The Westboro Church plans to picket Newtown, CT shooting victims' funerals

The Westboro Church are religious trolls.

Can someone explain to me, an ex-Catholic, how supposed Christians be so full of hate in the name of Jesus?

Because humans kinda suck sometimes.

Because they're not Christians, they're lawsuit-baiters using Christianity as their excuse. Next?

As an atheist, I cant see how they are not Christian, no matter how awful they are. They are Christians - but on a continuum...

Surely, if you believe that god is omnipotent, then he could prevent any and all tragedies, but choses not to. I imagine, being omnipotent, his reasons are guaranteed to be awesome. Isn't it generally a good idea to praise all that one's deity does?

That our own human nature prevents us, by and large, from reasoning to this conclusion, is more evidence of the lack of existence of any god, if you ask me. Most of us are less of a dick than god.

While Amusing this is amusing Fred Phelps cut his troll teeth in civil rights litigation, so the Klan probably has held a dim view of Phelps even before his more recent God Hates Everone campaigns.

They're not religious trolls; they're lawsuit trolls. The minute someone steps over the line and takes a swing, they sue the shit out of him.

It's all a plan. None of it is sincere.

This is exactly it. They inject themselves and their hate-filled messages into places where people will be incensed, in hopes that the local police will shut them down, and when that happens *whammo* big-ass lawsuit against the local government. They're apparently not just religious fucknut assholes, but very capable lawyers as well.

Has that actually happened? links? I'd love to read up on that.

Scum of the earth, now with even more scum!

Edit: I do see a couple where they have gotten legal fees and/or settlements from governments regarding either failure to protect their protests or unconstitutional denial of First Amendment rights (since they are their own lawyers legal fees = funding for the church). One that went to the US Supremes where they won, which I now vaguely remember. Bleah.

Anonymous delivers?

Just like last time?

I'll be impressed with Anonymous when a guy like Fred Phelps ends up in the news because his bank account got wiped. Until then they're just stupid pranksters trying to scare some people.

Then again, I'll also be a little terrified of them if they manage that.

Indeed, hence the "?". I'm not really so sure they're in a position do to much of anything other than earn the adulations of a bunch of Internet nerds.

Aren't a number of the Phelps lawyers for this very reason?

Yes. They're not remotely religious, they're just pretending to be in order to piss more people off. The entire thing is a litigation factory designed to do things so offensive that some idiot will try and stop them, then sue said idiot.

The only proper response to WBC is to counter picket them with hilarious signs so that everyone eventually gets the idea that they're a national fucking joke. I've often wished we could use Free Speech Zones against them by forcing them to protest funerals while inside a circus tent.

One does not become something by simply calling oneself by that title. I could call myself a Muslim or a Jew but that does not magically grant me a place on some continuum. Hell they call themselves Baptists and every Baptist organization has basically said fuck no they aren't.

I agree with the last statement, but sadly idiots like the WBC being able to do what they do are things we have to put up with if we want a society with free speech. Free speech zones just cant be allowed with our first amendment

Wut?

Oh, they're terrible, I just think that it's amusing we only use them on groups that aren't known for litigation. The WBC would win a free speech zone lawsuit in seconds, which is why nobody tries to use them on them.

Has no one in this family ever died?

Their hate keeps them alive.

I'm not so sure that they are primarily legal trolls. A quick search shows that they have won verdicts of $16,500 and about $250,000. The highest-profile case was $16.5 million awarded against them, which was overturned. It appears that they have been in business, and have been picketing, since long, long before they started becoming involved in litigation. They picket numerous sites every single day, mostly in the Topeka area, and apparently spend a lot of money doing it. It seems that they may recently have latched on to the idea of using litigation to fund their activities, but I don't think that in and of itself undercuts the fact that they are not just trolls, they are vile, hateful soulless human beings who believe what they are saying and are far more likely to end up in hell than anybody they are targeting.

If only there were such a place for them to end up.

What does it take to be Christian? I ask non-rhetorically, I don't know. Or a Muslim there is the oath-thing and the responsibilities for prayer, etc, but as far as I can tell faiths don't have licensing authorities. Maybe life would be better if they did.

Assuming the Biblical framework, Christianity is being a follower of Jesus. There are theological differences and argument and all that, but put simply I think that's a plain statement.

