Bye Bye

Over the last several years, many people I have admired in one way or another throughout my life have passed beyond the veil and it saddened me to see them go. Most of them have had a positive impact; a few, well, not so positive. Jerry Falwell was one of these. At the risk of sounding crass, I will not miss him in the slightest.

If there was a God, and he wished those he created to behave in certain ways and to bow down and worship him, he certainly didn't clue the human race in on exactly how he wanted this all done, and the reason I cannot believe that there exists a "God of Abraham" is very evident in how poorly this whole concept of worship and behavior is understood by us, the race of incredibly hateful and violent creatures that were supposedly made in his own image. For a holy man, a representative of what the son of God was supposed to stand for, I cannot imagine a more inept example to emulate than the "right reverend" Falwell. Whatever it was this man believed in, I for one have no use for it, whatsoever.

There are many men and women who make their marks on our lives by virtue of their personalities, their talents, their compassion, their ideas, and they truly do leave a hole in the very fabric of the universe when they leave us. Yet, others, such as Falwell, rest upon our awareness more as an irritant than as something inspirational. Yes, there are those who thought this person touched by God himself, and I will not argue as to wether or not he was basically a nice person to those who were close to him. The fact remains, however, that there are countless men and women whom he did not know yet dared to pass judgement on and declare less than worthy of respect, or worse yet, blamed for the evils that evil men did do. Personally, I thought blaming "the gays and the feminists" for 9/11 to be somewhat of an idiotic stretch, not to mention downright nasty. This, they would say, was a man of God.

His departure will not ease the divisiveness and intolerance that plagues us in this so-called enlightened age of ours. There are many who will fill his shoes and carry on in his stead, thus insuring that matters of faith will never find a safe, loving home in the hearts of men where they belong, rather than in manners of governance, where we go so far as to kill each other for believing in the wrong things, according to those who pass judgement with guns in their hands or bombs in their backpacks.

Jerry, Christ was purported to have said, "judge not lest ye be judged". You believed he was the son of God. Yet you ignored one of the most basic of his teachings. I do not believe an invisible man in the sky knocked up a virgin and then had his son tortured and nailed to a wooden cross "for our sins", thus I will feel no guilt or compunction in judging YOU. You were a bigot. Good riddance.