I hope the scandals create lots of atheists.
How ironic it would be to hear pepole say they became an atheist because of Jerry Falwell Jr.
If the worldwide systemic and repeated rape of children at the hands of priests didn't shake any faith, I don't know why one guy watching his wife get boned would. If people are questioning their faith is because they're realizing they had faith in something stupid just like most of the people that frequent this website, not because of Falwell.
Televangelists are kind of like cult leaders. When the followers become disillusioned with the leaders they tend to leave. In the Catholic church the "leader" is the Pope. So when priests rape kids, they still keep faith. I am greatly generalizing, as human behavior is very complicated, but that is how I think it works.
Of course those who has more faith in the religion itself than than they did Falwaell Jr. will probably just find another leaser to follow.
@snytiger6 I think it's quite likely he'll do a period in the sin bin and come back saying he had repented, spoken to God, and is cured of his sinning ways. And they will welcome him with open arms.
@prometheus That is the usual pattern when televangelists experience scandals. Luckily they never seem to come back as strong though.
Let the veil be lifted from their eyes. College students in the prime of their lives should be screwing their brains out. What a waste of youth and vigor in devotion to someone/something way too interested in their naughty thoughts/sex lives. Even Falwell knows it’s ok. Glad he got caught. Sex is not a sin! Sin is the lie!
If they are not thinking critically, it is not a university
Now why should their students want to question the hypocrisy, greed, abuses of power, and demands of blind obedience that are demanded of students at their college ?
I wouldn't call it a college, much less a university.
Colleges/universities should be places where discourse and debate aree encouraged, not discouraged.
If hypocrisy is what leads christians to question their faith, where the fuck have they been for 2000 years?
They've been being brainwashed. It was hypocrisy that I witnessed over and over again in church after church that led me to leave organized religion. Learning more science is what led me to becoming an atheist.
I'm a bit pessimistic about people who are susceptible to cult of personality, religous or otherwise. They often just find another "dear, leader" to follow.
Great, there is an extra
space for the new agnostics, atheists, and non-believers.
I don't see that he did anything wrong, sexually anyway.
The problem is the hypocrisy and the disappointing proof again that an erect penis has no conscious.
his new mantra should be " do as I do, not as I preach"
or " fuck a stranger for christ "
CNN’s Anderson Cooper noted that it isn’t the first time someone is hypocritical in the world of conservatism, professing one thing but doing another in their private lives.
With all due respect to Anderson... No shit Sherlock!
Just ask yourself who needs the convert of religion and Church the most - compulsive sinners. That's why the TV series "The New Pope" was so believable. Except with the US Evangelical church we don't have to imagine the pedantry and fornication that goes on behind the scenes, it regularly outs itself for all to see.
The Satanists are taking it in stride [mobile.twitter.com]
Maybe we need to spread the rumour that "In God We Trust" translates to "Allahu akbar". That should do it...
Any young adult willing to go to a place like Liberty University has been tightly controlled and brainwashed their entire life.
So this is a good thing.
Hmmmmm. Because the history, ALL KNOWN HUMAN HISTORY, isn't already replete with this type of religious hypocrisy?
I mean, people like Jerry Falwell Sr and Jr are one of the reasons why I am an atheist, and feel pretty damn confident that I am right about my atheism. There is so much overwhelming circumstantial evidence that religions, ALL religions, are human-made devices of wealth collection and control, that any theist and/or agnostic apology for the possibility of supernatural divine existence has zero credibility.....
I can understand their questioning their faith in Falwell Jr. and perhaps in Liberty U. but if they believe in god, why question their faith in god?