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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSarah Silverman deflates Jerry Falwell Jr.'s tires.
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@SarahKSilverman
Sarah Silverman Retweeted Matt Pearce 🦅
Um your daddy got rich from poor peoples money
Link to tweet
MyOwnPeace
(16,937 posts)czarjak
(11,287 posts)Forgot whom hes supposedly works for. (As always)
malaise
(269,157 posts)Rec
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)My grandmother, who had very little, sent these people "love offerings" or whatever they call donations these days. And, while they got rich, she worked past 80 and ended up on government assistance programs anyway, toward the end of her life.
UpInArms
(51,284 posts)The occasions when I went to my grandmothers house and those gawdawful televangelists would be on begging my sweet grandmother to send them part of her $109 monthly pension
Her beautiful soft and caring heart could not see their deceitful agenda ... they were the reverse Robin Hoods ... stealing from the poor
I shall forever despise all of them
olegramps
(8,200 posts)calimary
(81,440 posts)A VERY special place in Hell. Down at the very bottom. For exactly these vultures and thieves.
dalton99a
(81,568 posts)calimary
(81,440 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)It's Circle 8, Bolgia 6 -- the Hypocrites. The hypocrites are listlessly walking around a narrow track for eternity, weighted down by leaden robes. The robes are brilliantly gilded on the outside, the hypocrite's "outward appearance shines brightly and passes for holiness, but under that show lies the terrible weight of his deceit" (John Ciardi's note on Canto 23, line 20).
Or, perhaps, Bolgia 8, Evil Counsellors (Stephen Miller's ultimate destination). Or even Bolgia 9, Sowers of Discord, who are hacked and mutilated for all eternity by a large demon wielding a bloody sword. Their bodies are divided as their sin was to tear apart what should be united; these are the sinners who are "ready to rip up the whole fabric of society to gratify a sectional egotism" (Ciardi, note on Canto 28, line 30).
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)When it was time to clean out their house, most of the stuff was books and tapes bought from televangelists. Boxes upon boxes of crap, and who knows what it really cost them.
WinstonSmith4740
(3,056 posts)One of my favorite scenes from "Hannah and Her Sisters". Pure Woody Allen.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,109 posts)I feel the same about boxing and mma. How sick is it to sit there and watch (and cheer) two people attempting to give the other one brain damage. Hell, they even pay for that "privilege".
Solly Mack
(90,779 posts)SergeStorms
(19,204 posts)No quarter given, none taken. She has a way of cutting straight through the bullshit, right to the heart of the matter.
If Falwell's daddy hadn't squeezed the nickels and dimes from the poor selling his imaginary product, Jr. wouldn't have a soap-box to stand on now, would he? He's another one of those meatheads who was born on third base and honestly believes he's hit a home run.
Pisces
(5,602 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Hugin
(33,189 posts)But, then as an entitled dominionist... He totally missed that fact.
Instead, he thinks God prefers him.
Paladin
(28,271 posts)Soxfan58
(3,479 posts)colorado_ufo
(5,737 posts)People like Falwell are nothing new in this world. Jesus commented on them two thousand years ago.
WinstonSmith4740
(3,056 posts)But somehow I doubt that he's ever visited it at all. These folks pick and choose which verses they consider important, and then try to tell the rest of us we have to agree with them. If persausion doesn't work, coercion is not beneath them.
And besides, wasn't Jesus poor? And he changed the world.
smb
(3,473 posts)calimary
(81,440 posts)You never hear any of these holier-than-thou gas giants referring to the story in the New Testament about Jesus and the rich young man.
Rich young man has heard all the buzz about this new Rabbi and is fascinated, and wants in. Approaches Jesse about it. Jesus instructs him that the way to join up for him will be to go sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and come follow Me.
And the last we hear of the rich young man is - he went away, sad.
Tbear
(488 posts)and loved him.
Before He answered the rich young man's question that led him to walk away sad.
Important difference for the true Christian. Truth with love.
akraven
(1,975 posts)She barely made it month-to-month on her deceased husband's pitiful pension from a mine in Alabama, but "tithed" every month.
We used to bring her food.
I hate televangelists, period.
oasis
(49,400 posts)Perseus
(4,341 posts)Why do people fall for greedy SOBs like Falwell father and Jr?
I know the father died and is in hell, where Jr will follow when his time comes.
