The Wolsey Moment

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Re: Christianity: the disease

There is no cure for it---only death.

Get up against that wall.
Put up your hands.
Call out "Viva el Cristo Rey!"

Then dr lieutenant coyote will shoot you.

(with apologies to Graham Greene and the Mexican priests who died during the Revolution)

Dr. Anon.
Your bedside side manner is marvelous, so concise, so devoid of emotion in your diagnosis, you truly are a Dr. among doctors. Now that you are my Dr., please tell me
what--- is my prognosis, is this dreaded pestilence in me---terminal? You know Dr. i just didn’t realize the child like happiness inside me was symptomatic of such a hideous infirmity. Warn everyone good Dr. for this particular strand of Christianity is very stealthy, and we must practice preventive medicine to even have a prayer of a chance.
Dr. give me some medicine or something, please don’t leave me in this condition.
Right now cousin Pollyanna and I are going to climb a tree*,---please help me Dr.

Another symptom of the disease is the child-like manner in which the victim approaches all aspects of life. It supresses the maturation process, and the victim refuses to face any truths which might destroy the pollyannish naivete' which which they face the world. in fact the fear of that happening is one of the things which drives the believer to want to suppress the unbeliever.
They can have a heated debate, they can even "tolerate" a wrong-believer, but an unbeliever is just more than they can handle.

coyote,
i am so sick,please somebody help me,i contracted Christianity.--Ahoooo-hoo

I am certainly no liberal, Mary Cunningham, I find the self-styled liberal progressives to be empty headed and just as over-moralistic and inclined to oppress as I find the religious ... uh, types.

Your use of the buzzwrod "liberal" is similar to their use of the word "nutjob" to describe their opponents, I find anybody who takes their entire image of themselves from some political idealogy to be useless.

You are implying that I would do to believers that which I find most disagreeable about believers themselves - the truth is I would do nothing to you. I don't care if you breathe, as long as you keep your hands off of my life what makes you think I care what you believe? I only care what you actually do.

That's the problem with believers - you can't keep your hands off of other peoples lives.

And I see you have completely ignored what I said about the distinction between any religion and all religion in general. that's the nature of the disease, you can't see outside of it.

IS BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY AKIN TO BEING DISEASED?

Re: "You all share the same disease"

Well, khote (coyote?)if you believe that--if it's not just internet rhetoric (I notice you are hesitant--ashamed?--to use your own name) you should take action.

Diseases, contagious especially,threaten the healthy. Christians should thus be:

1) shot before we spread it
or
2) separated from society & hospitalized (re-educated)in a prison before we spread it.

Thus the question I would pose to Prof. Stevens-Arroyo is:

Given many liberal atheists like Khote14 would have *all* Christian believers up against the wall, and likewise are completely ignorant about *any* of us, should someone like you--should *any* Catholic--condemn an evangelist like Falwell? Evangelists are at least Christian, and are not calling other Christian Disease-bearers with all that implies..

I'd like you to think about it.

Mary Cunningham, I can tell you that I as an atheist find it difficult to distinguish one religion from another.
From my distant point of view they all share the fundamental fault of blind faith - after that the internal details you believers argue about, and kill each other over, are irrelevant.

My particular "anti-catholic prejudice" is no greater or lesser than that which I feel for any of the other religions. I find you all share the same disease and the same desire to inflict it upon all who breathe the air.

Jerry Falwell and his kind are guilty of a terrible evil comitted on our species. And I'm sorry to say that your choice to "hang with him" despite perhaps grave differences in view will, in the end, support further evil of this kind.

I can assure you that most of the secular atheists I know do not distinguish which brand of christianity you follow, any more than they distiniguish christianity itself from any of the other abrahmic religions, and from there any relgious taxonomy of any kind.

Mary Cunningham, I can tell you that I as an atheist find it difficult to distinguish one religion from another.
From my distant point of view they all share the fundamental fault of blind faith - after that the internal details you believers argue about, and kill each other over, are irrelevant.

My particular "anti-catholic prejudice" is no greater or lesser than that which I feel for any of the other religions. I find you all share the same disease and the same desire to inflict it upon all who breathe the air.

Jerry Falwell and his kind are guilty of a terrible evil comitted on our species. And I'm sorry to say that your choice to "hang with him" despite perhaps grave differences in view will, in the end, support further evil of this kind.

I can assure you that most of the secular atheists I know do not distinguish which brand of christianity you follow, any more than they distiniguish christianity itself from any of the other abrahmic religions, and from there any relgious taxonomy of any kind.

Re: I am just as much a believer as the Rev. Falwell was, yet his legacy is *the ridicule imposed on my faith and that of others like me who do not identify religion with one political party.*

I would differ with Prof. Stevens-Arroyo here.

