Evangelist Billy Graham Dies

[Potoooooooo]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/billy-graham-dead_us_566e7e34e4b011b83a6bb479
The Huffington Post reports:

Billy Graham, the famed televangelist who became known as “America’s Pastor,” has died at the age of 99, MSNBC and CBS reported. Born in 1918 in Charlotte, North Carolina, William Franklin Graham Jr. was the oldest of the four children of William and Morrow Graham. He was raised on a dairy farm, and little in his childhood suggested he would become a world-renowned preacher.

Graham viewed the Bible as the infallible word of God. He believed that Jesus led a sinless life and that all men were lost and would face God’s judgment. Most importantly, he was convinced he must use “every modern means of communication available” to spread the Gospel throughout the world, and did so in print, on radio and television, online and in person.

 

[bilby]

About bloody time. That's 99 years of pointless oxygen consumption we are never going to get back.

 

[RavenSky]

About bloody time. That's 99 years of pointless oxygen consumption we are never going to get back.

Thank you! I thought I was the only person thinking "about time"

 

[James Brown]

So here's a dilemma. Billy Graham prophesied that the Rapture would occur in his lifetime.

Well, it obviously didn't.

That makes Billy Graham a false prophet.

And the Biblical punishment for false prophets is execution. Death by stoning, to be exact.

But darn it if ol' Billy didn't squirt away on a technicality.

 

[Underseer]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/6-awful-details-omitted-billy-grahams-fawning-obituaries/

Here are 6 awful details being omitted from Billy Graham’s fawning obituaries

[...]

Graham is getting tributes from all corners right now. And he deserves praise for supporting the civil rights movement, supporting Nelson Mandela during his imprisonment and embracing Muhammad Ali during the fall-out of his conversion to Islam.

[...]

You know there's a but coming, right?

Let's not forget what Graham did while the media white-washes his past.

 

[Atheos]

I must confess to a supreme lack of giving a shit about anything Graham did. Among the vast pool of things I didn't know about him, I was unaware he had prophesied that the rapture would happen in his lifetime. In fact I didn't know he professed to be a prophet at all.

Now that he's gone I can concentrate more of my not giving a shit on other fleecers of sheeple.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Back in the 60s, as a young snot-nose, I was always pissed off when BG would buy a block of evenings and preempt everything with his preaching. Sometimes a local station would give him 4 evenings in a row. Especially during Vietnam, he had a consistent line in his message about America being invested with a divine mission from God. I must have been a budding atheist even then, because I remember being irritated with that line. It just sounded dopey.
In sum: less intolerant than Falwell, less oleaginous than Swaggart, a better vocabulary than Bakker, more substance to his remarks than Schuller, infinitely smarter than little Franklin -- but still a shallow, shrill brand of preachin'.
And it will always be a sweet comeuppance that Nixon's tape machine caught him making some classic anti-Semitic remarks in the Oval Office, 'round about '71. To his credit, he immediately apologized and disowned the evident bigotry -- but there he was, in private, as he thought, sharing anti-Semitism with Nixie.

 

[Angry Floof]

Good riddance.

 

[Tigers!]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

 

[Angry Floof]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

How much religious hate and disrespect are you willing to ignore or justify or even support in the world? The world is better off without that sycophant bigot who knew he was peddling bullshit. He and his ilk are a blight on humanity.

There is quite enough of this sucking up to religious mouthpieces and pretending they're a force for good in the world. I repeat, GOOD RIDDANCE. Have the courage to speak the truth about Billy Graham and all he did and stood for.

 

[Tigers!]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

How much religious hate and disrespect are you willing to ignore or justify or even support in the world? The world is better off without that sycophant bigot who knew he was peddling bullshit. He and his ilk are a blight on humanity.

There is quite enough of this sucking up to religious mouthpieces and pretending they're a force for good in the world. I repeat, GOOD RIDDANCE. Have the courage to speak the truth about Billy Graham and all he did and stood for.

