My world view requires that I forgive Jerry Falwell.

[Ron Green]

I have felt unmitigated hate toward this asshat for years. He has done more damage to the fabric of our society than almost anyone you can name. But my understanding of God and of what is expected of humans on earth compels me to forgive this guy, and see him as a misguided man rather than an evil one; after all, evil, to me, is simply extreme separation from God.

Am I successful at this forgiveness? No. But I know what I'm called upon to do, and I'll continue to work on it. (The real pisser is that I mustn't wait till the guy is dying to do this.)

[Chovexani]

1. Good thing mine doesn't. (n/t)

[BlueEyedSon]

2. But only AFTER he dies, right?

:)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. Mine calls for me to do the opposite and call for his death

Fewer assholes on earth equals less grief on earth.

But I have no objection to your world view. Viva la difference!

[trotsky]

32. Amen, nsma. n/t

[Zenlitened]

4. Mine allows me to feel relief that...

... there will be that much less evil in the world when he finally dies.

The death of Jerry Falwell will be a good thing, a positive development.

[Warpy]

13. You can't kill an idea

not even an idea that gets discredited over and over again throughout history. It keeps coming back.

Foulwell's bad ideas, his bigotry, his intolerance, his justification of intolerable means by unattainable ends will live on long after he is dead and dust.

I don't wish for his death. I wish for his enlightenment so that he begins to repudiate those ideas while he is here and influential.

[Zenlitened]

19. I think you're more optimistic than I am...

... if you can honestly hope for enlightenment for Falwell.

As for killing an idea, I agree, you're right. Evil will live on after he finally dies. But there will be one less agent of evil to help it spread, and that's progress.

I do indeed wish for his death. He is a powerful man who uses his power to spread hatred and lies. His death will leave this world a measurably better place.

[Nite Owl]

5. Personally I think he's a

good candidate for hell but I also believe in a forgiving and loving God so that is really between them and if in the end he would make amends and see the harm he has done and ask forgiveness then he has hope.

[Walt Starr]

6. I'm glad mine doesn't

Forgiveness is not an absolute requirement in my worldview. I only forgive those who show some modicum of sorrow for their evil acts.

[Crankie Avalon]

7. If there is such a thing as God and it is God's plan that Falwell go...

...who am I to argue?

If he gets to stick around a little longer, I can only hope a near death experience might finally give him a wiser perspective and a little compassion and humanity.

[Ron Green]

9. That would be the best outcome, I think.

If he were to come back from death's door and recant all the bullshit that he's promulgated over the years, it would be a wonderful transformation on the order of George Wallace's metamorphosis.

[kweerwolf]

18. Well said!

Some folks come back from near death experiences very changed. Perhaps that is Falwell's fate.

I do hope that if he gets a glimpse of heaven, God will be able to point out the error of Jerry's ways to him and then send him back to preach the same kind of message Jesus taught 2,000 years ago.

Failing that, I'd be satisfied if Jerry discovered in his hear death experience that heaven resembles a gay bath house with hunky leather-clad angels who wrap new arrivals in tiny towels and make catty comments about the size of his genitals. Then just before ushering Jerry into the presence of God Almighty, they hand Jerry an industrial-size jar of Vasoliine and whisper, "Here. You'll need this."

[Boomer]

8. Sigh.

Sometimes trying to adhere to principles can be such a downer.

My inner child is blowing raspberries at Falwell, and my outer adult is trying to rally a reprimand. It's not very sincere yet, but perhaps a little practice will lend some force to the gesture.

Or maybe not.

Frankly, I'm more inclined to don a hairshirt for not opposing the Iraq war with every fiber of my being. Considering all the evil I have allowed to pass without chaining myself to the White House gates in protest, I'm not feeling too guilty about wishing Falwell godspeed to meet his maker.

Not proud of it, but it still ranks pretty low on my list of sins.

[ozymandius]

10. Couldn't you make an exception? n/t

[Ron Green]

17. LOL - He would be one deserving the exception, wouldn't he? But then where

would I draw the line? Forgive Hastert but not Delay? Forgive Frist but not Lott? It's either all or nothing. If you believe in an infinite consciousness, as I do, you must allow that this brief life on earth is but a tiny speck in the big scheme, in which we are surely much more than the players of our parts here on earth. My job as part of God is not to judge, but to look within myself and find the love to overcome the constant fear that comes with being part of the physical creation.

That doesn't mean, however, that I will vote for the assholes.

[ozymandius]

22. Probably on a case-by-case basis is how I would regard these people.

With Falwell, as with many demagogues like him, I see someone who creates moral absolutes out of the poetic metaphor of scripture. I see someone who has fomented hatred for self-adulation and the accumulation of material wealth. His vitriolic energy has been focused on damning others as a way to elevate himself as some moral authority. He and his ilk really surprise me that they have not exploded (or imploded) from their boiling hatred of others not like them.

Then, if you can forgive your enemies and in fact come to understand and love them, unsubjugated to their desire to have power over you, then you are much closer to the divine than I am.

[Ron Green]

27. The sweet irony of this is that Falwell and his ilk are truly "of the

world," a phrase they like to throw at liberals and others. In other words, enmity, control, and judgment are characteristics of fear and separation, found here on earth in abundance. Unconditional love, which Falwell has never shown, is what I believe the Eternal is all about, and what I think we're supposed to embrace, to the extent we can amidst the fear.

I fully acknowledge that I'm not very good at this forgiveness thing, and I'm certainly not any better than anyone else, but I DO GET that finding love rather than fault is my task here.

Being "in the world but not of the world" is a phrase often thrown about by the religious right, but I wonder if they've ever really thought about what it means.

