hummingwolf | (no subject)

that is not the memory I have of
him but perhaps you knew him
better, I say really without irony,
I can be wrong that he was a good man...

I say assuming you are speaking
of Jerry Falwell... if it is someone
else I retire in confusion.

Most of my memory has nothing to do with Falwell himself so much as with people's reactions to him. I won't pretend to know him better than anyone; I didn't care to pay him that much attention. I don't know if he felt the anger and hate that so many people ascribe to him, but apparently something in his actions or his attitude has helped to convince many people that Christianity has little, if anything, to do with Christ and God's love.

fair enough and likely it is in
part his fault but also many people
now are ready to call haters anyone who
disagrees with them and this too seems
to me to be a breakdown of public
discourse and a kind of madness.

but also many people
now are ready to call haters anyone who
disagrees with them and this too seems
to me to be a breakdown of public
discourse and a kind of madness

True indeed. It is hard to disagree with someone without being accused of being some kind of lesser human.

"One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only truth."
--Voltaire

I did not love the man in life, I will not claim to love him in death. His work, while he was alive, was harmful to myself and many I care about. That he is dead means he will not continue his work and for that, yes, I am glad.

Respect and truth belong together. Respect what a person is capable of while telling the truth about what they are.

I do not blame you for your feelings, believe me. I understand them. But there are many people who already focusing on their hatred for him, not realizing how much they are being the kind of person they believe him to have been. There's a lot of ugliness being expressed which doesn't do anybody any good.

What I note is that for every one person who has exulted at all in his death, there seem to be three decrying that it is horrible to take joy in another's demise.

Something is a bit odd about that.

I've seen but a very small amount of the predicted hate. Truthfully, it seems to me a bit more honest.

And I think honesty is a prerequisite for respect.

What I note is that for every one person who has exulted at all in his death, there seem to be three decrying that it is horrible to take joy in another's demise.

You must be hanging round with the genuinely civilized people, then. Good for you; that's probably healthier. I made the mistake of checking out other fora after his death and I rather wished I hadn't. Of course part of the reason I did visit those other places to see what they were saying was that those were places that people on the "right" were already visiting.

of the predicted hate. Truthfully, it seems to me a bit more honest.

I can understand the hate. From some people, it makes a certain amount of sense. But whole groups of people who think that Christians are bad because of their intolerance are now in danger of defining themselves by their own hate and intolerance of people with differing views. Those are the people that conservatives are listening to in order to find out what the liberals are saying.

I'm sure there's a self-selection process going on; I can only speak of what I observe.

What bothers me is that it seems most of the people saying that this death shouldn't be looked on as a positive thing had the same "Good!" reaction as just about everyone else - but then said "That's horrible! I can't say that!" and instead turned around and commented about how horrible their own reaction was - but without admitting to it.

It also appears that any happiness expressed at this death is being castigated as hateful. I don't fathom this; the man caused harm to a great many people - gays, Pagans, Muslims, even Christians - and I don't see why it should be wrong to be happy that he at least will not be able to continue his crusade.

What bothers me is that it seems most of the people saying that this death shouldn't be looked on as a positive thing

Well, I didn't say that. I fully understand people being relieved that Falwell is no longer able to speak (though there are plenty of people willing to take his place) and I don't have a problem with that. But people going into graphic detail about the ways in which they'd like to sodomize his corpse? I'd have to say that's hateful--and I wish I didn't see it, because there are some mental images I didn't need in my brain.

Ick. I think we're in agreement on that one.

And did I mention, ick?

I know exactly what you mean. It's really easy to hate, it just comes. Overpowering all sense of truth and common sense.
I know, because my first thought was: "oh well, good riddance". And then I thought, well, wasn't that just a strange thought to have? I mean, he never hurt me personally. I just disagreed with him.
So well, I'll definitely have to think about that some more...

On the other hand, the older I get, the less dramatic death seems to get. I've started to feel like it's just there. Death just is.

Maybe there's something weird with me...

know, because my first thought was: "oh well, good riddance".

It is easy to hate. And some groups of people, when they hear that this one person who proclaimed that their way of life is evil is now dead, are going to feel relief pretty much automatically. I get that. It's the people who wax eloquent about how much they want to deface his grave or mutilate his body that were getting to me yesterday.

I mean, he never hurt me personally. I just disagreed with him.

Yeah. I think he did damage to both politics and religion in my country--and, because the U.S. government has effects all over the world, in other countries as well. But he probably did what he did because he thought his opponents were doing damage to the country he loved (and violating the laws of the God he wanted to honor), not actually wanting to hurt people directly. He never killed anyone. And I could be wrong, but I don't remember him wanting to dance on anyone's grave.

Maybe there's something weird with me...

Of course you're weird; that's part of your charm. ;-)

I didn't like Falwell either, but I almost dreaded going on LJ tonight.

Visitng my friendsfriends page last night was... well, it was ugly.

I was never convinced that Christianity is defined by anger and hate; actually, one of the things that bothered me about Falwell was that he did, to me, appear to be twisting a message whose source I respect, if I question some of the messengers.

But you're right; my first reaction to the news was particularly Christian -- although in my defense I'm not Christian, I don't claim to be free of anger and hate, and my vitriol lasted only seconds, before disappearing.

actually, one of the things that bothered me about Falwell was that he did, to me, appear to be twisting a message whose source I respect,

Yeah. Falwell wasn't the worst example of that, but the Moral Majority helped make certain unpleasant things into major elements of the practice of both politics and religion in this country. As a Christian, I likely have a bigger problem with that than you do!

and my vitriol lasted only seconds, before disappearing.

See, I can totally understand that. Probably a lot of people I know and respect had a first reaction of "Woohoo!" It's the ones who were nourishing and cherishing that feeling while trying to make plans to desecrate his eventual grave who were getting to me.

Well, oddly enough, some members of the Moral Majority have placed me in a position where I find myself having to defend Christianity, although I'm a practicing agnostic. And I find many people assume that I became an agnostic because of the Moral Majority or because I had a dreadful time in church, neither one of which is true. I became an agnostic for intellectual reasons, after extensive Biblical studies and research, and I actually liked church and Sunday School when I was a kid.

I guess I thought of him as a clown. I'm trying to figure out why now. Probably because I had a friend in college who belonged to Assembly of God, and she loved Jimmy Swaggart's recordings of church hymns, which struck me as a little odd because that was about the time all these Evangelical preachers were getting caught with their pants down and such. Aside from my friend's oddly positive opinion of Fallwell, Swaggart, and their ilk, and the positive opinions from everyone in her youth group, I knew nothing about these guys except the jokes I heard on The Tonight Show. We Catholics really never cared.

Oh yeah, and Tammy Bakker with her surreal amount of make-up. Maybe that contributed to my idea that they were all clowns. Or maybe it was that they were performance artists. Catholic priests aren't usually performance artists on that level.

My only other thought beyond that has been, "Well, they'll all die sometime or other. Bakker, Graham, Swaggart, even Robertson." Actually I'm looking forward to the day Pat Robertson hangs up the ol' politics hat. If he does it before he physically dies, that's cool too.

That's Falwell, not Fallwell. Freudian typo! And also, this isn't really Hraith. It's me. Hee!

Falwell said plenty of things which, particularly when taken out of context, might have seemed too ridiculous to be taken seriously. But he's the guy who founded the Moral Majority and helped make the "Religious Right" a major force in politics in recent decades, so he was a bit more influential than the average clown.

I guess I don't pay much attention to that, either. It just doesn't factor into my life. It's weird to think that it factors into the lives of millions of other people. What are these people thinking? so alien to me.