…and this is a 
The Church of Hate
Category: Religion
Posted on: December 9, 2007 11:21 AM, by PZ Myers
Would you care to attend Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church for a morning? Philip Bloom has a short documentary in which he used a hidden camera in the Phelps compound. It's as you might expect: raging howls of a sermon, condemnations and hatred, people hoping that millions of others die and go to hell. Phelps has 13 children (11 of whom are lawyers!) and 54 grandchildren, and looking around the pews there can't be many more attendees than that.
The end is particularly disturbing when two of Phelps' teenaged granddaughters come up to regurgitate the very same hate speech at the reporter. It's also kind of creepy because they look so alike, and like Shirley Phelps Roper, and Fred Phelps … just how inbred are these people?
I'm afraid, though, that there's a little interlude in the middle with a liberal minister in Topeka, and she's saying with such certainty the usual platitudes about how god is love and he wouldn't countenance Phelps' activities, etc., and I found that just as offensive as Phelps' screeching about god's nature and desires. They're both ignorant, and they're both saying what they think their congregation wants to hear.
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Crashes under Firefox (with Quicktime) and IE (with Quicktime). I'm sure it's scary though.
Posted by: Moses | December 9, 2007 11:37 AM
Have you seen Louis Theroux's documentary-ish thing on them? ('The Most Hated Family In America': http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4413388146858417528 ) He didn't have to use a hidden camera, and it's really quite interesting/disturbing.
Posted by: Bob the Guitar | December 9, 2007 11:39 AM
God is love... OF SMITING!
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | December 9, 2007 11:48 AM
NB: That video seems kind of slow to load, but it's the only copy I can find. It really is worth watching, though... You get to see a somewhat different side to some of them. I, at least, ended up feeling great pity for the granddaughter Louis spends the most time talking to, rather than hating her.
Posted by: Bob the Guitar | December 9, 2007 11:48 AM
Every time I see that family I think there must be some inbreeding going on. I think Daddy Phelps has been a very bad boy. Some of his daughters have left the church, I hear, and no longer speak to him. I wonder why.
Posted by: MarcusA | December 9, 2007 12:01 PM
If you can take any more of the hating here's another 'God Hates' documentary about the Phelps clan by the British actor Keith Allen (father of Lilly). http://tinyurl.com/2qh2kz
Posted by: Sigmund | December 9, 2007 12:04 PM
It's scary how people can be so brainwashed once their petty fears and hatreds are justified. I think the mind-boggling thing is that I didn't realize Phelps used to be a civil rights lawyer.
How the hell does one person become that unhinged? I'd like to just chalk it up to simple self-loathing, but he seems to be suffering some pretty severe mental illness(es).
Crazy, evil bastards all.
Posted by: Dan | December 9, 2007 12:07 PM
Raise your hand if you think Fred Phelps is gay.
It seems that every time you hear some religious zealot ranting about homosexuality it turns out they are gay or involved in other "sinful" sexual or illegal activities and were just engaging in what I call smoke screen piety.
Posted by: Todd | December 9, 2007 12:08 PM
I'd like to know what the apologists say about phelps. not much you can put a spin on to say that christianity is good and worth while.
Posted by: Michael | December 9, 2007 12:17 PM
"How the hell does one person become that unhinged?"
He read the Bible.
It says:
1) You must kill all homosexuals.
2) Nations that do not do this displease God.
3) God collectively punishes nations that displease him.
Posted by: Chris | December 9, 2007 12:24 PM
On a non-related note the BBC have Richard Dawkins on live (well, live a few minutes ago) answering listeners questions on God and religion. It should still be there - click the 'watch' link.
http://tinyurl.com/3xbotz
Posted by: Sigmund | December 9, 2007 12:36 PM
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
---Anne Lamott, writer. (See her non-fiction "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith")
Posted by: Olorin | December 9, 2007 12:38 PM
Sigh, it's really disappointing when people put up an equivalence between liberal christians and pseudo-nazi asshole dirtbags like Phelps. (Especially with the probably false insinuation that neither believe what they are saying.)
There's a measurable difference between the ones who you might have a reasonable argument with over coffee, and the ones who want to kill us all.
The bible doesn't say you must kill all homosexuals.
Posted by: FhnuZoag | December 9, 2007 12:52 PM
I found that just as offensive as Phelps' screeching about god's nature and desires.
No, PZ, hatred is always more offensive than love and tolerance. Come on. I grasp and sympathize with what you're trying to get across, but this is self-parody.
Posted by: Chris | December 9, 2007 1:05 PM
That's right. It only says we must kill the male homosexuals who act on it. That's a BIG difference, isn't it?
Phelps is so scary because, unlike the liberal Christians, he really does get his morality from the Bible.