There is no licensing authority, true. But for example what if I start telling people that I'm an atheist? I'm not and everyone knows I'm not, based on historical data. I could say that I changed my mind and became one, or that I define it my own way*, or some other thing. There is no central licensing authority either. And I'm not poking fun of your question either. But I think everyone else would simply have to use their rational faculties to say: based on what we know about atheism and what all the other atheists around have said, shift6 is without any reasonable doubt not really that.

Likewise just about every single Christian group I can even think of, ranging from "legitimate" denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention to the fucking extremist racist twats in the Klu Klux Klan (with their already highly irregular claim to Christianity) have said this group of what 30ish people is not by any definition of the word Christian. To me that seems about as weighty a declaration as one can get outside of epistemology**. When even self-selecting groups of infighters who never agree find something to agree on and without even getting in to individual theologies and definitions, well that's a pretty sound basis of judgment in my view. :) Hope this makes sense.

*granted it's hard to come up with some twisted set of words to define "atheism" beyond the simple meaning; but just for illustration.
**we should all read some Wittgenstein.

Theoretically claiming to believe that Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins is enough to get you the ol' C-Card, but it's hard to call someone a Christian if they twist or ignore everything that Jesus said so that everything they believe and evangelicize is some ridiculous parody of what Christ was actually all about. Jesus hung with lepers and prostitutes. The WBC thinks that God hates them.

Though one needn't go as deep as the WBC. There's a lot of self-proclaimed Christians out there who aren't very Christian. We should have an official word for them, but until one can be created I think Fuckin' Assholes is good enough.

I can see your points, but to be a dick: Just because they take the mean parts of the bible more seriously than the nice parts - that's not enough to expunge them, in my mind (that phelps acts like a cult leader would far more so, in my mind). By your logic pretty much all Christians up until the present time haven't been Christian. And I expect "no true Scotsman" will continue to apply in the future as our natural intellectual instincts lead us to things such as equality for homosexuals,etc.

Honestly, nothing the WBC does surprises me anymore. They seem to particularly enjoy targeting children's funerals. They tried pulling the same stunt in 2011 at Christina Green's funeral, and the Arizona mayor signed emergency legislation barring protests within 300 feet of a funeral because of that. I think in the end they abandoned their protest at her funeral, but continued their protests at other funerals.

I dunno, I always thought people like them got a power high off of manipulating other people's emotions. A funeral is a highly emotionally-charged event; having someone yelling that your child died because God hates you would upset even the calmest of parents.

A couple of articles stating what the WBC had on their web site back in 2011. "Thank God for the shooter"? WTH?

UK tv guy Louise Theroux did a great documentary where he stayed with them and talked to the Phelps clan. Most are genuinely sincere. According to their (well, Phelp's) reading of the bible we bring god's wrath for straying from the various rules and regs. Therefore, bad stuff happens because everyone but them is doin it wrong.

Needing to tell everyone about it rather than ranting on freep or secretly hating gays and liberals is their class perk, but I can't see their opinions (although not their actions) as being outside normal, very conservative Christian behavior.

They are curiously without malice (at least in the doco) and do fervently believe in their course of action. Tragic really.

And Shift - I love your writings on religion and think you do a fantastic job of explaining subtle religious points well, but surely there is something awfully undivine about a religion that can always redefine itself depending on current mass opinion? This is, I believe (er, sociologically speaking?) a great strength of Christianity (one that Islam seems to have a harder time with) in terms of adaptability to society, but it doesn't exactly convince me anyone reading the bible has ever had any kind of true understanding of divinity, now or in the past.

Note to self, parenthesize less (next time!).

Did you expect them to come across as insincere for some reason?

I agree with this. I'm not at all moved by the "WBC aren't Christians because they don't believe in the things that I consider to be Christian" arguments, and there are certainly any number of "legitimate" Christian churches that believe in and do abhorrent things and whose status as Christians is not in any serious or widespread doubt. What makes it clear that the WBC is a different animal is that its organization and activities and the dynamics by which it runs are nothing like any church and exactly like a cult.

I'm guessing that was in response to Kildorn 's claim that everything the WBC does is a put-on designed to bait lawsuits.

Yeah, but the definition of 'everything' in this case would presumably include interviews with foreign journalists.

