swampgirl's got it right, the Falwells (Moral Majority) and Pat Robertsons (700 Club) and James Dobsons (Focus on the Family) of the world are so dangerous precisely because they ARE True Believers in the armageddon vision that they preach.

"Dr." Falwell. What a load of bullshit.

From Wiki:

Although he sometimes used the title "Doctor," Falwell held no earned doctorate. He held three honorary degrees: an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Tennessee Temple Theological Seminary, an honorary Doctor of Letters from California Graduate School of Theology (an unaccredited institution), and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Central University in Seoul, South Korea (an unaccredited institution).

"Doctor of Divinity". That's like having majored in the bogyman except that he didn't have to actually go to school for it.

"If you gave Falwell an enima he could be buried in a matchbox"

ROFL!

It is fun to watch the media dance of the seven veils (should we be solemn? or critical? will we offend red states?) with the death of bigot hatemonger Falwell.

Nice to see Hitchens cut through all of that.

Alan Colmes . . .what a waste of air . . . almost makes Hannity look coherent.

http://www.madcowprod.com/issue41.html

I grew up near lynchburg va and I remember falwell having his grubby hands in everything, Just because he's dead some networks don't won't to say anything bad about him. The above link will help put into perspective his comments about who was to blame for 9/11. Good christians are not judgmental, and weren't jerry falwell.

"Falwell was a spectacular piece of human trash."

Well said....and good riddance.

Falwell was a spectacular piece of human trash. I'm all for respecting the dead, but I'll gladly make an exception for someone who respected no one in life. It's good to hear some honest statements instead of politically-correct rhetoric.

Tags changed from "hitchens,falwell,truth" to "hitchens, falwell, truth, fundamentalism" by gold star member swampgirl.

Jerry Falwell, in his own words...

"The Bible is the inerrant... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc."

"There is no separation of church and state. Modern U.S. Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution."

"We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today... our battle is with Satan himself."

"You've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops and I am for the President — chase them all over the world, if it takes ten years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord."

"Since Jesus came to the earth the first time 2,000 years ago as a Jewish male, many evangelicals believe the Antichrist will, by necessity, be a Jewish male. This belief is 2,000 years old and has no anti-Semitic roots. This is simply historic and prophetic orthodox Christian doctrine that many theologians, Christian and non-Christian, have understood for two millennia"

"Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers."

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."

"The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this."
On responses to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"Homosexuals want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."

"If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

He doesn't understand something basic about fundamentals.

Jerry Falwell wasn't putting on when he said what he did about 9-11. The man truly believed that God was punishing America for...you name it, anything. Anything that defies (according to fundie evangelicals) what God is thinking we should be doing with ourselves will incur divine wrath.

Effigies of me would indeed be burned by the "anti-Mohammed cartoon" crowd. However, all the Muslims I have ever met are decent, thoughtful, and non-lethal. Unless evil needs to be confronted and then they fly off on the prayer rug and ass is kicked.

I still hold fast to my belief that you have to combine religion + politics to make an unstable compound. Do totalitarian manifestations of Islam exist in the world? Certainly. But that is not the whole picture and I would argue that radical Islam is not a particularly representative form of Muslim faith. It is similar in scope to evangelical Christianity (Dobson, Robertson, the late Falwell) as far as being representative of the whole faith.

Anyway, welcome and enjoy. Go find some cool Sifts and I will certainly upvote.

Saying that religion simply gives you the truth is simplistic way of following religious thought, the fact is that Jesus himself went through temptation by the devil should clarify that for anyone of Christian denomination. The Bible much like the Qu'ran in my eyes is a allegorical fable or parable. Simply taking it as the truth shows a lack of understanding or through thought about what religion implies.

It is not the fault of religion that it has been corrupted by various individuals that claim to follow the word of God fully. Especially if you follow Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Moqtda Sadr and other people who think they can speak for God in our times.

My personal belief is that religion was primitive mans first steps in trying to contextualize the world we live in. This is something you see the Founding fathers talk about alot since it was before Darwin and other scientific ideas.

also, maybe this guy:
http://www.videosift.com/member_comments.php?user_login=adena
obviously related to the poster in
http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-responds-to-Jerry-Falwells-students
http://www.videosift.com/user.php?login=atalai

Excuse me.

You wanna talk about hypocrisy? the pilgrims colonists originally left Great Britain because of RELIGIOUS PROSECUTION, why the hell do you think there is a vast separation between church and state, because the founding fathers didn't want that repeated. So now we are supposed to go back on that?

So a human being needs to be religious to develop a feeling of morality? Of what is right and wrong? that is a innate quality in all human beings. Thinking that one attains that only from religion is very naive.

And the last statement the woman makes, about Europe being mostly atheists, thus becoming more Islamic? So Islamic is instantly not religious and somewhat evil or worse? No wonder Paula Zahn ends it there because that was blatantly racist and xenophobic.

Strong Christians? Am sorry but Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard and Pat Robertson don't constitute strong Christians.

* Rush Limbaugh -- sought deferment (because of a cyst on his tail end).
* George Will -- sought graduate school deferment, (too smart to die).
* Pat Buchanan -- sought deferment (for bad knee).
* Pat Robertson -- his US Senator father got him out of Korea as soon as the shooting began.

* Sean Hannity: did not serve.
* Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
* Chris Matthews: did not serve.
* Matt Drudge: did not serve.
* Steve Forbes: did not serve.
* Tony Snow: did not serve.
* Michael "Savage" Weiner: did not serve.
* Brit Hume: did not serve.
* Roger Ailes: did not serve.

# Paul Gigot: did not serve.
# Bill Kristol: did not serve.
# Ralph Reed: did not serve.
# Michael Medved: did not serve.
# Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
# Anne Coulter: did not serve.
# Jerry Falwell: did not serve.
# Alan Keyes : did not serve.
# Ted Nugent: did not serve.

* Karl Rove: did not serve.
* Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
* Richard Perle: did not serve.
* Douglas Feith: did not serve.
* Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
* Ari Fleischer: did not serve.
* Andrew Card: did not serve.
* Ken Adelman: did not serve.
# Mitt Romney - did not serve in the military but did serve the Mormon Church on a 30-month mission to France.
# John Bolton: did not serve.
# Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
# Bill Frist: did not serve.
# John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments, to teach business.
# Trent Lott : avoided the draft, did not serve.
* Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee" He defeated tripelegic Max Cleland by questioning his patriotism!
* Don Nickles: did not serve.
* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
* Rick Santorum: did not serve.