Posted by: Dustin | December 9, 2007 1:24 PM
FhnuZoag
You are, of course, absolutely correct, FZ, and the measurable difference is how much time they spend alternately ignoring or interpreting the bible.
Case in point:
Leviticus 20:13If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Pwned.
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 1:28 PM
Watched Louis Theroux's special a few months ago... it's really sad actually. The one girl he spent most of the time talking to clearly was very conflicted. You could tell that she must have wanted to leave at one time but just couldn't bring herself to lose her entire family and the whole world she'd grown up with. Not uncommon for victims of abuse, which all of the Phelps kids certainly are.
Posted by: craig | December 9, 2007 1:28 PM
"Leviticus 20:13If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable."
What if he does it differently?
Posted by: craig | December 9, 2007 1:31 PM
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 1:37 PM
Speaking of hate-sermons:
"They're both ignorant, and they're both saying what they think their congregation wants to hear."
whoa, project much?
Posted by: Chris | December 9, 2007 2:11 PM
The Bible most certainly does advocate violence against gay people.
I hate to trot out Leviticus again but here we go:
20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
The italicization of the last part is from the The Skeptic's Annotated Bible.
Which makes us wonder, why haven't they put Ted Haggard to death yet? Perhaps their Bible contains more contradictions than they're willing to admit.
Posted by: Tony P | December 9, 2007 2:27 PM
Sigh, it's really disappointing when people put up an equivalence between liberal christians and pseudo-nazi asshole dirtbags like Phelps. (Especially with the probably false insinuation that neither believe what they are saying.)
1) Funny how the outrage by other christians against Phelps didn't move from the "tsk-tsk" stage until he stopped limiting his vile spew to "teh gai". Then he was just an extremeist, but as soon as he starts picking on people christians like, THEN he's evil and MUST BE STOPPED.
2) When Christians stop using Stalin to represent athiests, I'll give a fuck about their protests about Phelps being used to represent them.
Posted by: John C. Welch | December 9, 2007 2:43 PM
As said, Phelps has 13 children and 54 grandchildren. That puts his Simple Darwinian Fitness higher than most humans. Indeed there is no justice.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | December 9, 2007 2:45 PM
One side says God is Love.
Another side says God is Hate.
Couldn't we split the difference?
Why not say: God is Apathy.
Religious activism would be a contradiction in terms.
Posted by: Pyre | December 9, 2007 2:46 PM
"As said, Phelps has 13 children and 54 grandchildren. That puts his Simple Darwinian Fitness higher than most humans. Indeed there is no justice."
Fitnes higher for now. What happens when his ignorant hatred-soaked type (because of their natural tendencies) decide to have an all-out killing war with others of the same ilk? Short term fitness...whatever.
Posted by: Dahan | December 9, 2007 2:50 PM
Tony P and others,
Wrong. The bible most definitely does not say to kill homosexuals, any more than it teaches that to kill blasphemers. The bible teaches that in pre-Christian-era Israel, practicing homosexuals (and blasphemers) were to be executed. It also gives about 600 other laws, none of which are in effect today--they were the civil laws for a nation that no longer exists, and they died with that nation. Of course, this is an inconvenient fact for many readers here, because it is much easier for bigots and the weak-minded to have a caricature for a villain. So people with no knowledge whatsoever of the relationship between the OT law and NT grace will insist that the levitical death sentences are still in effect. It is so easy to say that the Christians who (correctly) insist that there is no biblically-mandated executable offense are wrong and they just choose to ignore their own bible--because if they are right (which they are) you'd have to do more homework. But some people here are lazy, or just not up to the task, or both--so they the lazy route. No surprise there.
And please don't come back with Jesus' "jot and tittle" verse, unless you actually know what you are talking about.
John C. Welch
Huh? Christians have been condemning Phelps, who is not a Christian by the way, from day one.
Posted by: heddle | December 9, 2007 2:50 PM
On the other hand, Dahan, Evolution does not care one whit about long term fitness, if anything at all.
Posted by: Stanton | December 9, 2007 2:53 PM
"Phelps has now been given two chances to show that he is capable of conducting himself in a manner that is expected of an attorney. On both occasions he had flagrantly violated the oath he swore to uphold. He should not be given a third opportunity to harm the public or the judicial system. Fred W. Phelps Sr. should be disbarred."
The Kansas Supreme Court agreed.
The justices wrote: "The seriousness of the present case coupled with his previous record leads this court to the conclusion that respondent has little regard for the ethics of his profession."
The justices concluded: "The practice of law is a privilege rather than a right and by his conduct, respondent (Phelps) has forfeited his privilege. We find he should be disciplined by disbarment and assessed the costs of this action." The date was July 20, 1979.
