Counter-protests Drown Out Westboro

fridgmus · Mon Jul 12, 2010 2:17 pm

As some of you know, my hatred for Fred Phelps and his in-bred flock knows no bounds.

Well it looks like good people are fighting back!

So imagine how happy I am, along with many others, when I read about a couple of counter-protests! And the Good Guys outnumbered the Bad Guys 10 to 1!

from Military.com

http://www.military.com/news/article...rown-out-westboro-.html?ESRC=eb.nl

Fair Use Excerpt

Counterprotests Drown Out Westboro

July 12, 2010
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Protests at two Arlington churches organized by Westboro Baptist Church on Sunday morning were drowned out by more than 100 counterprotesters who rebuked the controversial group.
About a dozen members of Westboro Baptist Church picketed at Fielder Road Baptist Church and later at Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, two of four North Texas religious institutions they planned to visit Sunday. Most of the group's members were children related to Fred Phelps, the church leader, who was not there. The group has gained notoriety for protesting at military funerals and alleging that U.S. Soldiers' deaths are God's punishment for America's acceptance of homosexuality.

At both Arlington events, Westboro members were outmatched more than 10-to-1 by counterprotesters, many of whom opted for irreverence over anger as their weapon against the Topeka, Kan., group's message.

dl021 · Mon Jul 12, 2010 2:29 pm

And that's how you do it.

Peaceful counterdemonstration to show that the nutcases can't hog the 1st Amendment.

iairallie · Mon Jul 12, 2010 3:20 pm

And that gave the Phelpses exactly what they want. The Phelpses feed off the publicity and contention. Counter-protesting them gives them exactly what they want. They need to be ignored and left to rot in obscurity.

UAL747 · Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:18 pm

I'm one for equal protection under the law, I have to be of course. But would anyone mind if this entire family were arrested and taken down to a remote prison in Cuba? I mean, I know I wouldn't...

What I can't understand is where they get all this energy and money to do this crap from? They haven ruined any chance of holding down real jobs. No one is going to hire attorney Shirley Phelps to represent them. I would really like to know who is funding this family of idiots. Because they deserve the same fate as well.

UAL

Fly2HMO · Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:26 pm

If everybody in the world was an atheist we wouldn't have to put up with this BS.

UAL747 · Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:35 pm

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 4):
If everybody in the world was an atheist we wouldn't have to put up with this BS.

Amen to that brother.

dl021 · Mon Jul 12, 2010 8:47 pm

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 4):
If everybody in the world was an atheist we wouldn't have to put up with this BS.

Wow....there's a similar reaction...religious people of all types are lumped in with this guy, and all atheists are peaceful and non-bigoted.

OK...well, thanks for clearing that up.

DocLightning · Mon Jul 12, 2010 9:59 pm

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 4):
If everybody in the world was an atheist we wouldn't have to put up with this BS.

Not so fast. I give you China. Not exactly the most gay-friendly country in the world, but leaving that aside, they truly demonstrate how religion is far from necessary to cause incredible stupidity.

Religion can be a positive and a negative. In the case of WBC, it is 100% negative with 0% positive.

Religion is not the problem here. Religion is the symptom. Stupidity is the problem.

UAL747 · Mon Jul 12, 2010 11:13 pm

[quote=DocLightning,reply=7]Religion can be a positive and a negative. In the case of WBC, it is 100% negative with 0% positive.

The problem of Religion is that it gives people the hope that they will go somewhere else after they die. However, to get to that "somewhere" they have to follow a set of rules as well as have faith in something that, scientifically does not exist. Because of the fear of death, or rather what happens afterward, and the added justification of that fear by imposing a "hell" on those who do not follow the religion and it's teachings, people who have faith will justify any behavior possible if they think they are doing it to get into heaven.

Add to the problem that religious texts are ambiguous, loosely translated and have been transformed by man to serve political purposes through time, and you end up with people like the WBC, Al Qaeda, crazy Evangelical Christians, Racists, Homophobes.

You cannot be a rational person if you fully subscribe to any religion and irrational people tend to do irrational things.

