Priest sets himself alight

[Kellanved]

A retired German clergyman who set fire to himself apparently in protest over the spread of Islam, has died in hospital, a Church spokesman said.

Roland Weisselberg, 73, doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire outside a monastery in Erfurt in central Germany on Tuesday - a national holiday in parts of the country to celebrate the Protestant reformation.
...
Vorwald said the bishop for the Erfurt region, Elfriede Begrich, was told by Weisselberg's widow that the priest left a suicide note in which he expressed concern about the spread of Islam in Germany and the Church's attitude towards it.
...
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Retired-priest-sets-himself-alight/2006/11/02/1162339950973.html

Wow. Just wow.

[ProgressiveFool]

1. I suppose a Darwin award

is inappropriate for a candidate that's celibate...

[atreides1]

4. You forgot to read this part

"was told by Weisselberg's widow"

He wasn't celibate if he left a widow!

[ProgressiveFool]

7. Doh!

Maybe she was just his housekeeper.

[Cronus Protagonist]

10. At least he didn't keep the note in his shirt pocket

Kudos to him and his gene pool for not being totally stupid.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. Post of the day.

:rofl: :yourock:

[MADem]

2. There's no rule that priests can never be of unsound mind NT

[johnnie]

3. I don't know what to say

Wow

[MissB]

5. I'm sure that helped.

[silverweb]

6. Idiot.

n/t

[Zensea]

8. Guess the above posters don't remember Vietnam

One of my first memories of the Vietnam War is of the buddhist monks setting themselves on fire.

Giving this man the Darwin award or calling him an idiot is kind of missing the point, not to say I agree with his perspective regarding Islam.

[WCGreen]

15. Those images will forever be etched in my mind....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. It's all about the reason.

There are good reasons and bad reasons.

Well, actually no, there's not such a thing as a good reason for setting oneself on fire*. But the Vietnam thing is at least understandable. The "spread of Islam" is only equivalent to the leveling of one's country in a sick fundie's mind.

*_{(Standard exceptions apply. Example: the realization that one is Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly and the full implications of the fact. Void where prohibited.)}

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. The article seems to have mixed up religions

The word "Church," with a capitol C, is used to mean the Catholic Church. Seeing as Weisselberg left a widow and seeing as this happened on a day to commemorate the Protestant Reformation, I find it highly unlikely that he had ever been involved with the Catholic Church or that the Church would be making any official comment.

[Kellanved]

12. The major German protestant churches are organized to a degree

which is comparable to the catholic Church. It's widely seen as "the" protestant Church, equal to the catholic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany

[Hubert Flottz]

11. Erfurt and burning folks, just kind of go together...

Auschwitz oven builders scrutinized at new Berlin exhibition

BERLIN, July 21 - Hartmut Topf has spent a lifetime trying to comprehend why family firm Topf & Soehne agreed 64 years ago to build crematoria for Auschwitz and enable industrialized mass murder.

He knows there can be no satisfactory answer.

A new Berlin exhibition sheds light on Topf, one of countless largely forgotten small firms to provide the technical know-how for the Holocaust. It tries to trace why this eastern German furnace maker became entangled with the Nazis, despite sensing what the ovens were being used for.

Fresh archive evidence shows the brothers who ran Topf, cousins of Hartmut's father, were not fanatic Nazis and faced no personal risk for declining orders for furnaces from Hitler's elite SS guards...more...

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Kremas/Topf_family.html

I wonder if they are working with Halliburton now, on the new camps being built in the USA?

[Sequoia]

13. That won't get him any stars on his crown.

[NOLADEM]

14. I am torn

On one hand, what a senseless tragedy.

On the other, what an asshole. Thank you for ridding the world of your presence.

Your views hurt those you claim to serve and inflame a world with little tolerance for more religious incitement.

[Atman]

16. It gets more like the Viet Nam wore every day.

Flashbacks, man! Acid-free. 'Cept back then it was monks.

.

[cigsandcoffee]

17. Well that settles it. I won't convert to Islam.

Jeez, what a nut.

[BoneDaddy]

20. I think we need to be concerned

about the spread of fundamentalism in general, be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism etc.

I welcome fundies of all religious the ability to live and practice their faith, regardless of how backwards I personally may think it is, but I don't want them influencing public secular government with Sharia or Biblical laws.