Which rather illuminates my point.

 

[Angry Floof]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

How much religious hate and disrespect are you willing to ignore or justify or even support in the world? The world is better off without that sycophant bigot who knew he was peddling bullshit. He and his ilk are a blight on humanity.

There is quite enough of this sucking up to religious mouthpieces and pretending they're a force for good in the world. I repeat, GOOD RIDDANCE. Have the courage to speak the truth about Billy Graham and all he did and stood for.

Which rather illuminates my point.

No, it doesn't. It's really easy (and lazy) to criticize someone speaking the truth about people in power. Billy Graham had a ton of power and he used it for his own gain and to perpetuate an inhumane, stunted world view.

But he's dead so let's pretend "respect" for this turd while pointing a petty moralizing finger at ordinary nobodies who criticize him for his regressive influence in the world.

YOU are actually illuminating MY point.

 

[Jobar]

Graham helped normalize ultra-rich pastors. Graham’s wealth, and focus on more wealth, was modest compared to the televangelists preaching the prosperity gospel today. His net worth was estimated at $25 million and while Jeff Bezos might spend more on a clock, it’s certainly not a vow of poverty.

As a kid I remember my parents and grandparents watching Graham on TV; I once asked, all innocent, what Graham did with the money so many people sent him. I think my grandmother donated to him on a fairly regular basis.

When I was older, and read the NT verses about getting a camel through a needle's eye being easier than a rich man getting into heaven, I again thought of Graham. I bet that no one mentions those verses at his funeral, eh?

 

[braces_for_impact]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

Atheists don't tend to love and respect anti-semitic religious figures that justify atrocities, bilk little old ladies of their social security checks, and convince millions of Americans that "prayer" will fix their problems. You're looking for the evangelical board, but I'd be willing to bet a significant sum that quite a few evangelical boards are even more critical than we.

 

[ronburgundy]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

How much religious hate and disrespect are you willing to ignore or justify or even support in the world? The world is better off without that sycophant bigot who knew he was peddling bullshit. He and his ilk are a blight on humanity.

There is quite enough of this sucking up to religious mouthpieces and pretending they're a force for good in the world. I repeat, GOOD RIDDANCE. Have the courage to speak the truth about Billy Graham and all he did and stood for.

Which rather illuminates my point.

It does, if your point is that atheists have more basic decency than theists and thus don't try to lie about and cover up that Graham was a bigot who worked to deny people equality and basic civil rights. That doesn't include his more general harmful impact in promoting evangelical Christianity and its promotion of anti-reason (aka, "faith') and authoritarianism that are the cornerstones of Abrahamic religion on the whole, and American Protestantism in particular. He also strongly encouraged evangelicals to increase their influence in the political sphere and to monetize their faith, all of which has been harmful to moral, scientific, and social progress.

That said, he wasn't nearly the completely immoral scumbag that the son he raised has become, though Billy deserves blame for that too.

 

[Lion IRC]

About bloody time. That's 99 years of pointless oxygen consumption we are never going to get back.

Thank you! I thought I was the only person thinking "about time"

Laughter and gratitude at someone else's putrid glee that a human being died.
Disgusting !

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

^
This.

 

[ruby sparks]

A human being died? Is there a thread on that?

 

[ruby sparks]

Impressed so far by the restraint shown.

Waiting to see more expressions of atheist love and respect.

^
This.

I love you and want to have your babies*

xoxoxoxo

Happy now?


















* so I can eat them, obviously.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Perhaps I'm just in an irritable mood, but it also seems that theists, and evangelicals especially, LOVE to lecture people on right and wrong. I believe the term is "Holier than thou." Well, they never really had any standing with which to do so, and with their support of Trump, have lost even any pretense of it.

 

[fast]

About bloody time.

I've been thinking about this comment of yours off and on today.

I might use those words sometime.