Jerry falwell, RIP,
 

from www.cnn.com:

"Rev. Jerry Falwell dead at 73

The Rev. Jerry Falwell has died, a Liberty University executive said Tuesday. He was 73. Ron Godwin, the executive vice president of Falwell's Liberty University, said Falwell was found unresponsive and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. Godwin said Falwell had "a history of heart challenges.""

i'm conflicted...i've always despised the man, but i never thought he'd die...and here he is..and when i heard the news, the heartless person in me said, "HALLEFUCKINLUJAH" but then, i do have a soul and i'm sad for th passing of almost anyone...
still...i think he was more destructive to our culture than almost any figure in the past 50 yrs...

but that's just me

anyone else have any thoughts to add?

I would much prefer to have found a way to shut him up that did not involve his expiring. I don't celebrate his death, but I will celebrate the fact that a little more hate has left the world.

yeah paq, i have to confess having much the same reaction when i saw it earlier today. i remembered to wish him well and all that, but i can't say that i didn't despise the shit out of him. at first, i thought it was pat robertson and i was almost even more inappropriately happy...i just hate the 700 club pray-a-thons so much...

Jesus turned the lights out and pretended Heaven was closed.



"Man, I do not wanna talk to that sweaty freak..."

Why does he deserve respect just because his body is now decomposing?
Would anyone post a RIP for Fred Phelps when he goes?


Good riddance, you're in for a big surprise fat boy.

/snark
What did he do to remove God's protection from him anyway??

"a history of heart challenges."

...you can say that again.



RIP...you fool.

Why should we be sad when someone so despicable dies? Everyone dies, it's not as if it's some unfortunate accident that took him too soon. Some may even feel that he lived far too long.

I don't feel sad that he died and I don't feel any guilt for not feeling sad. He did nothing with his fame but stifle the growth of our culture and society, so fuck him. I'm glad he's finally dead.

eh.. big deal.

He just gave me an actual excuse to get drunk

i dont really care about this either way.

The sad part is, someone is going to take his place.

He's about to find out if he's as right as he thought he was.

We all die in the end....but some of us will make this world a better, and less hellish place when we do.

One is left to wonder if even the Christians, will miss this man.

actually, hte sad part is, there will be 2 to take his place..his sons. He left instructions for them to take over his ministry...i kidna feel bad for his daughter..i think she was left out...

imagine the convo, "Yes, dear, daddy loves you, but you're a girl and, as such, you're not fit to carry on God's work"

and yes, i think he said it like that.

like him or hate him, he was big enough to make at least 13 people write about him....

i don't think his sons will have enough "oomph" to carry on his work, i think his ministry will die a slow, quiet death...

who knows, falwell's father and grandfather were militant athiests, he rebelled, perhaps his sons will rebel and start spreading the word of pastafarianism....

Being the skeptic that I am, isn't it a bit odd that one of Godwin's first statements was :

It's almost as if he's trying to say he's not guilty before even being accused of not being timely in his efforts to revive Falwell. Although, it's unclear who found him... or did I miss that somewhere? :rolleyes:

I'd feel better if someone cut his head off and burned the body just to be sure.

I don't about that... The apple can fall close to the tree and still make a little bit of difference...


Check out Jay Bakker's church... Revolution Church

that's funny bc i thought the exact same thing when i read that....some pro-active defense going on there.

Larry Flynt is smoking a cigar right now in his honor.

One ignorant, vile, idiotic blowhard down, one billion to go...
I feel like his influence has waned somewhat, so maybe my enthusiasm at his removal from this Earth is tempered.

we need a snoopy dance emoticon.

...and I thought I despised him...

If I could wish there was a hell I'd wish he'd burn there.

"HALLEFUCKINLUJAH"!

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Well said, and well deserved.

Well said, I agree. So who's the nextblow hard to take his place? And his sons better not even bother to try....

Think I'll go masturbate to some nice dirty XXX porn in his honor.

The only sorrow I feel is I'm sorry he couldn't have went to meet his maker in the late 70s or early 80s.

Try as I might, I can't get the acronym RIP to spell "good riddance you hateful old man".

Couldn't have said it better myself. I guess in some ways I appreciate that a thread titled "Jerry falwell, RIP" is a little more appropriate than what I would've posted which would've been something along the lines of "Ding dong the bigot is dead" but I can't really find it in my heart to regret that he's gone to whatever fate awaits someone like him or to wish him any peace when he gets there.

And if feeling that way about him makes me just as bad as he is, I can live with that.

talk about missing the whole point.

If anyone in this world would have a legitimate beef with falwell, it would be larry flynt, and to hear flynt talk about him...after the trial, despite what they didn't like about each other, they became very good friends and would visit each other often.

that alone should say enough about falwell and his ability to overcome some prejudices.

rip and may god have mercy on your soul.