Everything one would ever want to know about these weasels can be found at the Topeka Capital-Journal website http://cjonline.com/webindepth/phelps/
Posted by: Grolaw | December 9, 2007 3:05 PM
Stanton #27,
Gota give ya that one.
heddle #26,
You make a common mistake in assuming the ignorance of those who post here to the bible, OT NT etc. Many of us here are quite well versed. I mayself have somewhere around 14 years of education in these matters.
You come off as a shrill apologist, and an abrasive one at that. Looking to troll a bit are we?
Posted by: Dahan | December 9, 2007 3:07 PM
When different sects of Christians argue over what God (or the Bible) really says and means, it's similar to when different schools of astrology argue over what the stars and planets really advise or portend.
You can pick out which groups are making sense anyway. You can examine which groups are closer to "classic" methods. You can distinguish between groups that have come up with astrological charts which only inspire benign or even positive actions when seen from a non-astrological perspective -- verses the groups which routinely advocate violence, or inspire their followers to see dangers and benefits which differ greatly from the non-astrological perspective.
But when push comes to shove, astrology is pseudoscience, and it should be thrown out. Heaping praise or compliments on the nice, normal astrologers who have managed to hook astrology up with basic psychology, history, or common sense is counterproductive. "Today is a good day to get to those projects you have been putting off, help someone else, and thank someone else who helped you, because Leo is on the cusp." No, they are not "doing astrology the correct way."
One might argue that they are doing it a better way than the yahoos who are claiming that the planet Mars in Capricorn means it's time to go to war -- but in a sense there is still a dangerous equivalence. The results are different, sure, but the methods are the same. And there is no objective, neutral ground where it becomes clear that the methods of some astrologers are right because non-astrologers like the results -- but the other ones are wrong, because non-astrologers don't like the results.
Since when do either the stars or the gods care what skeptics think?
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 9, 2007 3:10 PM
Heddle, the ChristoFascists pick and choose whatever they want from either the Old Testament (Book of Dreck) or the New Testament (Book of Nonsense) to support whatever vision of God they choose for themselves in the context of whatever moral high horse they happen to be riding at the time of their choosing. It is an excuse for virtually anything and everything depending upon what one picks and chooses. Religion is an excuse for not having any morality based upon one's own thoughts, considerations and knowledgeable awareness, as well as an open door for authoritarian manipulation of the ignorant.
Posted by: ChemBob | December 9, 2007 3:11 PM
Oops. Change "methods are" to "system is."
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 9, 2007 3:15 PM
PZ, you rightly and frequently say that religion doesn't cause people to be good or bad, but in can enable their worst instincts. The point is that people are going to be good or bad anyway, and their evil deeds are often done in the name of a god, which provides some cover from criticism.
Anyway, my point is that some people are good and some are bad, religion aside, and Fred Phelps is very, very bad. And to compare his fathomless hatred to a liberal preacher's message of love and tolerance is itself incredibly offensive and stupid. Come on. You know better than that.
Posted by: Slippery Pete | December 9, 2007 3:27 PM
And yes, I am an atheist and I think both preachers are wrong about the existance of a god...but Fred is most certainly infinitely more dangerous and despicable than some anodyne milquetoast liberal preacher.
Posted by: Slippery Pete | December 9, 2007 3:30 PM
Didn't Calvinist Geneva execute some people for sodomy? I guess they weren't Christians, either.
Posted by: windy | December 9, 2007 3:31 PM
Yes, I know that Christians do both good and evil, and that atheists do both good and evil. I equate Phelps and that liberal preacher because the real difference between us isn't our potential for good and evil, but how we resolve our choice: both that preacher and Phelps, rather than using reason and human values, make an authoritarian appeal to an unknowable entity, and both claim to know the motivations of that supernatural being.
They're both lying, one for love and one for hate. I don't care what their goals are, they're both doing the same thing...lying.
Posted by: PZ Myers | December 9, 2007 3:36 PM
Phelps is blatantly contemptible, and I don't think the majority of Americans are likely to succumb to his particular evil delusions. That preacher? More dangerous. Many will see her message as attractive, and will not question her methods at all.
Posted by: PZ Myers | December 9, 2007 3:41 PM
Heddle:
'The bible teaches that in pre-Christian-era Israel, practicing homosexuals (and blasphemers) were to be executed'.
A perfect example of how moral relativism lies at the heart of Christianity. We atheists supposedly are dangerous because we don't believe in some objective, transcendent set of moral laws. However, according to the Bible, things were mandated in ancient Israelite society (e.g. executing gays) that would now be considered morally wrong if they were carried out today. Either homosexual behaviour is an 'abomination' worthy of death or it is not. According to Heddle and his ilk it all depends where and when in history it took place. Absurd.
That aside, what kind of a 'God' EVER mandates execution for gay sex or for 'blasphemy'? Well, the kind of God that also has no problem with slavery, stoning, burning, hand chopping, genocide, and war crimes, and who sends disease, wild animals, famine, and armies against his own 'chosen people', a God who dashes babies to the ground and rips open pregnant women (Hosea 13:16).