DemoTex
(25,400 posts)Preach it!
Farmer-Rick
(10,202 posts)Some actually did something and when those leeches started on their relentless grasping for a buck, they were guess what? POOR.
And despite Falwell's stupidity, the fully documented FACT is that the poor and middle class give a whole lot more to charity as a percentage of their income than any uber rich scoundrel, no matter how many millions daddy gave them.
So, Falwell just handed out more lies....typical.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,032 posts)The 1% gives bigger dollar amounts, but a lesser percentage of the wealth & income.
Poor people have little disposable income but they often give that and more.
The 1% has gobs and buckets and tanker ships full of disposable income but are tight-fisted misers.
smb
(3,473 posts)Small donations from more people add up.
erronis
(15,328 posts)And they want more of our pittances.
And they want to deny our tax dollars to go to help people really in need.
They lobby their paid congress-critters to pass tax cuts for the wealthy.
Sorry ---- preaching to the choir.
ck4829
(35,084 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Lucky Luciano
(11,258 posts)LakeArenal
(28,837 posts)Jesus recorded in the synoptic gospels: I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Theres two kingdoms. Theres the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. In the heavenly kingdom the responsibility is to treat others as youd like to be treated. In the earthly kingdom, the responsibility is to choose leaders who will do whats best for your country.
Falwell is basing this on a fundamental misreading of The City of God, a massive treatise on history, philosophy and the Christian religion by the fourth century Christian writer, Augustine of Hippo. In it, Augustine develops a theory of two cities: the earthly city, and the heavenly city.
Falwell takes this theory of two cities to mean that there is an earthly city. which he identifies with the state or with public life (which is the literal meaning of the Latin res publica) that God created to operate by mortal rules of self-interest, while the heavenly city is meant to operate by self-giving. According to this theory, there is little that isnt permissible here in the earthly city, at least when it comes to the worldly affairs of politics and public life. It is only in the heavenly city -- which, in this misreading, is often identified with either heaven itself or religious institutions such as the church -- that Christians are actually bound to follow the dictates of their religion.
Thus, for Falwell, Christians in the earthly city are free to put self-interest over anything, it seems. Thus, he explains, "You dont choose a president based on how good they are; you choose a president based on what their policies are."
What Augustine's two cities actually symbolize are two different destinations for the soul. The earthly city consists of the number of people who are self-seeking and self-desiring, whose ultimate end is their own benefit. The heavenly city consists of those who seek to follow the will of God. But the two cities are not separate or wholly distinct, either spatially or institutionally: They are everywhere and always intermixed. Citizens can bear dual citizenship: People who earnestly seek God in all things nevertheless live in a world shaped by and devoted to self-interest, and the generally selfish can, at times, confront the transcendent.
But Christians should never stop being Christians. Augustine argued that not being self-seeking made Christians better citizens. What Falwell appears to take as a permission slip to abandon Christian principle when given enough power more or less suggests the opposite. There is no mandate in Augustine to put aside Christianity when participating in civic life; the hope is rather that Christian morality will inform better and more peaceful citizenship -- thanks to all those virtues Falwell doesnt like: mercy, justice, equanimity, compassion.
Of course, that doesn't mean Falwell never cares for Christian principle in American leaders, or that he would actually endorse a misreading of Augustine if it were laid out for him next to a better reading. He seems instead to have been reasoning backward, trying to explain in Christian terms why he holds the conclusions he does, rather than beginning from the religion he claims to hold and following it to its own conclusions. Critics of Christianity have struggled for centuries with precisely what Falwell does: That the religion isn't very good at making you rich or powerful and that it offers very little advice for crushing your enemies or securing your own benefit at the expense of others. "A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume," Falwell claims, in direct contradiction to a lesson shared by Jesus in Mark 12.
That story goes like this: Jesus watches one day as many people, rich and poor, put money into the temple treasury. Though some rich people give large amounts of money, Jesus only stops to note the donation of a poor widow who gives only a few cents. "Truly I tell you," Jesus says, "this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
There are no perfect Christians; Falwell is right about that. (I certainly wouldnt claim the mantle.) But it's important to distinguish between abdicating Christian values to get ahead in business and politics, and the erroneous view that God sanctions some amount of immorality as natural or appropriate to life on Earth. There is no zone in Christian theology where malignant selfishness is permitted. The heavenly city is here right now, if you want to dwell there.