Dear Jerry Falwell

[Agrippa]

I know this is known from a while ago as Dear Dr Laura' but regardless, here it is again...

Dear Jerry Falwell,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Leveticus 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Leveticus 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. Leveticus 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Leveticus 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

7. Leviticus 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Leviticus 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Leveticus 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone hem? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Sincerely,
Your devoted disciples and adoring fans​

 

[Dee]

Excerpts from God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens

have appeared recently in the National Post... its truly a remarkable book.... the beginning of the article on circumcism makes you wince.... suck on penis after cut, disease causing death passed on...

An interesting article on the book and author can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Kinsley-t.html?ex=1179892800&en=7ea98afe7a545b8d&ei=5070

Here is his column on Falwell;
see below

 

[Agrippa]

DSTRBO Cartoon

From this week's Hour: DSTRBO Cartoon

 

[Esco!]

Agrippa, I'm not quite sure what your beef is with Judeo-christianity, I dont think Fallwell has ever advocated what you posted and urged his followers to do the same.

I'm no big fan of Fallwell myself but I am half-Jewish and at times I've felt myself questioning parts of the Bible also!!

 

[Agrippa]

Do I really have to explain this to you Esco!?

At the very least, I'll state this: the Dear Jerry Falwell piece highlights the hypocrisy of selectively enforcing certain passages in the Bible. If 'Homosexuality is evil'; OK fine, make sure to respect the following as well:

1. sacrifices to God
2. sanctioned slavery
3. women are vile
4. more sanctioned slavery (but only of those inferior to you--foreigners)
5. aforementioned selective enforcement of 'Thou shalt not kill.'
6. not allowed to eat shellfish
7. you are inferior because of physical defects
8. where are all the sideburns?
9. kosher?
10. everything else

Who listens to this anymore? Oh yeah, sheep.

I chose to take NONE of it seriously. It is a fable--there may be some worthwhile lessons to be drawn, but that's about it.

 

[Dee]

WELL worth the read

The link above needs a membership now so here is a copy and paste of the article by Hitchens on Falwell.... ouch!


Falwell's Faith-based Fraud
Christopher HitchensSlate.com
Thursday, May 17, 2007

http://media.canada.com/idl/ntnp/20070517/NTNP_20070517_A018_issues_49181_MI0001.jpg?size=lCREDIT: Jeff Fusco, Getty ImagesReverend Jerry Falwell in January, 2006.

The discovery of the carcass of Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labelled "credulous idiot." The first such category consists of those who expected Falwell (and themselves) to be bodily raptured out of the biosphere and assumed into the heavens, leaving pilotless planes and driverless trucks and taxis to crash with their innocent victims as collateral damage. This group is so stupid and uncultured that it may perhaps be forgiven. It is so far "left behind" that almost its only pleasure is to gloat at the idea of others being abandoned in the same condition.


The second such category is of slightly more importance, because it consists of the editors, producers, publicists and a host of other media riffraff who allowed Falwell to prove, almost every week, that there is no vileness that cannot be freely uttered by a man whose name is prefaced with the word Reverend. Try this: Call a TV station and tell them that you know the Antichrist is already on earth and is an adult Jewish male. See how far you get. Then try the same thing and add that you are the Rev. Jim-Bob Vermin. "Why, Reverend, come right on the show!" What a fool Don Imus was. If he had paid the paltry few bucks to make himself a certified clergyman, he could be jeering and sneering to the present hour.
Falwell went much further than his mad 1999 assertion about the Jewish Antichrist. In the time immediately following the assault by religious fascism on American civil society in September, 2001, he used his regular indulgence on the airwaves to commit treason. Entirely exculpating the suicidemurderers, he asserted that their acts were a divine punishment of the United States. Again, I ask you to imagine how such a person would be treated if he were not supposedly a man of faith.