Posted by: Edmund Standing | December 9, 2007 3:41 PM
Windy
You point is precisely why, despite what the John-Birch-like black-helicopter types 'round here would have us believe (that there is a reconstructionist under every bed) the majority of Christians are not theonomists. A theocracy, such as Calvin's Geneva, can certainly enact death sentences for things like blasphemy--but what they cannot do is make a biblical case that it was the right thing to do.
Edmund,
No you are not dangerous. You like to think that we think you are dangerous, but we don't. We have this verse that teaches us that he who is within us is stronger than he who is in the world--so why would there be any reason to consider atheists dangerous? They are impotent when it comes to posing any risk to Christianity.
The bible is chock-full of situational ethics, and civil laws are a prime example.
Posted by: heddle | December 9, 2007 3:52 PM
Deuteronomy orders that disobedient children be taken to the city gate and stoned to death.
Sounds pretty drastic and these days that would get you a long jail sentence.
What struck me as odd, no one has ever found piles of tiny bones at the gates of ancient Jewish cities. Nor AFAIK, has anyone ever done anything like this.
My best guess. When whoever was writing Deuteronomy was frothing at the mouth and ranting and raving, the average Israeli just shrugged their shoulders, said what a nutcase, and ignored him. Maybe he was the Fred Phelps of 1000 BC.
Posted by: raven | December 9, 2007 3:55 PM
i think we should be a little more careful about lumping the whole of the bible in with the "wrathful god" idea. presuming that the bible is all one thing is the same basic mistake that the fundamentalists make, and it is utterly untrue.
in particular, with the homosexuality issue, there are two very diverse sides presented in the bible. the bit that commands the execution of "men who lay with men" is, frankly, taken a little bit out of context by everyone. it's in a section of sexual commandments, in a book of ritual purity laws directed at the priestly class (leviticus), and is meant to be in strict contrast to the canaanite fertility cults. in those cults, it was common practice for the priests to engage in sexual relations with the people, as a form of worship. bodily fluids considered offerings. it's something the authors of bible generally despised (sodom is probably a mangling of this practice, and ham's rape of noah is probably regarding the same thing). so leviticus commands the priests to engage in no such activities -- no temple prostitution.
are consentual homosexual relationships out? well, look at david and jonathan. the greatest king israel ever had had a gay lover. so while mixing sex (any kind of sex) with religion = abomination, it appears that the butt-sex itself isn't that big of an issue, even in the old testament.
Posted by: arachnophilia | December 9, 2007 3:56 PM
heddle, you state that "A theocracy, such as Calvin's Geneva, can certainly enact death sentences for things like blasphemy--but what they cannot do is make a biblical case that it was the right thing to do."
As you would say...wrong. They certainly could and did. It's just a case you, yourself, don't happen to believe or agree with. It certainly has as much merit as any other though. That's the problem. You can use the bible to justify just about damn near anything you want to believe. Since it's a fairy tale anyways, why not just leave it be and think for yourself?
Posted by: Dahan | December 9, 2007 4:00 PM
"We have this verse that teaches us that He who is within us is stronger than he who is in the world -- so why would there be any reason to consider atheists equal citizens? They who are only of the world are impotent when it comes to justifying their worth, value, and rights."
"We have this verse that teaches us that he who is within us is stronger than he who is in the world -- so why would there be any reason to refrain from fighting the infidel? They are impotent when it comes to posing any risk to the dominion of Allah over the world."
Yes, I know. My point is not that these are all saying the same thing, or that they are equivalent. It's that when you start out believing that you have an Inner Strength within you that is not of this world -- that you are guided by a Supernatural Force which cannot be resisted -- tolerance for others does not necessarily follow as night follows day.
It can just as easily flip the other way -- and then they will also point sincerely and confidently and with the utmost humility to the Word of God or their own Undeniable Personal Revelation -- and shake their heads ruefully over those who misinterpret, distort, ignore, and fail to understand.
"Proper scholarship" is not going to resolve disputes among sects and religions. If it could there wouldn't be all the sects and religions. The only way to resolve different appeals to God is for GOD ITSELF to make it completely clear who really got everything right. And not by "working through men." No. Not by natural disasters and portents in the heavens. No. Directly.
Don't settle for a substitute, I say.
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 9, 2007 4:17 PM
I get the impression from Heddle that many Christians consider the Old Testament "mythology" while the New Testament is "truth." The concept of Salvation by Grace is a true path from the mythological punishments of the stone-your-kids God to eternal bliss in heaven, right? Wait, wait, I think I feel a verse coming on from the New Testament:
It may just be me, but it seems as though God is leading apostates to homosexuality, "harding their hearts," or something like it.