It would be hard to say that 95% of the religious world's conflicts haven't centered around religion in one form or another. So I think it's safe to say that the world, at least how it stands today, would be better off if religion hadn't come along. But given human nature, it would probably be something else.

While religion has done a lot of good, the trade off is, most of the good they do also involves converting the ones they are helping, starting the cycle over again.

Personally, I'm just sick of the stupidity that religion breeds. It's so amazing. Doc, I live here in the middle of a Religulopolis and I'm sure you would be amazed at how much control it has over everything.

WBC is planning on Picketing the Lady Gaga concert in OKC. That should be interesting.

UAL

[Edited 2010-07-12 16:27:55]

vikkyvik · Mon Jul 12, 2010 11:43 pm

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):
It would be hard to say that 95% of the religious world's conflicts haven't centered around religion in one form or another. So I think it's safe to say that the world, at least how it stands today, would be better off if religion hadn't come along. But given human nature, it would probably be something else.

It would definitely be something else.

Watch the South Park episode(s) where Cartman freezes himself and ends up in the future. He encounters races fighting over various interpretations of science, rather than religion.

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):
Personally, I'm just sick of the stupidity that religion breeds. It's so amazing. Doc, I live here in the middle of a Religulopolis and I'm sure you would be amazed at how much control it has over everything.

Like you said, if it wasn't religion, it'd be something else. People like to disagree, fight, argue, control, etc. Whatever excuses one can use to achieve that will be used.

DocLightning · Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:19 am

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):

The problem of Religion is that it gives people the hope that they will go somewhere else after they die. However, to get to that "somewhere" they have to follow a set of rules as well as have faith in something that, scientifically does not exist.

Not all religions harp on this. Christianity does. Bhuddism and Judaism do not.

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):

It would be hard to say that 95% of the religious world's conflicts haven't centered around religion in one form or another. So I think it's safe to say that the world, at least how it stands today, would be better off if religion hadn't come along. But given human nature, it would probably be something else.

In China, communism replaced religion. And the result was similar.

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):

WBC is planning on Picketing the Lady Gaga concert in OKC. That should be interesting.

Oh, I hope she goes after them. She's a very smart girl and if she's prepared, I'm sure she can come up with a way to either make them look like complete idiots (more than they already do) or scare them off. I hope she gets 'em.

TheCol · Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:46 am

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 4):

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):

If it isn't religion, it will be politics, money, food, race, land, etc.

All of it boils down to two common denominators: Hate and Greed. Violence and oppression are their offspring. No man is immune. In other words, hardcore atheists and religious extremists are cut from the same cloth.

Fly2HMO · Tue Jul 13, 2010 6:35 am

Quoting DL021 (Reply 6):
religious people of all types are lumped in with this guy, and all atheists are peaceful and non-bigoted.

My statement is admittedly broad. However, you'd be hard pressed to find atheists going to such extremes as often as religious people would. Crusades, anybody?

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 7):
they truly demonstrate how religion is far from necessary to cause incredible stupidity.

Agreed. However, those weak-minded people that become so brainwashed by their religion/politics//etc and take everything that their book/pope/pastor/presidential candidate/etc too seriously definitely wouldn't be so much of a nuisance had they not been exposed to idiotic morals and ideas being shoved down their throats.

ABQ747 · Tue Jul 13, 2010 6:56 am

Quoting fridgmus (Thread starter):
As some of you know, my hatred for Fred Phelps and his in-bred flock knows no bounds.

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 4):
If everybody in the world was an atheist we wouldn't have to put up with this BS.

If these Westboro idiots didn't pervert the words of the Bible to support their sick and twisted view of reality, we wouldn't have to put up with this BS.

BMI727 · Tue Jul 13, 2010 7:10 am

Quoting UAL747 (Reply 8):
you end up with people like the WBC, Al Qaeda, crazy Evangelical Christians, Racists, Homophobes.

You have a chicken and egg argument here. Are these people made crazy by religion, or are these crazy people bending religion to their warped worldviews?

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 10):
Not all religions harp on this. Christianity does.

Not even Christianity does. One of the main points of Christianity is that humans cannot follow all of the rules. That isn't to say that killing, stealing, etc is okay, but the reason Christians (good ones anyway) would try to not do those things is not because one can earn their way into heaven. Furthermore, according to Christian teaching, there is no sin that would preclude one from going to heaven.

lowrider · Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:14 pm

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 12):
Crusades, anybody?