[lala_rawraw]

11. Good for you

You are a better person than I am. I don't think there is enough water to wash this much blood off the Falwell - Dobson - Cheney - Bush, et al damage to this planet, its people, and to this country.

It is not my feeling that I need to forgive anyone. That is between him and his maker (whoever his maker is). I am more interested in helping the victims he and his ilk help create. I do respect your feelings on this and I am not trying to be glib, if it seems that way.

You are, as I said, better person than I am. I simply do not feel I need to forgive him or his to feel peace within myself.

[Ron Green]

21. I'm not a better person than you.

But in the terms in which we're talking, you and I are equal, and ironically, Jerry Falwell is equal, too, a child of God despite the havoc he has wreaked. I can't say that I don't despise him and wish that his message could be erased from the world, but as someone else pointed out, the message will be here, from someone else's mouth if not Falwell's.

As I said before, I'm not yet successful at this forgiveness, but I truly believe that forgiving the world, including the jerks, is forgiving myself.

[gratuitous]

12. I can't bring myself to hate Brother Falwell

He's not that powerful that he can countermand the far higher calling of someone whose sandal he's not fit to unlace, but he has as much to answer for in his life as anyone else. If the time has come for him to be called home, then I want for him at least as much grace as will be available to me at that time, and more if that's what he needs.

It will be a golden shore indeed on which Brother Falwell preaches the true gospel of God's overwhelming and abiding love for all of humanity and all of creation.

[Old and In the Way]

14. Wouldn't want to be in his shoe's when he meets his Maker.

Same for Pat, Benny, Rev. Moon, et al.

I think God can forgive a lot, but using his name to do evil is really asking for it....

[leftofthedial]

15. man. that must suck

I hope he suffers and dies and eats up his ill-gotten fortune doing it.

[kedrys]

16. I respectfully disagree

While I admire your intestinal fortitude in answering the call of what you know is right, I believe that some people are unredeemable, and any forgiveness in their case must be granted by God - or not at all.

That said, it could be argued that your position makes you a better person than I.

[AlGore-08.com]

24. Even if some people are irredeemable, how can we know who they are?

Somebody earlier pointed out George Wallace as an example of somebody who was able to see the error of their ways and reformed. Who here can honestly say they would have been able to predict that ahead of time? IMNSHO it's extreme hubris to believe we know who is irredeemable and who is redeemable - - it's no different than fundamentalists claiming that all liberals are damned to Hell.

Jerry Falwell has much to answer for, but he's still a human being. I'm not glad that he and his family are suffering right now.

[RetroLounge]

20. Bah...

Mine doesn't. Mine requires me to be Gleeful when an evil boil is lanced from humanity.

I like my World View more than yours...

RL

[LynneSin]

23. I don't know if I can forgive him, but I know I'm going to fight harder...

...these people, all of them, have to be stopped. They are all the leaders of the American Taliban and it frightens me how they want to force their will (sometimes not even one they practice) on the little folks of the world

[Deja Q]

25. And he's said the exact same thing of many other people.

[0007]

26. My world view will be when we can see Jerry Falwell

in this painting of "HELL" on the right. Paradise is on the left.

Man, the folks that painted in those days must have had some far out stuff. Kind of like Timothy Leary's stash.

[Ron Green]

28. Life must have been so grim that they imagined lots more of it if they

didn't do what the priests told them to do. It's surprising how little the message of Falwell has advanced beyond the Middle Ages.

[0007]

33. Yes, and Jerry Falwell loved playing the role of "High Priest"

and having folks belive that he was the omnipotent power that had all the answers.

[yodermon]

29. Forgive Hitler then.

(obligatory provocative subject line, sorry. )

But seriously, I don't believe you are under any obligation to "forgive" this guy, unless you know him personally. Forgiveness, to me, is sort of a two-way street -- it is done to heal relationships. Do you have a relationship with falwell? If you go through the mental gymnastics of "forgiving" a total stranger, what exactly has occurred besides your mental gymnastics? I guess you could send him a letter saying "I forgive you", but again, without an actual relationship with him, I can't classify this as real "forgiveness" (for me, I'm saying).

At any rate, I think you're on the right track with "evil". For me it goes like this: there is no evil, there are only damaged human beings, re-staging the damage that was done to them. Some of them come into positions of power where they cavort and conspire together, thus magnifying the damage they do, but in reality they were all just little kids once, and sometime between their birth and Now, some (usually horrible) measure of trauma was done to them. This is not excusing the wrong that they do, it is simply explaining it. And once you can explain a phenomenon, without resorting to magical terms like "evil" or "original sin" .. you can actually do something about it without feeling powerless against it.

I Hope that makes sense.

[Ron Green]

35. The idea of forgiving a total stranger works only if I imagine that

stranger to be my brother, along with all strangers. Even further, I can imagine him to be my SELF, which is true at the highest level where we are all part of the One. Now, I'm not saying that I'm capable of any such thing, but to me that is the ideal, to forgive even Hitler as a fellow human, despite his inhumanity. This, I believe, is true atonement, forgiveness of my (asshole) self, as forgive everyone else's asshole selves as well.

And if there is a God, then the perfect True Self will be attained someday, somehow. Meanwhile, bound here by time and space and in pain and fear, we fight the good fight. I'm just glad DU is such a rowdy and interesting place, where so many are willing to question stuff.

[grumpy old fart]

30. Oh I forgive him. Still happy if he'd die, but I forgive him.....

there's enough hate spewing mullahs in this country to take his place...

[_TJ_]

31. At times like this I'm glad to be an atheist.

So I can say fuck 'em and the horse he rode in on.

[Ron Green]

34. Yeah, say it once or twice for me, too!!