God is Love, Sailor.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | December 9, 2007 4:18 PM
Posted by: Bobby | December 9, 2007 4:29 PM
As a homosexual, ex-jesuit, I love it when people tell me that the Bible clearly condems homosexuality. They always refer to Leviticus.
I calmly remind them that :
The original hebrew Mosaic code :
"V'et zachar lo tishkav mishk'vey eeshah toeyvah hee."
First part describes what one shall not do :
"V'et zachar lo tishkav mishk'vey eeshah",
literally means :
"And with a male you shall not lay lyings of a woman"
now, this clearly does not refer to what we modern consider as homosexual acts nor relationships.
Nobody knows what it means. Does it mean you should not go in the bed of a woman with another man ? Does make sense as those days, the bed of a woman was sacred.
Second part "toeyvah hee" is an even bigger problem :
"toeyvah" got translated into "abomination" (ie moral sin) but the correct word for that should have been "zimah". Moreover, in the greek Septuagint (the OT of the earliest Christian bibles), it got translated into "bdelygma" which means "ritual impurity".
(on the same level as, for example;
getting a tattoo, planting a grass seed mixture in one's front lawn, wearing a cotton-polyester shirt, eating shellfish, munching on some barbequed pork ribs, or eating supper with a person who follows another religion.)
Conclusion, what the writer(s) of Leviticus meant was for sure very different from what we consider as homosexuality, and how strongly it was condemned is unclear in the hebrew version, and just an impurity (not a sin) in the greek version.
Of course, I am not even talking about the basic assumption as to whether the writer(s) of Leviticus were truly "inspired" by God, that's just a waste of time with a Christian.
Believe me, I do convert quite a number of Christians to accepting homosexuality with this. It might be a long way to getting them to understand a more important idea that the only "God inspiritation" is that of "thinking in one's head", but that's a different issue alltogether.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2007 4:38 PM
"Wrong. The bible most definitely does not say to kill homosexuals, any more than it teaches that to kill blasphemers."
God's hatred for homosexuality and his desire that its practitioners be killed is spelled out in stark language in multiple places in both OT and NT. In Romans, Paul himself concludes that homosexuals and other perverts are "worthy of death"
"The bible teaches that in pre-Christian-era Israel, practicing homosexuals (and blasphemers) were to be executed."
For well over 1000 years, Christians have construed the Bible as calling for the death of homosexuals, and acted upon that interpretation. Christian violence towards homosexuals is so pervasive and so well-documented that you just can't escape from it with a simple "well that was only Leviticus."
Phelps' is adhering to the traditional interpretation of the Bible. Everyone disagreeing with him is going with a modern, cherry-picked version.
Posted by: Gerber Baby | December 9, 2007 4:42 PM
It clearly means "no gangbangs".
Posted by: Dustin | December 9, 2007 4:51 PM
"I love it when people tell me that the Bible clearly condems homosexuality. They always refer to Leviticus."
Sorry, but:
1) It's not just Leviticus that condemns homosexuality, nor is it a single passage in Leviticus.
2) It's condemned in Greek, in the New Testament.
3) The multiple references taken as a whole make a pretty airtight case that they are indeed talking about homosexuality.
4) Dozens of major, extremely influential Christian writers throughout the centuries have upheld this view.
5) It's really only in the modern world that you get revisionists trying to argue that it doesn't.
Posted by: Gerber Baby | December 9, 2007 4:59 PM
I did enjoy the Keith Allen piece, thanks for the link Sigmund.
I loved when he caught her out that her son was illegitimate, and that she was being a hypocrite (not that the rest of us didn't already figure that out) for letting herself off the hook. It was just a moment of deer-in-headlights. I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my computer.
Now, as interesting as it is watching Mr Allen pick apart their arguments, I wonder if we should all just start ignoring them.
Bullies love attention, so perhaps we should just start ignoring these folks as best we can. You know, just do the bare minimum to make sure their noise doesn't hurt anyone; my guess is they would likely be the ones who will end up on the receiving end of any hurt.
Perhaps I am rosy-eyed here, but I would think that if we ignored them, eventually they would fade out; both in terms of psychological impact and in terms of the continuation of their group.
Just my two bits.
Posted by: Byte Reader | December 9, 2007 5:00 PM
negentropyeater
Conclusion, what the writer(s) of Leviticus meant was for sure very different from what we consider as homosexuality, and how strongly it was condemned is unclear in the hebrew version, and just an impurity (not a sin) in the greek version.
Neg, are you still a christian? I assume you are, because you seem to be grasping at straws. I noticed you didn't translate, "They shall both be put to death and their blood shall be upon them." I think in the context of executing two people, it's not a stretch to imagine what the sin could be.
