FSTDT Forums
Community => Religion and Philosophy => Topic started by: Her3tiK on February 06, 2013, 08:42:55 pm
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According to Skepchick (http://skepchick.org/2013/02/megan-and-grace-phelps-leave-westboro/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=megan-and-grace-phelps-leave-westboro), Megan Phelps left the WBC in November, but waited to announce it publicly until an interview she had with was posted today (I haven't the faintest clue who that is).
(https://medium.com/reporters-notebook/d63ecca43e35Jeff Chu[/url)I first met Megan in the summer of 2011, when I went to Topeka to spend a few days with the Westboro folks for my book project. During that visit, we talked about faith, we talked about church, we talked about marriage (and Megan’s feeling that, given the prospects, it would require no small amount of divine intervention in her case), and we talked about Harry Potter (for the record, she’s a fan). She seemed so sure in her beliefs, that I could not have imagined that some fifteen months later, we’d be having a conversation in which she tearfully told me that she was no longer with her family or with the church.
Mostly, the tears have subsided—“in public, anyway,” she says one afternoon, as we sit in a Tribeca café. “I still cry a lot.” Forget what you know of the church. Just imagine what it is like to walk away from everything you have ever known. Consider how traumatic it would be to know that your family is never supposed to speak to you again. Think of how hard it would be to have a fortress of faith built around you, and to have to dismantle it yourself, brick by brick, examining each one and deciding whether there’s something worth keeping or whether it’s not as solid as you thought it was.
For the record, Megan still believes in God, but she's found her family's beliefs to be hateful and hypocritical (surprise, surprise).
That raises the question of regrets and amends, for things they’ve said and signs they’ve held and judgments they’ve passed. “I definitely regret hurting people,” she says. “That was never our intention. We thought we were doing good. We thought it was the only way to do good. And that’s what I’ve always wanted.”
That’s not how the message was received. “I think I’ve known that for a long time, and I would talk to people about how I knew the message was hurtful,” Megan says. “But I believed it couldn’t matter what people felt. It mattered that this was what God wanted.”
The important thing here, is that their eyes have been opened to the damage their cause did, and they're now free to make their own choices. Every small victory counts, does it not?
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edit: fixed your second link
According to Skepchick (http://skepchick.org/2013/02/megan-and-grace-phelps-leave-westboro/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=megan-and-grace-phelps-leave-westboro), Megan Phelps left the WBC in November, but waited to announce it publicly until an interview she had with Jeff Chu (https://medium.com/reporters-notebook/d63ecca43e35) was posted today (I haven't the faintest clue who that is).
I first met Megan in the summer of 2011, when I went to Topeka to spend a few days with the Westboro folks for my book project. During that visit, we talked about faith, we talked about church, we talked about marriage (and Megan’s feeling that, given the prospects, it would require no small amount of divine intervention in her case), and we talked about Harry Potter (for the record, she’s a fan). She seemed so sure in her beliefs, that I could not have imagined that some fifteen months later, we’d be having a conversation in which she tearfully told me that she was no longer with her family or with the church.
Mostly, the tears have subsided—“in public, anyway,” she says one afternoon, as we sit in a Tribeca café. “I still cry a lot.” Forget what you know of the church. Just imagine what it is like to walk away from everything you have ever known. Consider how traumatic it would be to know that your family is never supposed to speak to you again. Think of how hard it would be to have a fortress of faith built around you, and to have to dismantle it yourself, brick by brick, examining each one and deciding whether there’s something worth keeping or whether it’s not as solid as you thought it was.
For the record, Megan still believes in God, but she's found her family's beliefs to be hateful and hypocritical (surprise, surprise).
That raises the question of regrets and amends, for things they’ve said and signs they’ve held and judgments they’ve passed. “I definitely regret hurting people,” she says. “That was never our intention. We thought we were doing good. We thought it was the only way to do good. And that’s what I’ve always wanted.”
That’s not how the message was received. “I think I’ve known that for a long time, and I would talk to people about how I knew the message was hurtful,” Megan says. “But I believed it couldn’t matter what people felt. It mattered that this was what God wanted.”
The important thing here, is that their eyes have been opened to the damage their cause did, and they're now free to make their own choices. Every small victory counts, does it not?
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Speaking of which, why has nobody mentioned the FLDS getting their child-marrying asses handed to them?
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My hats off to her for having the courage to get out of that place. Looks to be one hell of a rub. How do you convert people away from such a vile situation when they sincerely believe they are doing the right thing? Showing them what they had wrought seldom works, nor does debating their religion.
We see this a lot with extremists of all stripes, and it leaves a question worth mulling over: What does it take to deprogram your typical terrorist/conspiracy nut/fanatic/etc? More importantly, how do we do it within the bounds of the Constitution, and of any liberties the individual has? I guarantee that whoever figures this dilemma out AND can get the public to roll with it, would be able to retire.
