trying to track down the centuries-old Buddhist poem that inspired that book title, but all I can seem to find on the net are references to the book, not the poem. And that’s what brought me here… We’re in for some very troubling times, and we must stand firm against bigotry, irrational fear, slanders of all kinds, and above all against the many murders they inspire. And know that we are weak, but God is strong, and we too will falter at times. Let us hope that if we fall, we will indeed fall well. Unlike the late pastor of that name, whose death I neither mourn nor praise.

Do not suppose that we have never been warned against this kind of thing. Jesus himself said, “and indeed the day is coming when anybody who kills you will believe he is doing a holy thing for the Lord.” Well, Falwell may never have performed a single act that would qualify as homicide in the eyes of man, but aiding, abetting, and encouraging? What of that?

I will pray with all my might that I do not become, in my own inadvertent way, just as bad as those I would decry. That’s where it all must begin and end: with our potentially harshest critic, the man in the mirror.