One of his associates, Bailey Smith, once opined that "God does not hear the prayers of a Jew." This is one of the few anti- Semitic remarks ever made that has a basis in fact, since God does not exist and does not attend to any prayers, but Smith was not quite making that point. Along with his friend Pat Robertson, who believes in secret Jewish control of the world of finance, and Billy Graham, who boasted to Richard Nixon that the Jews had never guessed what he truly thought of them, Falwell kept alive the dirty innuendo about Jews that so many believing Christians seem to need. This would be bad enough in itself, and an additional reason to deplore the free ride he was given on television, if his trade-off had not been even worse.


Seeking to deflect the charge of anti-Jewish prejudice, Falwell adopted the cause of the most thuggishanddementedIsraeli settlers, proclaiming that their occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was a holy matter and hoping that they might help to bring on Armageddon and the return of the Messiah. A detail in this ghastly narrative is that the return of the risen Christ will require the mass slaughter or mass conversion of all Jews. This consideration did not prevent Menachem Begin from awarding Falwell the Jabotinsky Centennial Medal in 1980 and has not inhibited other Israeli extremists from embracing him and his co-thinkers ever since. All bigots and frauds are brothers under the skin. Trying to interrupt the fiesta of piety on national television on the night of Falwell's death, I found myself waiting while Ralph Reed went all moist about the role of the departed in empowering "people of faith." Here was the hypocritical casinobased Christian who sought and received the kosher stamp from Jack Abramoff. Perfect.


Like many fanatical preachers, Falwell was especially disgusting in exuding an almost sexless personality while railing from dawn to dusk about the sex lives of others. His obsession with homosexuality was on a par with his lip-smacking evocations of hellfire. From his wobbly base of opportunist fundraising and degree-mill money-spinning in Lynchburg, Va., he set out to puddle his sausage-sized fingers into the intimate arrangements of people who had done no harm. Men of this type, if they cannot persuade enough foolish people to part with their savings, usually end up raving on the street and waving placards about the coming day of judgment. But Falwell, improving on the other Chaucerian frauds from Oral Roberts to Jim Bakker to Ted Haggard, not only had a TV show of his own but was also regularly invited onto mainstream ones.
The evil that he did will live after him. This is not just because of the wickedness that he actually preached, but because of the hole that he made in the "wall of separation" that ought to divide religion from politics. In his dingy racist past, Falwell attacked those churchmen who mixed the two worlds of faith and politics and called for civil rights. Then he realized that two could play at this game and learned to play it himself. Then he won the Republican party over to the idea of religious voters and faith-based fund raising. And now, by example at least, he has inspired emulation in many Democrats and liberals who would like to borrow the formula. His place on the cable shows will be amply filled by Al Sharpton: another person who can get away with anything under the rubric of Reverend. It's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to, and it's extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the "faith-based."

- Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of God Is Not Great:How Religion Poisons Everything.

​

 

[Esco!]

Agrippa, is anyone forcing you to follow the Bible like Islam is????
My guess is no, unless you have the Taliban chasing you, do you???

So I cant quite understand what your beef is with Fallwell, even though
I dont quite like him myself.

 

[Just-ass-weet]

Agrippa, is anyone forcing you to follow the Bible like Islam is????

Um, Islam is forcing people to follow the bible?!

 

[Esco!]

Um, Islam is forcing people to follow the bible?!

Uhm, unless you've been living on the moon, (militant) islam has been forcing a lot of people to live according to their ways.

 

[Agrippa]

Hey Genius, it's called the Koran.

 

[paulo]

Agrippa, this is one of the best posts I've come across yet. You have, IMHO, succesfully portrayed how ridiculous fundamentalist christianity is. Reading your quote "Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and and unchanging" made me realize that they are cut from the same cloth as fundamentalist islamists. Scary!

 

[Agrippa]

Thanks paulo, but I want to make clear that I did not write the piece, I am simply posting it here.

Kepler, yes, but the thing is they are... much more so in the US than in Canada, but they are nonetheless. To only mention MERB related matters... 'yay family values, nay abortion/gays' or 'yay abstience, nay sex education/condoms'... sounds familiar?