Secondly, if a Christian buys your argument, then the logical thing to do is not to accept homosexuality, but to reject Christianity. Imagine that God wanted to give you his Word, and he was so sloppy that he accidentally left something in there that could be misinterpreted to mean that you should KILL PEOPLE for no good reason. If anyone's serious about the bible, then they should learn Greek & Hebrew and spend a life time studying it. And then they shouldn't believe anything at all, because everything has 3 interpretations, and there's a lot of different shit in there, and it only seems that these different interpretations come to light when society shifts.
Conclusion: The Bible is a rorschach blot.
Also -- Here's a question -- If it's so accepted, and so obvious that Leviticus is a load of historical crap, why is it still in the bible? I haven't heard of any modern church that is willing to expunge anything out of the bible. Why not? Leviticus obviously causes more harm than good -- which is, by their own argument is not what God wanted. So why not just chuck it? Hm?
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 5:13 PM
Heddle is lying for Jesus. In Matthew 19:16-19, Jesus says:
Notice that these are, in fact, a reiteration of some of the commandments. Which Heddle says don't count. Only, out of the mouth of Jesus, they seem to count.
Later in Matthew when one the Pharsisee's asked him which commandment (there are 613) was most important, Jesus out-smarted him by saying :
For those of us who actually understand this passage, (and aren't trying to bullshit their way around it) Jesus is summarizing the "worship God" commandments (the first five commandments) and the "be a good citizen" commandments (the second five commandments).
Anyway, this blog isn't the place, nor is now the time. I would suggest that if you're interested in understanding what Jesus said about following the commandments, you read elsewhere. And ignore Heddle.
Posted by: Moses | December 9, 2007 5:14 PM
Gerber,
your points 2) and 3) are factually incorrect. Please substantiate. Provide the greek text, and the literal translation(s). Not the interpretations which were made in the modern translations from the middle ages onwards.
Moreover, there are numerous other historical evidences that the populations of the east mediteranean bassin (from Israel to Greece) were at that time very tolerant of homosexual behaviours.
It all changed in the early middle ages, and got perpetuated until recently, as you say, in your point 4).
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2007 5:14 PM
Hm. Since our apologist mentions Calvin, I thought I would look him up.
It seems that Calvin didn't get the memo about Leviticus. Almost the entire foundation of his Hamrony of the Law (note: Law) is based on Leviticus.
Christian liberals are fish in a barrel compared to fundamentalist. They not only have to believe in God, but they have to deny 90% of everything ever written 'by' or about him.
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 5:29 PM
Inkadu,
I've received a Jesuit education, but always been skeptical of the validity of the claims. I reject all supernatural aspects of Christianity. I'm interested with the Bible from purely a historical perspective.
It has been demonstrated by numerous theologians that the "They shall both be put to death and their blood shall be upon them." was added in Leviticus 20:13 much later on.
That the folks from the early middle ages onwards (of which this Mr Phelps is a vestige) hated homosexuals and used bad interpretations (not translations, interpretations) of old documents to justify their hate is also clear to me.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2007 5:31 PM
The absolute saddest part was his interview with Phelps' teenage granddaughters. Those girls have been brainwashed all their lives by him, and now it will continue for at least another generation. I hope somebody breaks the spell.
Posted by: Skwee | December 9, 2007 5:35 PM
Negen --
Thanks for your reply.
I have no idea to validate what you say is true or not, but assuming it is true, assuming that we know how the tools to uncover what the bible REALLY meant, or to confess that verses are hopelessly ambigious, why don't the religious, to whom an accurate bible would be most imporant, issue a thoroughly revised edition? And from a strictly Christian perspective, why is so much of the Old Testament included? I understand the need to have your savior prophesied, but of what use Leviticus?
(there -- I think there's one "graduate level" sentence in that paragraph)
I'm also not sure than acceptance of homosexuality makes a defining case for interepretation. We don't allow slavery anymore, but in a thousand years, scholars can point to our translations and say, "They still translated the passages in ways that support slavery."
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 5:37 PM
Inkadu,
check "The Pagan Christ". Some are trying to change things.
It was all meant to be alegorical. Obscurantism in the middle age changed that.
The US Evangelicals are trying to make sure we revert to the middle ages because they are thinking Enlightenment = Communism.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2007 6:09 PM
These are people find joy in hating people, and they love being hated by every outsider.
Why hatred? Because the 'fire' of hatred completely masks feelings of uncertainty, sadness, apprehension, dread, and depression. Hatred is free, and lacks the health and legal complications of amphetamine use. They can feel they're doing good by being bad. Cf. The Klan.
Posted by: WTFWJD | December 9, 2007 6:11 PM
"When Christians stop using Stalin to represent athiests, I'll give a fuck about their protests about Phelps being used to represent them."
Somewhere along the line, I thought we were supposed to be *better* than them. Well, if we sink to the same dirty tactics, remember - at the end of the day, there's more of them than there are of us.
