BTW,I thinkthis fits right in with the topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjjZGyYcH9E

I agree about how good Theroux is with people and how good he is at cajoling the worst criminals into showing what good human beings they really COULD be (or could HAVE BEEN, if only they hadn't condemned themselves already by their terrible actions which can never be undone now). I really admire Theroux for his attitude towards these "outcasts". In a way it makes me feel sorry for even the worst kinds of people he meets up with : serial-killers etc.., though I don't allow myself to be totally fooled. There's another (cynical) side of me which wonders why he is so interested in all this kind of stuff in the first place. His programmes - the ones I've seen at any rate - get a thumbs up from me. He's a very nice guy who is - fortunately or unfortunately and for whatever reason (who knows ?) - drawn towards the "underbelly" of society and scandal and horror in general.

I actually didn't hate the guy as much as most people.
I mean, sure, he was a hateful bastard and I disagreed with him on almost everything. But I give him this much: At least he was consistent in his views. He wasn't a hypocrite, unlike most religious people. And for that I kinda respect him.
He was just a guy who read the bible, and realized "Hey, the christian God is not a god of love, but he is a hateful god and we should all be terribly afraid of him." - and I agree with that. Most Christians cherry-pick from the bible what they like, Fred Phelps didn't.

And he also wasn't interested in indoctrination. He actually believed in a complete separation between church and state, and opposed stuff like teaching creationism in schools. All he ever wanted - politically - is the freedom to tell people they are going to hell. He didn't even want to convert people to his faith, only the right to tell them what he believes.

As, he was an absolute asshole, especially picketing funerals is a really, inexcusable dick move, but I still respect him a hell of a lot more than the majority of Christians, and I think most Christians, who want to see their religion implemented politically are a lot more dangerous to society than he or the Westboro Baptist Church ever will be.

They did that? Seriously?

Fuck them. In the eye. With a drill.

A rusty one. :|

( Funny thing is, you'd think a guy who keeps telling everyone how they'll go to hell and suffer eternally, would appreciate the music of Slayer every now and then... )

One down, about a billion to go. At least. Oh well, enjoy the dancing, and enjoy the image - Said person going to hell, then spending every second of eternity being sodomized by a demon that makes sure to call them homophobic slurs while ejaculating battery acid onto their back.

One less douchebag in the world. There are people who respectfully exercise their 1st Amendment rights, and those who cross the line of common sense and spew hate just to get attention for themseleves. I'm okay with the former, but Fred was one of the latter. Good riddance IMO.

I'm going to have to read up on this total no-mark. What you say you understand by his "teachings" just makes him sound like even more of a moron and a control-freak.

I'm not even a Christian myself but if I had been I would certainly not have chosen to represent Christianity by spouting what he did. From the very beginning it is not even CLOSE to being "Christian". Did Fred Phelps really regard himself as a Christian then ? If so then he must have been totally deluded. If not then must have seriously believed that everyone else was an idiot ? It sounds to me like he was just your common-or-garden racist / sexist type who felt that he had a certain "charisma" which would allow him to brainwash vulnerable people looking for something to believe in ? Looks like it's a good job that he died tbh ! I need to read more though..

I really have no intention to argue about this, I just wanted to offer a little bit of a different opinion on the guy, since most of the people who know about him seem to regard him as worse than Hitler.

You might wanna read some of their articles, like "God Loves Everyone": The Greates Lie Ever Told - 701 Passages Proving God's Hate & Wrath for Most of Mankind. It makes for an interesting read, if nothing else.

EDIT: Exploring their site now a little bit. Their FAQ is also quite interesting: As an atheist, I have to completely agree with that. I draw a different conclusion than the WBC (=not worshipping/believing in that asshole), but otherwise this is spot on.

I remember seeing a weird low-budget comedy years ago called The Adding Machine. Part of the film involved the main character dying and ending up in heaven. At first it seems a very pleasant place, but soon he discovers its terrible secret - absolutely anyone is allowed in! Specifically, he is told "Anyone can stay, but only the most blessed do." Well, he's not going to have anything to do with an afterlife that lets just any sort of riff-raff into heaven, so in protest he leaves and consigns himself to "hell", which is not a lake of fire but just a place of self-imposed discontent and exile.

Now, I don't pretend to have any special insights into the actual nature of the afterlife (if any), but that's the type of person Fred Phelps always struck me as - someone who couldn't bear the thought of God loving and forgiving everyone, because what's the value in God's love if it isn't exclusive? Fred was exactly the sort of person who would sooner have sat around sulking in hell than come join the feast in heaven if it meant sitting down next to the "wrong sort" and treating them as equals. Ironically, that's exactly the sort of feast Jesus was always making a point of showing up at.

I am certainly not in the dark about the hypocrisy of The Bible ! The Bible contains some of the most hateful, hypocritical, resentful, vengeful, angry, psychopathic stuff ever written ! However, it also contains some of the most beautiful, moving uplifting stuff ever written. I don't even read The Bible, btw, because it is all too "figurative" for me. I prefer the (on the face of it) less-pictorial reasoning of the best PHILOSOPHERS which mankind has to offer. German philosophy to be more precise. Well, Heidegger to be even more precise, with a fairly large dose of Nietzsche thrown in. If you can forget about all the "political" connections which these philosophers supposedly had and their connections to the events of WW2 and listen solely to what they are saying then you will truly learn something . There are no strings attached.

I doubt very much whether this guy's views were "worse than Hitler's", if only because he never managed to get a following like Hitler. I don't know anything about Fred Phelps or his influence, however. I need to read up on him more but he sounds like a typical racist/sexist-became-religious-type to me. You don't have to be genius to see that this is kind of individual which has turned up before and will probably turn up again soon, and which does no good.

Nobody else commented on this, so I don't know if anybody else got the reference, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zWNJHS9PBE&feature=youtu.be&t=2m21s

Actually to mourn someone's death is kinda new world moral thing... way back in the day people didn't actually mourn but celebrated when someone died. I guess we got too soft over the years.

We lost a true Christian today.

So many "Christians" pick and choose what they'd like to believe from the Bible so they can feel good about themselves and live an easy life. He took the high road and, whether it made hated or not, did his best to follow the teachings in that book.

Enjoy heaven, Fred. You're one of the few that deserve it.

LOL at this nonsense. A high road? Too funny. Whether he did his best or not, he failed miserably.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/fred-phelps-man-who-forever-stopped-march-of-gay-r,35582/

I think it has a good chance of spelling death for the church, or at least changing it irrevocably. You have to realise that it wasn't really a proper church, but rather a small, somewhat inbred cult. Think more of the Branch Davidians or the Manson Family, in terms of insularity, detachment from the world, and absolute domination by the pater familias. I don't know if any member of the remaining family is particularly suited to take up the reins. I know that even while he was alive he couldn't stop some of his own kin from "defecting", including one who went on to work supporting gay rights.

Glad to hear it. Hard to beat soul music for putting the world in perspective and finding warmth in life!

I think the celebratory wake is a much better reply to death than a grim funeral. Death is inevitable, why shouldn't we mark it with a revel over all the joy and delight that the person brought to us? I know that when my time comes I'd much rather people be taking merry fellowship than brooding like a parliament of rooks. And those I know who died would, I feel, have wanted the same. I don't want to be a person who desires others to be miserable at his death, that just seems too self-important somehow.