Okay, well I'm going to sound stupid, but I don't know who the man is?! From what I gather he's one of those thou art superior by closeness to God, now give me your money type guys? I do believe I have read he was quite homophobic? I don't know if my being Canadian is an excuse not to know who he is, but if he's a hate-monger in disguise then the world will be better without him.

I guess this being the interweb and all, it is fashionable to say things like 'ding, dong the wicked witch is dead'. But really, what did this man do to you? Say a few things you didn't agree with? So what? I personally respect anyone that can make you think critically about yourself and your own beliefs. There are plenty of a**holes out there who say stupid stuff everyday. Do you honestly wish they were dead?

Most of you have only been around and contemplating such things for a short time, but I was around when the 'Moral Majority' came into being. Wow, what an interesting idea. I had never even thought of such a concept. Was I part of the moral majority or not? We had great fun in college assuring everyone we were part of the immoral majority :) .

According to political scientists, Falwell was instrumental in getting Ronald Reagan elected. He tried to make people make a decision. What is wrong with that? If you didn't agree with him, he prayed for you and wished you would see it his way. He didn't kill anybody. He didn't physically force anyone to believe in him. He was passionate, I think that is an admirable trait in anyone.

He felt passionately that the country at that time was suffering from, for lack of a better term, a lack of backbone. Jimmy Carter was a nice guy and all but we were being looked down on and taken advantage of in the world. Falwell felt that Reagan would govern in a way that more closely represented the ideals that this country was founded on and tried to convince people of that.

Now, all that being said, they guy sure did speak his mind as he got older. The things he said after 9/11 were uncalled for. I think he certainly realized that when he very quickly apologized for what he said. I can make the argument that his views on gays and lesbians are what brought the discussion to the fore and actually provoked the discussion re: equal rights. It mobilized the gay and lesbian community to action and forced them 'out of the closet' sooner and IMO allowed their cause to be furthered faster.

He was a husband, a father, and a grandfather. Honest, hardworking, and (right or wrong) passionate about what he believed in. Not much more you can ask for in a man. Rest in Peace Jerry Falwell and may God have mercy on your soul

I disagree. I think he stirred the pot, and society and culture cannot stagnate as long as the pot stays stirred.

He certainly stirred me up when I was in college and was the source of extreme anger and frustration on my part for many of his Moral Majority headlines. And for that I thank him as humbly and respectfully as I know how.

Emphasis added.

Nothing and I don't.

But...there is a VERY big difference between wishing someone dead and thinking that the world is a better place without them in it. I don't wish anyone dead, but there are a lot of people whose opinions and thoughts I'd just as well rather not hear and not have influence on things that affect MY life, country and choices.

I don't advocate killing these people, because then we end up on that happy path to "Well who decides who gets to talk and who gets to die" which is silliness. But I'm not going to mourn the passing of and wish well someone who I feel negatively impacted the world I have to live in. I didn't like him yesterday when he wasn't dead. I don't feel any compulsion to suddenly forgive him for what I think are his wrongs simply because he's dead now.

The fact that you can, I suppose, makes you a "better" person than me, but being a "good" person isn't really something I care a great deal about. I'd rather be in a world filled with average people who don't feel like they have to impose their belief systems on everyone else than in a world of "great" people who do.

I say live and let live. He said everyone should do it my way. That's just enough for me to extend my middle finger in his direction and not much else. Unless these posts count, but I guess they're just written middle fingers anyway.

In the words of Bad Religion:

"Hey brother christian with your high and mighty errand,
Your actions speak so loud, I cant hear a word youre saying."

It's not just because this is the interent that people say they are glad that he died. Ask me in person and I'll tell you the same thing: Fuck Jerry Falwell. I hope he likes hell.

Fat sweaty fuck.

heh you beat me to it, mine would have had a couple more profanities though.

but good enough for me.

To quote Bill Walton, "When everybody thinks the same, nobody thinks."
So I'm sitting here trying to think, but every time I do, I come to the conclusion that Jerry Falwell emanated more bad than good. When I think of him as a family man and a leader, I also think of him as someone who tried to convince others to be bad people.

pretty darn harmless compared to some other fundamentalist leaders around the world.
for some reason many of us do not compare such things. instead we prefer to overreact in typical ways that indicate our tendency to dwell on what we see as the bad points of things American. And since it is severely fashionable to be anti-American, especially for progressive thinkers, this is another example of groupthink.

very true compared to other fundamentalists he was quite tame.

I was quite interested to read this today from Larry Flint.

May God have mercy on his soul.

Oh shit, that's what Hustler v. Falwell was about??

Ahahahahaha.... that is hilarious.