I have no problem with atheists, militant or other, but they’re not much brighter than Phelps if they get all their details wrong.

As an atheist, it is happily not my burden to try to make sense of the New Testament. If you want to ignore Jesus’ teachings about hell (and the gospels’ depiction of him as an apocalyptic faith-healing exorcist who ordered his followers to abandon and reject their families — see, for instance, “Leave the dead to bury their dead”), that’s fine with me, but you’re in no position to accuse others of cherry-picking. You can’t just brush that material aside — you have to explain why you ignore it. You have to account for it. I don’t deny that Jesus also taught love; so do most fundamentalists. (Rick Warren, for one.) What you have to do is explain how his harping on hell is an expression of love. Again, it’s not my problem, it’s yours.

Yeah, I’ve read ‘Lord of the Flies.’ Have you ever read the Satanic Bible? (Me neither. But it has no more relevance to this question than Lord of the Flies, which is a work of fiction with a particular agenda about human nature, and proves nothing.)

The God of Christianity created eternal torture. Hell didn’t just happen — Yahweh created it. If humanity was always doomed, it was because he created us that way. If human nature tends more towards the bad than towards the good, the fault lies with the manufacturer, not with the product. Before the free gift of Jesus on the cross, there was the free gift of eternity in unquenchable fire.

Why do you think you have an open mind? First look at the beam in your own eye, before you point out the speck in your brothers’.

Ed at 117, I don’t think John has a hidden agenda. He has several posts in which he critiques Obama before, and after the election.

Thanks for giving us this forum John. By the way, I love your post about “My Jesus.” It seems that philosophy would apply well to this situation.

First-funniest?

“White Power!!”

No,

“White Flour!!!”

Or maybe,

“Tight Shower!!”

And, also,

“Wife Power!!!”

It’s all just SO confusing!

(Ref: http://asheville.indymedia.org/article/107Clowns)

(See Also: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS310US311&q=kkk+clown+protest&btnG=Search)

Actually, the reason I noted the protest (and the defeating thereof) is that it happened at the U of C, which is my alma mater. I would have happily posted about UofCers pwning the shitbags of the WBC regardless of why the shitbags were there.

So: You’re really totally wrong in every possible respect, regarding why I posted about this.

“I’m appalled, and I’m a Christian (who voted for Obama.) This is not the message of love we need to be spreading. How can these idiots misinterpret things so much? It’s people like this that give true believers a bad name. I’m glad the whole thing turned out well as far as the counter-protesters go.”

I thing there are few relevant points here: 1.) The Westboro folks are a fringe group, and not representative of midwestern churchgoers. Much Christians have never even heard of them.

2.) When portraying the anti-Obama factions out there, the proprietor of this site is forever in search of the extremist straw man. This reinforces the notion that anyone who does not march in lockstep with the fiscally irresponsible Obama agenda is either a.) a religious maniac and/or b.) a white supremacist. (Both would be preferable.)

You will probably never find John featuring a reasonable critic of Obama’s policies (like Ron Paul), as this would not support the party line, i.e., that Obama’s opponents are all derranged. This would also make the Great One look bad, which would also be an unwelcome outcome for our host and much of his readership.

Of course, John is not obligated to present “all sides”…and he is quite free to cherry-pick his examples. Bloggers have a right to engage in advocacy journalism. (So yes, I agree that This-is-John’s-site-and-he-can-talk-about-whatever-he-wants.) It is the Democrats who arguing for the imposition of the Fairness Doctrine…..Not me.

However, the dismayed alpinmack should not be surprised to find many more lurid stories of “Right Wing Crazies who Oppose Obama” on this site in the coming months….and relatively few discussions of the long-term effects of Obama’s spending plan.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you

Because the wording of my post could be taken one of two ways, I see where the confusion occurred.

I know the bikers are not riding to protect Phelps, they ride to protect military funeral processions against Phelps.

Thanks for reminding me of their official designation. I first read about them at BlackFive.net

Duncan @ 112: While I have no intention of derailing this thread into a chapter-and-verse discussion of theology, I find your interpretation … unfortunate. In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, many–perhaps even most–people who read the gospels find Jesus’ preaching on universal compassion and understanding far more pervasive and unambiguous than his occasional and usually very specific (to the individual and the circumstance) condemnation.

I can’t stop you from painting all of Christianity with Fred Phelps’ brush, but I ask you to at least consider that the “mainstream” condemnation of WBC may be sincere.

–SMQ