Religious Americans - this is what affects the opinion of you abroad

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Big things take out the best or worst in people, and here is an example of the latter. A Kansas pastor made the national papers over here, with the article. I include both the original text and my translation of it, so that you can - at least in theory - judge for yourself how true my translation is.

From the 2005/01/06 issue of "Aftonbladet" biggest paper over here:
Extremistkyrka till attack mot Sverige
NEW YORK.
Det finns en pastor i USA som önskar att flera svenskar dött i tsunamikatastrofen.
– Jag hoppas att ni alla dö. Ni är ett fördömt land, säger pastor Fred Phelps.
Den lilla extremistkyrkan Westboro Baptist Church i Topeka, Kansas, har i ännu ett pressmeddelande och på sin hemsida gått till attack mot Sverige.
”Tack gode gud för de 20 000 döda svenskar! Thailand borde akta sig för svenskar. Beordra dem att åka!”
Sverige är de ”fördömda sodomiternas land”, skriver kyrkan på hemsidan godhatesfags.com (gud hatar bögar).
Anledningen är fängelsedomen mot Åke Green, den öländske pastorn som ansågs ha gjort sig skyldig till hets mot folkgrupp när han predikade mot homosexualitet.
– Ett land som spärrar in en pastor som bara predikar Bibeln är fördömt! säger Fred Phelps, kyrkans grundare.

Är det inte hårt att önska livet ur 20 000 svenskar?
– Nej, jag önskar det var fler. Gud tar till rejäla grepp när han är missnöjd. Över sex miljarder människor dog i syndafloden, hävdar Phelps.

Jag kan meddela att det snarare rör sig om 2 000 döda svenskar.
– Det var tråkigt. Jag önskar att ni alla dör. Jag kan inte tänka mig ett värre brott än att spärra in en pastor, även om jag inte är av exakt samma tro som Åke Green.
– Den här unge pojken Kristian Walker borde önska att han är bortrövad så han slipper åka till Sverige.

Är du inte rädd att hamna i helvetet för dessa uttalanden
– Nej, jag är rädd att hamna där om jag inte säger detta.
---Article ends----

My translation:
Extremist church attacking Sweden.
NEW YORK.

There is a pastor in the USA who wishes that more Swedes would have died in the tsunami catastrophy.

- I hope you all die. You are a condemmned country, says pastor Fred Phelps. The little extremist church Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, has in yet another press release and on its home page attacked Sweden.

"Thank good God for the 20 000 dead Swedes! Thailand should beware of Swedes! Order them to leave!”
Sweden is the wretched land of the sodomites, writes the Church on the homepage godhatesfags.com.
The reason is the jail sentence against Åke Green, the pastor from Öland who was found guilty of "incitement to hate against a group" when he preached that homosexuality is morally wrong.

- A country which locks up pastors who preach the Bible is wretched! says Fred Phelps, the church founder.

(Interview starts)
Isn´t it a bit much to wish death on 20 000 Swedes?
– No, I wish they were more. God uses the big stroke when he is displeased. Over six billion people died in the old-testament Flood, claims Phelps.

I can tell you that it is closer to 2000 dead Swedes.
- I am sorry to hear that. I hope you all die. I can not envision a worse crime than locking up a pastor, even if I am not of precisely the same belief as Åke Green.
– This young boy Kristian Walker ought to wish that he is abducted so that he does not have to go home to Sweden.

Are you not afraid to go to Hell for these statements?
– No, I am afraid to go there if I do not say it.[/i]
-----Translation ends----

Background: Kristian Walker is a missing 12-year old Swedish boy. His father has found the rest of family after then tsunami alive, with minor injuries. When his father presented the photo of Kristian to Thai health personell, some said that they had seen they boy with minor injury at the hospital, and that he had been taken out of the hospital by a grown man. The father therefore concluded that Kristian could be abducted.

I had a look at the mentioned homepage, and found these charming statements:

"Not to mention the fact that those Asian countries weren’t the only ones affected by the tsunami. Do you realize that among the dead and missing are 20,000 Swedes and over 3,000 Americans? Filthy Swedes went to Thailand - world epicenter of child sex traffic - to rape and sodomize little Thai boys and girls. 20,000 dead Swedes is to Sweden's population of 9 million as 650,000 would be to America's 290 million population. We sincerely hope and pray that all 20,000 Swedes are dead, their bodies bloated on the ground or in mass graves or floating at sea feeding sharks and fishes or in the bellies of thousands of crocodiles washed ashore by tsunamis. These filthy, ****** Swedes have a satanic, draconian law criminalizing Gospel preaching, under which they prosecuted, convicted and sentenced Pastor Ake Green to jail - thereby incurring God's irreversible wrath: "He suffered no man to do them wrong; yea, he reproved kings for their sakes; Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm." Psa. 105:14,15. America, who is awash in diseased fag feces & semen, and is an apostate land of the sodomite damned. Let us pray that God will send a massive Tsunami to totally devastate the North American continent with 1000-foot walls of water doing 500 mph -- even as islands in southern Asia have recently been laid waste, with but a small remnant surviving. And you wonder if this is the wrath of God?

