Was really pleased to see this was upvoted 4 times just while i watched it...

Very happy to do so as well.

Impressive gentleman... defiantly agree. I hope the things he does and says cause a deep and constant pain every cursed day Fred Phelps has left on this planet... and if he helps others while doing that... total bonus!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'BBC, Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, Louis Thoroux, 2011' to 'BBC, Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, Louis Theroux, 2011' - edited by xxovercastxx

>> ^bobknight33:

Disgraceful and inappropriate. To think that this is ok. Not!


I give you Fred Phelps' newest follower...may he earn his just rewards.

I would assume that shiny represents himself truthfully in his comments, and from that we can draw quite a few conclusions.

He may give candy to orphans or be an axewielding mass murderer, but that doesn't change the fact that through his comments we get insight into his mind - and from what he has put forth, and certainly the tone and presentation of it, I am less than impressed.

I would argue that there is more hatred streaming from his comments than from the comments mocking him and his beliefs... after all, we don't tell him that he will burn in hell for ever and ever unless he buys charter or gives to charity, or support the republican party. We just point and laugh.

Opinions that are wrong deserve enlightenment and help, but when they are presented as they have been here, they deserve scorn.

Religion strikes so much to the base of a person, his morals, that you learn a lot from a comment. Some devout christians and spiritual people are genuinely nice and good while others are genuinely bad. So far, I've not seen much evidence presented here that puts shiny in the first category.
>> ^enoch:

>> ^shinyblurry:
God will get the last word on this one. Hitchens, justifying his life of sin to himself, has an ego a mile wide. His will, his way. He thinks he has the right to do whatever he pleases. He is trotting out his illness in national forums to stick it to God one last time. Well, when he is judged he won't have any excuse. God has been trying to save him and Chris has rejected that help, even belittled and made fun of it. Even being a loudmouthed arrogant braggart with delusions of grandeur, who has made a career teaching others to sin, God shows him mercy. The whole thing is just heartbreaking to me. I pray he wakes up and finds the truth before its too late.

so shiny puts forth a comment.
a comment based upon his/her religion concerning sin-repentance-absolution in regards to hitchens possible judgment.
and what does he/she get for his comment?
name-calling and disdain.
way to keep it classy guys.
do you KNOW shiny?
maybe he/she is a great person.spending time with the dying in their time of need or donates to local charities.
or maybe he/she is part of fred phelps "god hates fags" group.
i dont know and neither do you.
and to base a personal judgment on a comment is the height of presumption.
you can disagree with his ideology which is obviously based in dogma but to jump to conclusions based on so little and with such self righteous vigor is shameful.
might i suggest that you check yourselves before you begin to resemble the very thing i see so many of you admonish time and time again concerning religious hypocrisy.

>> ^shinyblurry:

God will get the last word on this one. Hitchens, justifying his life of sin to himself, has an ego a mile wide. His will, his way. He thinks he has the right to do whatever he pleases. He is trotting out his illness in national forums to stick it to God one last time. Well, when he is judged he won't have any excuse. God has been trying to save him and Chris has rejected that help, even belittled and made fun of it. Even being a loudmouthed arrogant braggart with delusions of grandeur, who has made a career teaching others to sin, God shows him mercy. The whole thing is just heartbreaking to me. I pray he wakes up and finds the truth before its too late.


so shiny puts forth a comment.
a comment based upon his/her religion concerning sin-repentance-absolution in regards to hitchens possible judgment.
and what does he/she get for his comment?
name-calling and disdain.
way to keep it classy guys.
do you KNOW shiny?
maybe he/she is a great person.spending time with the dying in their time of need or donates to local charities.
or maybe he/she is part of fred phelps "god hates fags" group.
i dont know and neither do you.
and to base a personal judgment on a comment is the height of presumption.

you can disagree with his ideology which is obviously based in dogma but to jump to conclusions based on so little and with such self righteous vigor is shameful.
might i suggest that you check yourselves before you begin to resemble the very thing i see so many of you admonish time and time again concerning religious hypocrisy.

Fred Phelps is a con man...read and understand. I think another sifter posted this, but on facebook. This hypothesis definitely answers some questions.

>> ^campionidelmondo:

So you're all upvoting this video ... ironically?? Sorry bareboards2, but I'm gonna downvote this, because you're essentially spreading this guy's hate.


I'm up voting to bring more attention to it. I'm not worried about people being influenced by this guy, he's nutty enough that I'd much rather his ravings be better known. For anyone that wants to side with him, I say bring it on. I'm comfortable standing with a better informed majority aware of how vile and evil he and those following him are.

I agree. I almost didn't upvote it myself, for the same reason. I just posted for informational purposes. Even though it grants him a larger audience.


>> ^Sagemind:

Edit: thanks for posting but I can't up-vote his bigotry!
Cheers!

@dannym3141 I follow you and basically agree. Free speech is important to protect whether the speech itself is popular or not. And it certainly isn't "illegal" to express any personal opinions, as backward or bigoted as they may be; whether expressed in a calm way or even full of ranting vitriol -- Fred Phelps' bunch comes to mind.