"I equate Phelps and that liberal preacher because the real difference between us isn't our potential for good and evil, but how we resolve our choice: both that preacher and Phelps, rather than using reason and human values, make an authoritarian appeal to an unknowable entity, and both claim to know the motivations of that supernatural being."
I think being good, and specifically not being a jerk trumps ideological correctness. Heck, what does it matter that the liberal christian is appealing to an unknowable entity, and not to a similarly unknowable 'human values'? (What, indeed, are atheist human values? Can a proposal that someone take up a value system be anything other than authoritarian? Why the heck is everyone ignoring this?)
If we follow the atheist paradigm, we have no fear that this 'God' is going to change its mind, since it would be purely a psychological construct, a method of reinforcing beliefs and values the believer already holds. How can it be authoritarian, when there is no actual authority, and a key part of the belief system is that people should be allowed to make religious attachments freely? And besides, empirically speaking, what does it matter at all, so long as good is done or not done?
But it seems the other commenters on this blog seem content to play into the hands of the biblical literalists, and to construct strawmen instead. What a pointless, masturbatory, waste of time.
Posted by: FhnuZoag | December 9, 2007 6:23 PM
Phelps should go and see a Psychiatrist, I'm sure he'll get prescribed synthetic Oxytocin. Then his God will tell him not to hate homosexuals anymore
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 9, 2007 6:29 PM
inkadu:
Apparently I missed the part where this thread was renamed 'Competition To Tar With Biggest Brush'. The liberal Christian may be the proverbial fish in a barrel, but that doesn't make Phelps' version of religion less obviously toxic than other variants. It clearly is quite a bit more toxic, and it is also quite clearly both pathological and isolated. Even extremely conservative ministers like Jerry Falwell made it their business to distance themselves from Phelps' teachings, after all.
One could have a meaningful debate about differences in degree and differences in kind, I suppose, but that's not happening here.
On the other side, inkadu asks a good question about the failure of all Christians to get rid of things like the above-cited passages in Leviticus. But at some level, I think, this is like asking why The Merchant of Venice , with its obvious anti-semitism, is still acknowledged as part of the Shakespearean canon, much less performed. Apparently, in dealing with the Bard, the quality of mercy is not strained. We will forgive this as a product of his time, and yet some of us will strain mightily against the unpleasant asides embedded in old religious texts---which, old Will might well have remarked, can be quoted by the Devil for his purpose.
Yet, I hear atheists routinely cite with approbation H.L. Mencken's stinging barbs at the expense of Christianity. Does that mean that they endorse Mencken's unsavory personal views on Jews and blacks? Of course not, and Christians of various theological persuasions can look to the Bible for guidance without tackling the project of completely reediting, much less passing judgement upon, every aspect of the canon.
But people will object: after all, Menken's essays and Shakespeare's plays have not sponsored a death cult like Christianity, so the objection doesn't speak to power. But of course, the Epic of Gilgamesh was a Sumerian religious text, right? Would inkadu like to see translation of Gilgamesh stripped of their sexual content? If not, does he endorse the tyrant Gilgamesh's practice of personally deflowering all the maidens within his domain?
Well, these are all absurd questions of course, but no more so than the presumption that Fred Phelps represents Christianity, or that Christians are somehow obligated to delete or deny every passage of scripture that grates against our modern sensibilities. Ironically, such an argument deprives the believer of the context that so many of them desperately need in evaluating not just the claims of others, but of their own traditions.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | December 9, 2007 6:35 PM
Who is correct about God, Phelps or the liberal minister? At the most concrete level of analysis that's like arguing about whether Adam West's Batusi-dancing Caped Crusader or the grim vigilantism of Frank Miller's Dark Knight more faithly captures the true essence of Batman. Since that approach cannot produce conclusions absent arbitrary criteria, we could instead focus on practice and ask which set of beliefs results in more salutary behaviors. Alternatively, we could refuse to play ball altogether and reject any basis for action that appeals to extra-empirical and illogical concepts.
The problem is the last option is unlikely to be widely embraced. Don't like militant Christianity/Islam/Sikhism etc.? Chances of mass conversion to non-theism, on any timescale, are slim to none. So I will go along with commending the notion of a nice-guy (or gal) God for those unwilling to take the step to unbelief.
Posted by: Colugo | December 9, 2007 6:37 PM
Colugo -- What you say would make sense if the bible were largely considered literature. Unforunately the Bible is considered law. And, as a "law book," I don't know why any Christians would object, or on what grounds they would object, to removing laws that are no longer valid (or never were valid) in order to make God's meaning more clear.
And I'd rather have people believe in a nice God than the Phelps God, certainly. And by claiming there is no God, I think I'm helping to do that. See, people will see the Old Testament God on one side of the argument, and these frothing-at-the-mouth atheists on the other, and conclude the reasonable conclusion must be that God is a decent liberal guy, like them. It's worked for Republicans.