Have you seen it? It's not an interview, it's a documentary, and based on that and basically everything I've read elsewhere about them, they seem to be for real. For one thing many of them are children, not crafty attorneys. For another, they live like cultists, they do the WBC thing all day long and that's all they do. For a third, here are the highlights from an ask me anything by one of Phelps's sons, who escaped the WBC when he was eighteen. Doesn't sound fake to me. They're either a family of Andy Kaufmans or they're the real deal.

I agree, and that's why I say it is someone who follows Jesus rather than someone who believes in Him. The early church at Antioch (where the name "Christian" began) seems to have felt the same.

I'm honestly confused here. I said a Christian is someone who follows Jesus; there's no mention of homosexuals or of excluding anyone (which is the basis of the NTS fallacy).

Those who only follow the "mean" (or older) parts of the Bible aren't following Jesus; they're following the tenets of Ancient Israel. And then Jesus was here and was all "yo peeps" so then a bunch of people started following him about 2000 years ago. So, sorry but I am confused; and that could honestly be just me not getting your meaning here.

It's my view that "understanding divinity" is a significantly different question than changing standards of human morality. I like to use the analogy of a football coach (American football). His game plans will be different for offense, defense, and special teams. Further, each of those teams will have various game plans depending on when it's first and 10 in the middle of the first quarter with nothing on the board vs. when it's fourth and 10 at the two minute warning and they're down by six. There are different plans and plays to be run as the game progresses, but the coach is still the same guy the whole time.

Most of the time I'd agree with this. I think there is a genuine and important discussion, for example, on whether or not Mormons are truly "Christian" in the theological sense. There are big sets of opinions on both sides and there are genuinely unclear answers; in other words there is what you call widespread doubt.

But there is no widespread doubt about WBC. Literally no one with a dog in the race calls them Christian besides themselves; that's like what 40ish people in a religion of over 2 billion? And WBC themselves literally condemn large Christian groups (such as the whole Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant denoms) as devil worshippers. That's a pretty wide gulf compared to most discussions about who is or isn't Christian. It isn't about me shift6 personally saying they aren't Christian because they don't share my beliefs; by that standard I'm quite an outcast aleady.

Well yeah, but I think that the reason for that is their behavior rather than their beliefs. They use abrasive language and are obnoxious pricks, but their actual beliefs re: gays for example aren't that much more hateful than some of the mainstream evangelical churches, the main difference being that where WBC says "God hates fags," other groups will say "God hates homosexuals," while intoning the word "homosexual" in such a way that makes it clear that it's meant as a slur anyway. Similarly, the doctrine of America incurring God's wrath thanks to its supposed tolerance of homosexuals is really quite a popular one among evangelicals, and WBC's only real innovation on that front is the pithy slogan "thank God for dead soldiers."

So basically, while I've certainly heard some friendly Christians say that those kind of hate-preachers aren't "Christian" because they aren't really in line with Christ's teachings, that denouncement is nowhere near universal is it is with WBC, which is why I don't think that it hinges on the "you're not following Christ's true teachings" issue.

I can agree with that, but now we're talking about a specific teaching or belief rather than the body of work. Hell Catholics and Protestans could bury a small city with their differences. On the other hand, anyone that the KKK criticizes for being a hate group; that's just far beyond the pale. And I disagree that the only real thing WBC has brought to the table is the anti-American bit; they've distanced significantly from numerous core doctrines of Christianity that pretty much everyone else holds to.

However, you do bring up an excellent point with some of the wingers that are starting to really push the crazy out another notch. There is probably a line somewhere that someone can cross where they are incontrovertably no longer "following Jesus"; is it where you treat woman as rape receptacles for pumping out more soldiers in the fight against Communism? I don't know, I hadn't thought about it (my initial suspicion is: not something Jesus would say). But WBC is without a doubt well over that line.

That's an interesting point. I wonder if it's not so much their extreme views as the fact that all of their views are extreme, so there's less potential common ground with any particular actual Christian church. I also kind of wonder if it's partly due to their "all other churches are the devil" rhetoric. It's kind of the opposite of Mitt Romney's speech on religion in 2008, in which he argued passionately that the brand of hatred that evangelicals endorse is right and just and that Mormons should be included in the circle of haters because they hate a lot of the same things too... in a way, what WBC is doing is opting out of Christianity by explicitly stating that they're the only ones who hate hard enough to be the real Christians, which is bound to piss off even the most hateful denominations of Christianity and earn them a dismissal from everybody as a result, regardless of how wide or narrow the gulf in beliefs is between them and this or that group of actual Christians.