 

[Fat Happy Buddha]

I think the error of many in the Atheist camp is that they define themselves as being the opposite of the various factions in the Theist camp. Any effort to stamp out belief in God(s) is doomed to failure in view of the size of the trend. A wiser strategy, in my opinion, would be to focus efforts on assuring that secularism is properly installed and maintained in state laws and institutions. I predict that the Theist movement will be around for at least a few more centuries before it dwindles into irrelevence. Most disconcerting at present is the insidious creep of Christian ideals into the vocabulary of our leaders. I worry that it constitutes the fascist movement of our age.

As for evangelists like Jerry Falwell, more often than not they tend to implode long before, like the rest of us, they crumble to the floor clutching their chest. Their well-documented sexual and financial excesses probably do more to stem the spread of Theism than promote it. In this way, Falwell, Swaggart and their ilk are useful as comic foils for an Atheist movement that is still in its infancy.

 

[Esco!]

Hey Genius, it's called the Koran.

Duh...I know that.

I think you misinterpreted my post

What I meant was, as annoying as Fallwell was I dont recall him going around forcing his beliefs the way militant islam does.

.

 

[Esco!]

The Christian extremists represented by Falwell would like to force us to follow the Bible.

You're right, all those 700 club old ladies scare me with their AK-47's

If you dont like what they have to say you just change the channel

 

[Dee]

So...

...what did the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac do ?????

He stayed up all night wondering if there really is a doG!

 

[Agrippa]

Thanks for the God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything recommendation, Dee. I had already read Dawkins' God Delusion some time ago and expected more of the same from God Is Not Great, but I was mistaken. In broad terms, Dawkins arguments come from the sciences, whereas Hitchens focus on the humanities... they complement each other and I recommend them both!

Here's a link to Penn & Teller doing what they do best: Bullshit! : The Bible (Full Episode)

 

[korbel]

Agrippa, is anyone forcing you to follow the Bible like Islam is????
My guess is no, unless you have the Taliban chasing you, do you???

So I cant quite understand what your beef is with Fallwell, even though
I dont quite like him myself.

Hello Agrippa,

I really enjoyed reading your original post. I got a lot of laughs out of it.

Esco, if you can't appreciate the contrasts in relevance between Biblical tenets and current accepted Judeo-Christian values then maybe you are too defensive. Or do you really think slavery is a good thing? But regarding Biblical literalists, who am I to say people aren't entitled to their beliefs. Where does one find good sales on sacrificial goats and sheep??? And, damn those fire laws too.

Cheerio,

Korbel

 

[Agrippa]

sticker

Glad you liked it Korbel, but I want to, again, make clear that I can't take credit for it, I was merely reposting it.


Much like we have G/PG-13/R/NC-17/etc ratings for movies and Parental Advisory notes on albums, maybe we should have this sticker pasted on all bibles.

WARNING: This a work of fiction. Do NOT TAKE it literally.

CONTENT ADVISORY:
Contains verses descriptive or advocating suicide, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, sexual activity in a violent context, murder, morbid violence, use of drugs or alcohol, homosexuality, voyeurism, revenge, undermining of authority figures, lawlessness and human rights violations and atrocities.

EXPOSURE WARNING: Exposure to contents for extended periods of time or during formative years in children may cause delusions, hallucinations, decrease cognitive and objective reasoning abilities, and in extreme cases, pathological disorders, hatred, bigotry, violence including but not limited to fanaticism, murder and genocide."​

You know... to "protect the children."

 

[YouVantOption]

I think the error of many in the Atheist camp is that they define themselves as being the opposite of the various factions in the Theist camp. Any effort to stamp out belief in God(s) is doomed to failure in view of the size of the trend.

Chicken and egg though, no, oh great Buddha? After all, Theists love to put the smack-down on heathens. Why not just take it up a notch and fight back against ignorance and anachronistic superstition?

By the way, I have to say that Jerry Falwell has had an open invitation to put his tongue between my hairy asscheeks before and after my morning volcano, since the 1980s. He is one vile motherfucker.