That being said, this is a school. The teacher doesn't have the power to arrest anyone, and they have to make quick disciplinary decisions about what things promote the best learning environment for everyone in the room. Students don't have free speech in a way equivalent to society at large by any stretch of the imagination: most schools have a dress code that forbids clothing with "offensive" words or ideas, and a student in any school is highly likely to be A) kicked out of class or B) suspended if they start including the word "fuck" in their speech as would be standard in any R-rated movie.

I think a teacher needs to have some leeway to make decisions about things in real time, and to be able to remove a disruptive student from the classroom if necessary. If a student says that they don't support black people, muslims, gay people, or whatever, it doesn't really matter if they made the statement in a calm and articulate way; what is important is that it is likely to create a disturbance that disrupts the learning environment for everyone else. Having a teacher boot them out of a class for making such a statement isn't necessarily a violation of their free speech rights.

...Not done watching yet, but something struck me:

Why does Sweeny apologize, multiple times, for his angry outburst during his previous examination of Scientology? I can see him admitting that his reaction did no good, and was in fact probably exactly what they were trying to provoke him to do, as well as possibly saying that it wasn't particularly professional.

However, one cannot interview someone in a professional manner if they are constantly being interrupted, called names, etc. About the only way I imagine that he could have handled that situation better would have been to break into full-on farce and talk over their interruptions with non sequiturs.

$cientologist: This is an e-meter. It measures the presence of ...
Sweeny: I had a telephone for breakfast today. It was ringlicious.

$cientologist: Psychology is a lie! They just want to sell ...
Sweeny: Freud was a hamster that smelled of elderberries!

One good turn of farce deserves another.

*edit:
Finally finished, my connection was really slow to buffer that all. Two more thoughts:
1) A lot of their tactics seem like Fred Phelps' loonies: Provoke, act outraged at the reaction you are fishing for, and attempt to discredit or apply leverage to your opponents via their reactions.
2) The saddest part of the video: there are apparently quite a few people who get their heads on straight enough to break with the official branch of Scientology, yet still buy into the "core beliefs" enough to follow a "reformation".

If religion wants to claim the moral high ground, it has to take the moral high ground. It doesn't. People are good and bad, whether atheist, christian, muslim, buddhist etc etc.

I think it's weird when people look at convicts and go "he's found Jesus, so he's good now".. why is that any indication? Fred Phelps?

I see Christianity (or any other religion) as a package deal, you can't just accept the good parts and leave the bad parts out - then it's not really christianity anymore, but your own new religion. You can choose to do the good actions, the actions you perceive to be good, while not accepting jesus, jehova or any other deity. And if having blind, unwavering faith is a good deed to you, then you might want to re-evaluate that before you get ripped off by a cult leader.

Some people may need a religious or religious-like structure to be good, but most don't. Why should it be imposed on those?

Anyway, this was an inspiring video, giving the convicts some dignity and something to take their minds off things.

That is your OPINION about religion. But real Religion..



And just like that, you invalidated your entire argument before you started. Your opinion is every bit as prone to flaws as ponceleon's are, except of course, that ponceleon has history and reality on his side. Time and again, religion is essential in convincing otherwise normal people about the most absurd nonsense. Do you really mean to tell me that this mans obviously confused view of sexuality is purely a result of his fallibility, and that he merely "abuses religion" to suit his own agenda? puhlease.

What separates "real" religion from "fake" religion? clearly religious people do not agree, and that really says it all, whether you are of the Fred Phelps type or the mother Theresa type, you all have 2 things in common:
1.No evidence in general that your religion is true, and
2.No evidence that your particular take on a particular religion is more "real" than any other take.

And dude, what the fuck is up with this "climategate" nonsense, I mean , seriously, what the fuck? Look, the science is in: Global warming is happening, it is man-made, and its time we deal with it. To think otherwise at this point is to suggest a worldwide conspiracy so vast, so tightly knit and so fantastically absurd that David Icke, who believes the world is run by reptiles in disguise, would be proud.

>> ^bobknight33:
Many people don't believe that there is a GOD.
But everyone knows of or had an experience of something that is not of this word. Some creepy feeling or hearing something or something that should not be has occurred. You can't deny that there is something beyond our sight and reach.
So if this is true, then how can you rule out the existence of GOD?


The other day... I was sitting in a chair in my backyard, when a faint wind rustled through the trees, and blew up my shorts.. my testicles tingled in divine acknowledgment. GOD was there. Tickling my balls with the wind. I just knew it.

>> ^bobknight33:
Many people don't believe that there is a GOD.
But everyone knows of or had an experience of something that is not of this word. Some creepy feeling or hearing something or something that should not be has occurred. You can't deny that there is something beyond our sight and reach.
So if this is true, then how can you rule out the existence of GOD?


To paraphrase, that which cannot be explained must have been caused by a god?

At one point our species pointed to thunder and lightning and made the same conclusion. Were they right? Or only until we figured out what it really was?

"They (Non-Muslims) are not sure about religious Truths."

He obviously hasn't met Fred Phelps yet.