Um, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il-Sung, or Fidel Castro anyone? The athiest body count is not insubstantial.

DocLightning · Wed Jul 14, 2010 1:22 am

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 12):

Agreed. However, those weak-minded people that become so brainwashed by their religion/politics//etc and take everything that their book/pope/pastor/presidential candidate/etc too seriously definitely wouldn't be so much of a nuisance had they not been exposed to idiotic morals and ideas being shoved down their throats.

You're exactly right! Some of them become knee-jerk liberals or tree-hugging hippies who refuse to vaccinate their kids or a number of other brands of idiot who are dangerous to the world at large.

Quoting BMI727 (Reply 14):

Not even Christianity does.

Christianity does a LOT of harping about Heaven and Hell. More so than a goodly number of other religions. There is the acknowledgement that you can't follow all the rules, yes. But there's still that carrot/stick thing.

But there are many Christians who believe that in order to get into Heaven, they need to be GOOD PEOPLE. They need to be humble, not judge others, charitable, kind, honest, good to their fellow man. Those people exemplify religion as a positive. They are also what I call "good Christians."

Then there are those who believe that in order to get into Heaven, they must dogmatically follow certain rules, even when they fly in the face of the obvious intent of the rules. They believe that any threat to their belief system justifies ANY action to neutralize that threat. So they are prideful, arrogant, judgemental, selfish, mean-spirited, dishonest, and treat anyone who does not buy their party line as the Devil himself. And those people are an example of how religion can be dangerous.

To steal a line from the gun lobby, "Religion doesn't kill people, people kill people."

BMI727 · Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:15 am

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 16):
But there are many Christians who believe that in order to get into Heaven, they need to be GOOD PEOPLE.

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 16):
Then there are those who believe that in order to get into Heaven, they must dogmatically follow certain rules, even when they fly in the face of the obvious intent of the rules.

Both beliefs are a corruption of Christianity.

TheCol · Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:13 am

Quoting Fly2HMO (Reply 12):
However, you'd be hard pressed to find atheists going to such extremes as often as religious people would. Crusades, anybody?

Communism, anybody?

sw733 · Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:25 am

Quoting fridgmus (Thread starter):
Well it looks like good people are fighting back!

Old news to me. I went to college about 20 miles from Topeka at a very liberal college, and Freddy was there quite often protesting. Once, during the annual drag show (which was hilarious and tons of fun even to me as a straight guy), his folks protested across the street. We grew so annoying to them that they ran off back to Topeka.

Today is July 14, 2010...we already fought back and won in 2004 or so.

fridgmus · Thu Jul 15, 2010 6:54 am

Quoting sw733 (Reply 19):
Old news to me. I went to college about 20 miles from Topeka at a very liberal college, and Freddy was there quite often protesting. Once, during the annual drag show (which was hilarious and tons of fun even to me as a straight guy), his folks protested across the street. We grew so annoying to them that they ran off back to Topeka.

Today is July 14, 2010...we already fought back and won in 2004 or so.

Outstanding! I never knew! Good for you!

sw733 · Thu Jul 15, 2010 1:37 pm

Quoting fridgmus (Reply 20):
Outstanding! I never knew! Good for you!

Eh, it would never make news, we were just a bunch of college students that were fed up with Freddy and the Freaks making Kansas look like a backwards, messed up, incest-loving State for all to laugh at.

DocLightning · Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:05 pm

Quoting BMI727 (Reply 17):

Both beliefs are a corruption of Christianity.

Have you carefully read Jesus's teachings? I have. He'd much rather that you be a good person than one who evangelizes but treats your fellow man like dirt.

BMI727 · Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:09 pm

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 22):
Have you carefully read Jesus's teachings? I have. He'd much rather that you be a good person than one who evangelizes but treats your fellow man like dirt.

The corruption isn't that Christians should be good people who follow the rules, but rather why Christians should be good people and follow the rules. Christians who are following the ten commandments and such with the intent of being good enough to get to heaven are completely missing the point of Christianity.

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