Could Fred Phelpz be Correct?

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Nathaniel
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Could Fred Phelpz be Correct?

Post by Nathaniel »

It's hardly uncommon for religious moderates to take the "spirit", or "message" of the Bible instead of the actual content, so is Phelpz true to its spirit by sugesting that 9/11, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina are the judgements of a vengeful god for the "immorality" of the modern USA.

We see all of this weird collective punishment shit in Noah's Flood, those 7 plagues of Egypt and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. All this is aparently a punishment for their various immoral practices, so surely it would logically follow that the psycho from the OT would use similar punishents against the US today.

Note: This is not to suggest that homosexuality is immoral or that Phelpz is sane.
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Post by Zor »

Did not the laws against homosexuality get nulified when Paul cut down the number of laws from 613 to 10 along with not eating clams and pigs, eating milk with meat, Astrology and not shaving?

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Re: Could Fred Phelpz be Correct?

Post by General Zod »

Nathaniel wrote:It's hardly uncommon for religious moderates to take the "spirit", or "message" of the Bible instead of the actual content, so is Phelpz true to its spirit by sugesting that 9/11, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina are the judgements of a vengeful god for the "immorality" of the modern USA.

We see all of this weird collective punishment shit in Noah's Flood, those 7 plagues of Egypt and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. All this is aparently a punishment for their various immoral practices, so surely it would logically follow that the psycho from the OT would use similar punishents against the US today.

Note: This is not to suggest that homosexuality is immoral or that Phelpz is sane.
This entire argument is a giant non-sequitor. America is being somehow punished as opposed to the nation that's being occupied and having wars actually fought on its soil? Katrina was a punishment from God when he didn't even get the city that's in charge of the nation right? God is somehow real and somehow commanded all of this? Try again with less obvious flamebait please.
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Post by DPDarkPrimus »

Phelps believes in pre-destination, which makes our debating about his beliefs rather pointless.

Unless that's what we're supposed to do. :wink:
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Post by Rye »

Zor wrote:Did not the laws against homosexuality get nulified when Paul cut down the number of laws from 613 to 10 along with not eating clams and pigs, eating milk with meat, Astrology and not shaving?

Zor
No, Paul refers to homosexuality as being bad, though it's arguable that blowjobs and rimming are okay as per Jesus' "it's only what comes out of a man's mouth that defiles him, not what goes in" teaching. ;)

Now, for the most part, Phelps' beliefs are in line with certain biblical lines, and a logical consequence of christianity's social influences and biblical reverence, so the WBC's teachings can be considered a legitimate conclusion from the source text, though their claim to monopoly on legitimate conclusions is obviously false, because any objective look at the Bible will find a huge mess of contradictory and barbaric (and some good stuff), so it does come down to interpretation and traditional interpretations for their own sake.
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Post by Darth Wong »

Or, to put it another way, Fred Phelps' conclusions are just as "Biblically correct" as those of any other Christian leader.
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Post by DavidEC »

The suffering caused to the US by Katrina, 9/11 and so on pales in comparison not only to things like the Asian Tsunami, but day-to-day disasters of famine, disease and oppression and so on throughout the world. We in the West have it good.
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Post by Mayabird »

Umm, DavidEC, did you post in the wrong thread?

And I find it interesting that DP posted in this thread without pointing out one of the more entertaining parts of the Phelps theology.

One of the Phelps clan got on the Infidel Guy Show and went on and on about Biblical justification of their hatred of homosexuality, but how that's God's Law or something, but the stuff in Leviticus about not eating shrimp or wearing clothes of two different fabrics was Ceremonial Law, and because of Jesus, we don't have to worry about Ceremonial Law anymore, just God's Law.

DP called the show and asked the guy how they can tell the difference. The guy sputtered, yelled, and hung up, because he'd been exposed as a cherry-picker just like all the rest of them, and a hypocrite too for railing on about false Christians ignoring parts of the Bible.

Incidentally, this is how DP and I started dating.
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Post by DavidEC »

Mayabird wrote:Umm, DavidEC, did you post in the wrong thread?
Basically I was downplaying the US's total suffering and dispelling the ridiculous notion that a magical sky-pixie is punishing it especially. Note that this does not denigrate the suffering of individual victims of Katrina, 9/11, etc. There are just fewer of them; people should put things in perspective.
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Post by Kanastrous »

Yeah, what frequently embarrassing about Americans, is the total lack of perspective, on how lucky we collectively are.
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Post by Setzer »

Well I won't deny that it would be perfectly in character for that asshole to visit disaster on people who dare be humans instead of mindless little slaves.
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Post by CorSec »

It's hardly uncommon for religious moderates to take the "spirit", or "message" of the Bible instead of the actual content, so is Phelpz true to its spirit by sugesting that 9/11, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina are the judgements of a vengeful god for the "immorality" of the modern USA.
Simply put, no. Even according to the source material there is no evidence that God was as vocally vengeful after Jesus ascended. Instead, God was saving his judgement on humanity until such time as he is ready.

Jesus is supposed to have ushered in a new era of connection between the divine and humanity. Judgement and punishment is no longer doled out to nations of people, rather it is more intimate, being reserved as a relationship between God and the individual.


We see all of this weird collective punishment shit in Noah's Flood, those 7 plagues of Egypt and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. All this is aparently a punishment for their various immoral practices, so surely it would logically follow that the psycho from the OT would use similar punishents against the US today.
The great flood can never happen again. As long as there are rainbows, the symbol of the promise God made to mankind, a world wide consuming flood will not happen.

The plagues of Egypt were not punishment for a nation, instead they were the result of one person not listening. The im/morality of Egypt wasn't the cause. And it does not follow logically that anything the USA has experienced in the last 10 years is because the nation has lost its way.

Aside from that how would us limited lowly humans be able to discern which natural disasters are, um, natural and which ones are messages from God? Hurricanes only happen during a certain time of year and follow. Earthquakes happen only along known fault lines. Floods occur along flood planes.

There is no discernible difference between the wrath of God and the natural order of Earth's weather patterns.
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