Monday 23 February 2009

A Response to the WBC Site "God Hates Australia" Part 2.

In other news before I start, I thought I might point out that it seems that they never actually managed to make it to Australia. Considering that they had a single protester there on the 21st I guess means that they wanted to go UK --> Australia and then figured out that they couldn't bend time (takes about 14 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and it took us an extra 7 to get to Adelaide, I guess that it would be longer to Melbourne).

Anyway, I'm not going to just give up on what I started so we go onto part 2 of our "response" (it's really more of an analysis. That's what I get for writing it at around 2 am). Part 1 may be found here.

The entire section is called "God's Wrath Revealed Against Australia".

I suggest that you go to it this time. This page is the reason why I'm thinking "Poe's Law". They have a youtube clip from The Chaser on there. Unless they are part of "God's wrath" then hopefully he can wrath us with more funny stuff and less terrible stuff.

I'm sorry to say it but you will have to read that page. I'm just going to post snippets.

We'll start with "Bible Quote Context Time":

Judges 2:15 Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed.

1Sa 12:15 But if ye will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall the hand of the LORD be against you, as it was against your fathers.

The first quote is from a passage about the unfaithfulness of Israel. Apparently the people turned away from God and he got annoyed, incited a bunch of enemies to attack the country and kind of supported those enemies by making it so that Israel would lose.

The second from Samuel is a farewell address from Samuel. Essentially it's one of the many passages where they aren't actually screwing around with the context in any way. It really is a passage that says "worship God or suffer" and goes on to have Samuel ask God to show his might by sending a storm during the harvest.

Their first example of the supposed "Wrath" of God is of course the Victorian bushfires. As I mentioned here they are claiming that it's because of gay people, while others claim that it isn't.

In traditional WBC showing of empathy they have this to say about the 209 people who have died:

The news reports claim that this is Australia's deadliest brush fire! It makes our hearts rejoice to see that you generation of brute beasts are getting rewarded based upon the fact that you spend your days chasing your lusts. The Lord is at the door and He WILL NOT allow you to continue to live in your filth without executing His justice! We have been warning you for years that your filthy manner of life is pissing God off, now OPEN YOUR EYES and see the destruction that you have laid upon yourselves because you absolutely REFUSE to just OBEY!

I'm sure that everyone else's hearts will rejoice when something bad happens to their "church".

In typical fringe religion style "refuse to just obey" means that Australia as a whole has refused to obey the "interpretation" of the Bible by Fred Phelps.

The reason for the Chaser clip is as follows:

You treated the servants of God terribly, sending one of your dirty fag bastards to interrupt our peaceful protests by sexually molesting one of our members and video-graphing your shameful conduct. You then, to add insult to your criminal injury, showed that video to thousands on Youtube around the world (see below), thereby desecrating the sacred worship of the temple of God at Westboro Baptist Church.

Notice how they, like other denominations of Abrahamaic faiths consider themselves to be "servants of God".

They also call Charles Firth, the man who "sexually molested" one of their members a "fag bastard" ignoring the small fact that he is actually married. To a woman. But I guess because she is an ALP supporter they probably wouldn't like her because she must be a communist or something.

The clip in question is below:

Now they claim that they "showed [it] to thousands on Youtube". Well what exactly are they doing? Whoever actually goes on to that section of the "God Hates Australia" website will see it as well. Seems a bit hypocritical to me but then again I don't expect the WBC to actually be logical.

Also note how they consider the picket to be "sacred worship". Under such logic I could create a church where I can beat the utter crap out of someone and call it "sacred worship". Firth encountered the people on a picket, not in their church. But I guess they are trying to play some sort of card regarding religion that doesn't apply anywhere outside their own little "congregation".

Continuing on:

And, it is written, “If any man shall defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy,” 1 Corinthians 3:17.

Notice how they are linking themselves to the "Temple of God", and yet their interpretation is utterly wrong. On top of that they've managed to actually quote mine the bible. You can find the verse here to check.

It states fully:

17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
The verse, as you can see, might not refer to any physical building at all. I don't know the current interpretations of the Bible, but in this case the interpretation might be that the temple is either a human, or the Corinthian Church. It could be the church in general, and I'm sorry to say it, but it's more likely to be an organisation that the WBC hates then themselves.

The rest of the page lists certain disasters that have happened over the years, including the heat wave before the fires, storms in the Hunter Valley in 2007, the bushfires on the Eyre Peninsula in 2005, the Bali Bombings (which isn't even in Australia so I don't know why it counts), Thredbo in 1997, fires on the East Coast in '93, and an earthquake in '89.

I do note that they didn't say anything about Stuart Diver, the only survivor from the Thredbo landslide, but the way they word it they make it sound like he's dead. I think someone should tell him. For those unaware, the landslide killed 18 people, including Sally Diver, the wife of Stuart, it turned out to have been caused by water from a leaking water main. In a way I think it might be for the best because of the implication that it would have.

The last thing that I will say about this page is that it appears that the way WBC see things is that people who die don't have to be gay, or tolerate gay people, instead God is punishing Australia in general. But the question remains, why is it that if God is actually punishing Australia for it's stance on homosexuality then why isn't God using more directed punishments? Why bother punishing in a rather random and inconsistent pattern?

Continue on to Part 3.

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