Religious
hate speech against religion’s
purpose, inaccurate
Krystle
Ralston
Fox
News recently showed a clip featuring
a woman named Shirley Phelps Roper, a
member of Westborough Baptist Church
in Iowa. That doesn’t really seem
like a big deal, except for the fact
she thinks Sept. 11 and the Holocaust
were blessings from God. She said all
of this like a true sociopath: With a
sick and creepy smile on her face.
Roper and her family have formed their own unnamed religious sector built upon
the hatred of pretty much everyone. They have been attending funerals around
the country for soldiers who have died in Iraq and holding up signs that read “Thank
God for Dead Soldiers.”
These people truly believe it is God’s plan to take soldier’s lives
away and their deaths are worth rejoicing over. To them, catastrophic events
such as Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq are simply the judgments of God
toward people who do not follow his law.
Individuals like Roper not only make me violently ill, they make me very sad,
because I myself am a Christian. This group gives religious people everywhere
a horrible reputation. What is even sadder is these losers cannot even read.
The Bible states Jesus loved everyone, from criminals to prostitutes.
Love is God’s weapon of choice, not hate. Believe it or not, if I am
interpreting the Bible correctly, God has a place in his heart for everyone,
including killers, rapists and thieves. I am in no way saying God condones
these behaviors; he may hate what they do, but he most definitely does not
hate them. And if he does not hate a serial killer, I think I can safely say
he does not hate an innocent victim of any war or tragedy.
When a person leaves the planet in any way, whether it is sudden or a long
time coming, it is God’s will. I remember reading a passage in the Bible
stating that when our hearts break, his heart breaks with ours. For whatever
reason he chooses to take us away from our lives on earth, it is most definitely
not to punish or hurt us in any way. We may not understand his purpose but
it does not involve us being reprimanded for any mistakes we chose to make.
Religion is something that has been twisted and contorted in many different
ways. It was never meant to be this way. It was created for people to find
peace and guidance in their lives and understand right from wrong. It was not
meant as an excuse to hate and it most definitely was not created to hate those
who are completely innocent.
Death is a scary and painful experience and when people are happy about it,
there is something extremely disturbing about that. How or why these evil creatures
take delight in other’s misery is beyond me, but I do know they are taking
God’s words and warping them in any way they can think of, and that is
what will probably send them straight to hell, or at least, I hope so.
Krystle Ralston is a senior journalism major and the calendar editor of
the Daily Forty-Niner.
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