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 6:47 PM
OK, so focus on practice. What you will find is that there is nothing in the method that either one applies that will necessarily lead to rational behaviors—they're both village idiots, twirling about vacantly in the town square, and that one has been caught facing the school while the other is facing the prison does not tell you anything about where they will end up. Come back a little later and they may well each be facing the opposite way.
I commend neither. Both are practicing the same arbitrary nonsense. Encouraging one on the basis of short term good fortune gives you no reassurance for the future.
Posted by: PZ Myers | December 9, 2007 6:48 PM
...Christians of various theological persuasions can look to the Bible for guidance without tackling the project of completely reediting, much less passing judgement upon, every aspect of the canon.
Then what is the value of that guidance?
But people will object: after all, Menken's essays and Shakespeare's plays have not sponsored a death cult like Christianity, so the objection doesn't speak to power. But of course, the Epic of Gilgamesh was a Sumerian religious text, right? Would inkadu like to see translation of Gilgamesh stripped of their sexual content? If not, does he endorse the tyrant Gilgamesh's practice of personally deflowering all the maidens within his domain?
Nonsense, it doesn't matter if the text in question used to be a religious text, only if it's proponents claim that it provides "guidance" beyond a normal fictional story.
Well, these are all absurd questions of course, but no more so than the presumption that Fred Phelps represents Christianity, or that Christians are somehow obligated to delete or deny every passage of scripture that grates against our modern sensibilities.
How about adding some footnotes?
Posted by: windy | December 9, 2007 6:49 PM
Scott Hatfield: "Yet, I hear atheists routinely cite with approbation H.L. Mencken's stinging barbs at the expense of Christianity. Does that mean that they endorse Mencken's unsavory personal views on Jews and blacks?"
Scott Hatfield is absolutely correct; we atheists want it both ways. We want to castigate theists for the sins of their ancestors - Hebrew patriarchs, medieval popes, Muslim conquerors, Protestant fanatics, Mormon polygamists. Rub their noses in it like a dog that soiled on the rug. At the same time we want to honor our freethinker and progressive intellectual ancestors. Yet if anyone reminds us of our ancestors' sins we cry foul. Do we really want to dwell on what some of our ideological and philosophical forebears - of whom we are proud - thought of race, class and/or "good breeding"?
I know, the theists are supposedly external authority-seeking sheep who revere their worthless sacred texts while we, using our powers of reason, are capable of rationally rejecting the bad and keeping the good. But maybe all of us, theist and nontheist alike, have the gift of selective compartmentalization, rationalization, and interpretation. Otherwise, none of us would claim any heroes, ancestors, or traditions.
Posted by: Colugo | December 9, 2007 7:01 PM
Gerber,
your points 2) and 3) are factually incorrect."
Romans, Corinthians, Jude are all pretty stark on the topic. Only by taking statements out of context, re-parsing them, and interpreting them in a manner contradictory to how they've always been interpreted can you argue otherwise.
"Please substantiate."
Well, let's see, every single major Christian denomination both historical and modern has taken the Bible as condemning homosexuality. Yours is unarguably a minority view.
"Provide the greek text, and the literal translation(s)."
With the Hebrew version, you took sentences out of context and then re-parsed them to make it seem they were saying things they weren't saying. I've read a few pages now that tried to make the same argument that you are about to make about the Greek and I'm not buying it, and neither is any major Christian organization in the world.
It's pretty darn clear, when you put all of the Bible's statements even potentially referring to homosexuality, that's its pretty negative to the idea.
"Not the interpretations which were made in the modern translations from the middle ages onwards."
Biblical and Christian writing condemning homosexuality predates the early Middle Ages, proceeds through the Middle Ages, and continues on in a straight line to the modern era.
"Moreover, there are numerous other historical evidences that the populations of the east mediteranean bassin (from Israel to Greece) were at that time very tolerant of homosexual behaviours."
Paul apparently didn't agree with them.
"It all changed in the early middle ages, and got perpetuated until recently, as you say, in your point 4)."
No, it started thousands of years before that in the Old Testament and runs in a straight line to the early church fathers, pre-Middle Ages.
Posted by: Gerber Baby | December 9, 2007 7:05 PM
PZ Myers, you're a douchebag.
You say that a despicable cult leader like Fred Phelps, who ceaselessly promotes hatred and violence, is no less offensive than a nice woman (however misguided) who is preaching love and peace? And your bellicose justification for this half-baked reasoning is that neither of them are using rational arguments? Come on!
Posted by: merkin | December 9, 2007 7:13 PM
Oops. First paragraph for Scott Hatfield. Second for Colugo.
Posted by: inkadu | December 9, 2007 7:28 PM
#69:
To an extent P