<snip>

It is God's prerogative to kill children to punish their evil, Godless, vile, filthy parents and others who were raising them for the devil anyway; they are most certainly better off now than they were in the hands of such evil people. He always has done that, and He always will. Deal with it."


Any group of people will be judged by those outside to a great extent on its worst members. It is not fair, but that is the way it is. This will apply to religious americans also - people who never have met a religious person, and therefore have never met a good religious person, will quite possible think of Pastor Phelps when (or if) you introduce yourself as a religious american. FYI, I can inform that strong religious beliefs are about as mainstream in Sweden as fencing is in USA sans NY state.

I predict that Fred Phelps will be seen as a typical example god-fearing american - but not a typical american - by many in Europe shortly.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Moonitic]

If they want to hate all of us "evil religious people," then they are just as guilty as this horrible, vile "man" (I use the term loosely). Anyone who celebrates the death & pain of innocent people is no TRUE follower of Christ (if that's what he claims).

People like this are the reason that decent people need to step up & be more vocal. And everyone needs to look at people as individuals, not labels.

Disgusting. That creep doesn't speak for me, that's for sure.

[mrbiggs]

Most of America is ebarassed by those types of people.

(And they all live in Kansas. Or sometimes Texas. Why is that?)

Anyway, I'm not sure about that entire article...I wish I could read Swedish to get a better sense. Anyway, that seems a little extreme even for American right-wing religious extremists. "I hope you all die", referring to SWEDES? Why does the church care about Sweden? It doesn't quite make sense. I don't mean to be disrespectful when I say this, I am, rather, unacquainted with the Sweedish press. What are the odds this thing is made up? In America, it wouldn't be out of the question.


EDIT: I had missed the part of the article which explains the basis for the hate. But STILL, I mean, shouldn't this pastor be attacking New York City or Massachusettes or something?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

Most of America is ebarassed by those types of people.

(And they all live in Kansas. Or sometimes Texas. Why is that?)

That is for our Kansan members to explain or refute - I am sure that they have something interesting to say.

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

Anyway, I'm not sure about that entire article...I wish I could read Swedish to get a better sense. Anyway, that seems a little extreme even for American right-wing religious extremists. "I hope you all die", referring to SWEDES? Why does the church care about Sweden? It doesn't quite make sense. I don't mean to be disrespectful when I say this, I am, rather, unacquainted with the Sweedish press. What are the odds this thing is made up? In America, it wouldn't be out of the question.

We do not have papers like "News of the World", "Sun", or that. Our papers regularly slant, chose not not tell all facts, and stuff like that, but they do not make up stories totally from nothing (except a few gossip papers). The Åke Green case was reported by all the major papers, and the facts were consistently reported by papers across the political scale.

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

EDIT: I had missed the part of the article which explains the basis for the hate. But STILL, I mean, shouldn't this pastor be attacking New York City or Massachusettes or something?

He does that too. Read his take on 9/11, if you have a strong stomach.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

That is for our Kansan members to explain or refute - I am sure that they have something interesting to say.

I'm not saying all people from Kansas are like that. 99% of people from Kansas are normal Americans. I was just pointing out that alot of the people who are religious lunatics are in Kansas. Alot of cults are based there, too, it seems.

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

We do not have papers like "News of the World", "Sun", or that. Our papers regularly slant, chose not not tell all facts, and stuff like that, but they do not make up stories totally from nothing (except a few gossip papers). The Åke Green case was reported by all the major papers, and the facts were consistently reported by papers across the political scale.

Okay, thanks. That just kinda makes me sad; I really wish it wasn't true. I mean, why do our lunatics have to go out and give America a bad name to the world? We don't have Swedish liberals coming over here and denouncing George Bush. (Although that actually wouldn't be a bad thing, necessarily.)

[neevel]

Well, as a member of one of the most progressive denominations I clearly don't have much truck with this guy, but Fred Phelps has long been considered an embarassment and/or a joke even by most conservative christians over here. His church is more or less a cult that consists of Phelps, some of his family, and a few other hangers on. Not even Falwell/Robertson/Dobson et. al. want to be lumped in too close to him. They get national press attention precisely because they are such a lunatic fringe. He also put out a flyer saying essentially the same thing about most of the American victims of the Tsunami, too (that they were licentious, libertine sinners who got what they deserved).

Of course, then there's this from the House Majority leader.