There is much more ridicule of Christians in Western Europe, people have no compunctions in calling themselves atheists, churches are closing, secular materialism carries all before it. All without any counterpart to Rev. Falwell.

YET SECULARS DISLIKE CATHOLICS ALMOST AS MUCH AS EVANGELICALS

Rev. Falwell—and our beloved Holy Father John Paul II—inhabited the same Christian universe and both came into the world’s eye about 1980. Whilst in previous eras evangelists like Falwell had excoriated Catholics (I’m thinking of Rev. Ian Paisley as a example of this), this particular venom had largely stopped. (Today Paisley governs along with his old nemesis, Martin McGuinness—I never thought I’d see that!)

And the same folk—secular materialists and/or atheists, liberals &tc.—like (ex) Bishop Spong who pilloried John Paul II only the day before yesterday seamlessly switch to denouncing Falwell the very next day. (Where is the poisonous prelate, by the way?)

If I ranked current bogeymen of liberal atheists I would list them suchly (in order of "bogeyness"):

*PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS CURRENTLY DEMONIZED BY LIBERALISM, SECULARISM AND ATHEISM*

Evangelical Christians (like Falwell, Mohler)
The Catholic Church (they will never call it that—it is always the Roman Catholic Church)
Catholics (we are always Roman Catholics)
Opus Dei
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope John Paul II

So you see, they really hate the likes of Falwell, but they don’t much like *us* either. Is the enemy of our enemies, thus, our friend? Should we all hang together or we’ll all hang separately, to quote an 18th c. American.

I'm having a hard time reaching an answer, given that much of the anti-Catholic prejudice evinced by atheists actually *stems* from former Protestand and evangelical organizations. (There is another strand originating in communist and leftist ideological views but let's leave that alone for now.) I wonder if you could think about this. I wonder if it might be a suitable topic for future discussion.

WOLSEY MADE A FAUSTIAN BARGAIN

Wolsey made a Faustian bargain, didn’t he Professor? Whilst better men, the best men in the realm—More and Fisher—went to the block rather than acclaim a tyrant as successor to St Peter, the cardinal supped with the devil.

Still, Wolsey was a child of his time just as Falwell was of his. The Reformation had already begun—burgeoning nation states and national identity conflicting with a European wide institution—the Catholic Church—with a universal character (one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic church)?

Jerry Falwell = George Bush !!!!! . . . . . . By their FRUITS, ye shall know them. . . . . "Didn't I do good deeds in your name?! . . . . . . . "Depart from me, I know you not."

Frank:
Is that a non sequitur or what?

"I am just as much a believer as the Rev. Falwell was,"

I would hope that you were a better believer because there is no visible evidence that Falwell really believed. All the evidence is that he used the sound bites of religion to aggrandize himself at the expense of his victims and the poor sods that supported him financially.

but your serving the communist left - well that is just great?

I posted this on my local paper's website under their article on Falwell's death. Given Aspasia's comment, I thought it would be relevant here:

"I've always been amazed how a person's death often leads to paeans of praise with no corresponding criticisms. I suppose that Falwell was criticized enough during his lifetime to balance this natural tendency out, but I sense that the more conservative members of American society will attempt to whitewash the reverend's reputation in an attempt to beatify him (much like they did with Reagan).

"Still, I suppose that the reminders of Falwell's shortcomings can wait until after his burial. After all, speaking ill of the dead is bad karma. But that doesn't mean that we need to speak well of him either.

"In the end, Rev. Falwell is standing before the Judgment Seat, where true justice is meted out. As for what his sentence will be, I don't feel qualified to comment..."

Bravo, sir. Very well put.

"His simplistic message combined with the emergence of a simpleton president and gained great clout."

Outstanding! I loved it!

Sorry to see that many newspaper obit stories went surprisingly easy on this theocratic monster. What a nice guy. Quiet, police, like a parish minister. Faugh! He was a millionaire who bilked poor old ladies in Kansas, and manipulated his credulous voter-flock to vote in some of the worst presidents we have ever been stuck with.

Only Christopher Hitchens really laid him out like he should have been by all media. While Hitchens is partly coming from his own atheist POV, he did tell it like it is -- was -- about this wretched excuse for a human being.

Professor Arroyo-Stevens is correct that Falwell and his ilk have done incredible damage to the perceptions of Christians among other components of the country. It is not fair, and I am guilty of painting with a broad brush. The policies pushed by theocrats like Falwell and Robertson and Dobson are disastrous.

Falwell the theocrat was a virulent anti-American who wrapped himself in the flag -- and while I disagree with Professor Stevens-Arroyo on many many things, these are relatively minor matters, and I would never accuse him of that.