The Dudeism Forum

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Like many Westboro Church members, they had been living just down the road from the church in Topeka, Kan. And they say they understand the certainty its members show in stating their beliefs ? even though they no longer agree with them.

"The way the church presents it is, there's the WBC and the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is evil. The WBC is the only place in the world in our generation that is telling the truth of God," Megan says. Over time, those little things built up, and there were so many of them. Once you step out of it for a second, and you're out of that vacuum, things change."

The sisters also say that it was very hard to leave their parents and siblings. Before their departure, it was made clear to them that leaving the church would be the same as leaving the family.

"We were both terrified after leaving," Megan says. "I was afraid we were going to hell. Many times when we were driving, I thought God was going to kill us."

"I won't get to hear my brothers playing piano again or see my parents' hair go gray," Grace says.

A driving factor in their departure was a series of email and Twitter exchanges between Megan, who ran the church's social media efforts, and David Abitbol, the editor of the Jewlicious blog, who repeatedly challenged the church's stance on Jews. They eventually met in person.

It's really just a more extreme version of main line Christian belief.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/29/241643924/we-hurt-a-lot-of-people-westboro-pastors-granddaughter-says

That sign that girl is holding that says, "God is Your Enemy" is probably the dumbest thing I've seen all day.

I wonder what happened to these girls to make them reevaluate their values like that...

Quote from: BrotherShamus on October 31, 2013, 05:01:49 PM
That sign that girl is holding that says, "God is Your Enemy" is probably the dumbest thing I've seen all day.

I wonder what happened to these girls to make them reevaluate their values like that...

They were members of the Westboro baptist church. Which is just basically a more extreme version of pretty much every Christian church.
Essentially they all in essence say "God is your enemy" to every person who isn't a Christian. As long as you believe that God intends for all others to burn for eternity if they don't share their beliefs it's the same thing. Claiming that that same God also love you is just absurd.

http://www.godhatesfags.com/

What's the old saying? "Jesus, save me from your followers." I think that's it.

Oh don't get me wrong, I know all about these crazy bastards. They tried to to protest at some soldiers' funerals down here in Jackson...bad move. Jacksonians are typically quite religious, but if you fuck with the troops, they go into a frenzy.

They essentially barricaded the area so that the W-Baptists couldn't get in. I haven't heard about coming down here since...

I'm just curious as to what happened that made these girls realize what was going on.

Quote from: BrotherShamus on November 02, 2013, 02:35:46 PM
Oh don't get me wrong, I know all about these crazy bastards. They tried to to protest at some soldiers' funerals down here in Jackson...bad move. Jacksonians are typically quite religious, but if you fuck with the troops, they go into a frenzy.

They essentially barricaded the area so that the W-Baptists couldn't get in. I haven't heard about coming down here since...

I'm just curious as to what happened that made these girls realize what was going on.

Pretty good view of the WB church.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSbfs32yCU
Even this level of belief is not that uncommon. Most people just never see it in people around them because it never comes up.

The son of Fred Phelps left also.
His account is pretty bizarre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WDURT-b_8s

The thing that I'm always amazed at is the way that when people deplore things like the Westboro Church or the Catholic church  that it requires that something happened to them to drive them to hate "God".
I always wonder what happens to normally stable people to look beyond this sort of stuff. I mean the fact that people go every week and recite the nicene creed and overlook the long history of Catholicism without so much as a whiff of irony.
I guess people look around and see a lot of people who don't do any harm themselves and for them it's about identity more than any specific beliefs. At best it's just vague belief while ignoring the actual beliefs of the church.
It's really self deception.
At least these fundamentalists aren't deceiving themselves. They buy the hole package word for word.
Others live in this half ass netherworld of ignoring the difficult parts while just clinging to the feel good stuff.

Now that is an interesting observation. It seems to me like a lot of people who do the whole half-assed religion thing have out-grown organized religion to an extent, but are too dumb/not mindful enough to find something that actually works for them.

Its like they subconsciously decide that it's easier to just say they're episcopalian or whatever and never actually think about what they believe... sad.

As for the folks who go for the whole package, well... it's none of my business but I can't help but think that they'll cause some trouble somewhere down the line...