[LUDICROUS]

Everyone has an opinion, and some people are more f*cked in the head than others. For someone to think (after reading that article) that the USA is filled with psychos like him would be ignorant, baseless and unfounded - only a moron would think that.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Fred Phelps is the guy who is responsible for godhatesfags.com --- or whatever the URL is.

he is INSANE.

falwell can be made to apologize for some of his more rediculous things,

fred phelps tries to put up monuments expressing that people who were brutally murdered because of their sexuality are in hell.

insane.

****ing insane.

end of story.

[Epee_Pox]

It's sort of dishonest to portray someone who is clearly part of the lunatic fringe as representative of the views of anyone else.

To take what this guy spews and say "see, THIS is why we don't like religious Americans" implies that you didn't bother to check whether this guy actually speaks for anyone else, and that you are willing to accept that this guy is representative.

If certain people dislike religious Americans based on of such dishonesty, carelessness with facts and unfounded predilections, then my problem is with those people and not with the religious Americans.

[esskreemr]

Fred Phelps is what happens when somebody wraps themself in a cloak of religious "virtues" and uses it to spill hate and violence. I would just like you to remember that for every Fred Phelps, there are probably 100,000 Americans who feel an emotional burden over what happened in the tsunami.

A tiny, bitter man whose only attempt at greatness is proliferating his hate and spite using the incredible ease of the internet. As much as I disparage the christian right, I believe that even the majority of them would agree that God should have smote him down long ago. Perhaps some large men with a couple of 2x4s could do the same job.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by Moonitic

If they want to hate all of us "evil religious people," then they are just as guilty as this horrible, vile "man" (I use the term loosely). Anyone who celebrates the death & pain of innocent people is no TRUE follower of Christ (if that's what he claims).

As I said, it is not fair, but groups are often judged by their worst, especially when the others do not do all that much damage control. Just human nature.

You have to be aware that in Sweden (that I know, and I am almost totally sure that it applies for the rest of non-Catholic Europe as well) to present oneself as a religious person is like presenting oneself as a fencer. Most non-fencers have never met a fencer, and many upon hearing it start to do corny things (Errol flynn moves, mentions of Boris Onistjenko, shouting EN GARDE!, stuff like that). Over here, nearly the same proportion of the non-religious have never met a openly religious person, so when they meet one they often get ideas based on what they have read in the papers, or heard over-the-top stories. Be prepared for the Huh??? look, and having to break through some sceptisism. Immedieate hate, however, will only be exhibited by quite few here - the overwhelming majority would be willing to hear you out, and possibly ask you on your take on Phelps.

Originally Posted by Moonitic

People like this are the reason that decent people need to step up & be more vocal. And everyone needs to look at people as individuals, not labels.

Well, you can step up and be more vocal. The journalist who wrote the article has the email:

fredrik.virtanen@aftonbladet.se

He has reported from the USA, so he can understand english. If you can get a pastor to denounce Phelps, I think it would have reasonable chances of making the paper.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[esskreemr]

This man is a nut case by anybody's definition. Want some good reading:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intel...le.jsp?sid=184

It's amazing how much publicity his cult of hate gets.

Phelps files a $50-million class action suit against Sears after a local outlet is several days late delivering a television set. Litigation continues for six years and is eventually settled with Sears paying Phelps $126 — about $60 less than Phelps' son originally paid for the TV, which he never receives.

[Zilverzmurfen]

I read about this a couple of days ago and was appalled. I have seen a lot of rubbish on the internet but this is just...well, I don't find the words. Anyway, this man and his likes are obviously totally mental.

Myrddins told about one of their sites, but this is another one of theirs: www.godhatessweden.com.

In all equality it must be said that this man does not only hate Sweden. He also hates America (the entire continent???) and Canada.

What a pitiful man, methinks someone needs a hug...ha ha ha!!!

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Zilverzmurfen

What a pitiful man, methinks someone needs a hug...ha ha ha!!!

Don't waste your hugs on him. There are plenty of other candidates that deserve to be converted by the Love of Zilverzmurfen.

Here's a popular parody site:
http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

[Gav]

If this guy wasn't so tragic it would be funny.

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2003-10/9982556.jpg

looks like they indoctrinate the kids early.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

Don't waste your hugs on him.

Good heavens no...I never said I would hug him... *eeew*

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Gav

looks like they indoctrinate the kids early.

He has 13 of them. I wouldn't be surprised if his "church" was peopled entirely from member of his family.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Well, you can step up and be more vocal. The journalist who wrote the article has the email:

fredrik.virtanen@aftonbladet.se

He has reported from the USA, so he can understand english. If you can get a pastor to denounce Phelps, I think it would have reasonable chances of making the paper.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

Thanks for the link - I just took advantage of it!