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Well that's great news, must be pretty hard to break away from such hardcore indoctrination.
Hmm, is this the same (young) Megan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSbfs32yCU
Thunderf00t had this to say about her:
The hostility of 'Meg the Eldar' was really something I was unprepared for. The volume, the amount, and the hostility in the pitch of her voice was that of a bitter, bitter woman. Like a dog that's been tormented daily till all it knows how to do is attack anything that comes within biting distance. The daughter, I had the feeling was only there for eye-candy, or was just there as a spectator so Meg the Eldar could show her how to properly hate something not of the cult. The daughter spoke softly and had it just been me and her we might have made some progress. She had a venomfangx look to her.
Thunderf00t is a tru prophet now lol
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Glad to hear they haven't permanently brainwashed everyone in their little cult.
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And so the cult of personality begins to crumble.
Ironbite-a little bit more.
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I watched a documentary on the family, and it opened my eyes as to just how warped the cult really is.
Breaking away is almost impossible for the children because they are dragged along to the protests from a young age, where they are forced to be on the receiving end of the people responding to the hatred that the WBC spews forth. Which in turn forces those children to turn to their family for protection and support. It breeds this whole Stockholm syndrome where the kids grow up believing that everyone out there hates them and the only place they will ever be safe and happy is with the family. Then the family forces the children to take part and join the parade of hate or else they will loose even that little refuge. It is really very sad.
That any of them manage to escape is amazing in its own right. I do feel for her though. Having to turn your back on your family and everything you have ever known and believed in is incredibly difficult. I believe she is amazingly strong for managing to walk away from that family. I hope she finds happiness.
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If you read this article (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html#storylink=rss) about Megan in 2011 it does state that 20 have left between 2004 and 2011, most from that same generation as her. In a church that's almost entirely family and with only double-digit attendance that's a significant amount. So ultimately I think once Fred Phelps kicks it, the church will dissolve very soon. But good on those who chose to leave.
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Phelpses, goddamn it! The plural of Phelps is Phelpses. (Yes, I know, Heil Grammar!)
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Phelpses, goddamn it! The plural of Phelps is Phelpses. (Yes, I know, Heil Grammar!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4vf8N6GpdM
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If you read this article (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html#storylink=rss) about Megan in 2011 it does state that 20 have left between 2004 and 2011, most from that same generation as her. In a church that's almost entirely family and with only double-digit attendance that's a significant amount. So ultimately I think once Fred Phelps kicks it, the church will dissolve very soon. But good on those who chose to leave.
The way I see it, it'll probably be Shirley and one or two others sitting there spewing bile at all and everyone. Probably with a couple of hundred cats and unwashed clothes.
On a more serious note, they're apparently anti-Chinese. What did the Chinese do?
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If you read this article (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html#storylink=rss) about Megan in 2011 it does state that 20 have left between 2004 and 2011, most from that same generation as her. In a church that's almost entirely family and with only double-digit attendance that's a significant amount. So ultimately I think once Fred Phelps kicks it, the church will dissolve very soon. But good on those who chose to leave.
The way I see it, it'll probably be Shirley and one or two others sitting there spewing bile at all and everyone. Probably with a couple of hundred cats and unwashed clothes.
On a more serious note, they're apparently anti-Chinese. What did the Chinese do?
Yeah... Sorry bout that. I had a one-night run-in with one of the Phelps daughters during a bad bender... Didn't know who she was until I saw Shirley's considerable girth charging at me.
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If you read this article (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html#storylink=rss) about Megan in 2011 it does state that 20 have left between 2004 and 2011, most from that same generation as her. In a church that's almost entirely family and with only double-digit attendance that's a significant amount. So ultimately I think once Fred Phelps kicks it, the church will dissolve very soon. But good on those who chose to leave.
The way I see it, it'll probably be Shirley and one or two others sitting there spewing bile at all and everyone. Probably with a couple of hundred cats and unwashed clothes.
On a more serious note, they're apparently anti-Chinese. What did the Chinese do?
Yeah... Sorry bout that. I had a one-night run-in with one of the Phelps daughters during a bad bender... Didn't know who she was until I saw Shirley's considerable girth charging at me.
Thank you. I now have coffee on the monitor. ;D
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@ Rabbit: The video is amusing. I readily admit that there remain but 17 of us in the nation who care about grammar, spelling and syntax. They are important only if you're concerned about conveying ideas accurately. Incidentally, the SS officer was mistaken when he chided his victim for ending a sentence with a preposition. There is no "law" that prohibits this is English, regardless of what Miss Onderdonk may have told us in fifth grade. There never has been.
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I don't take the WBC klan seriously anymore. They're just a bunch of over the top attention whores, half of which are probably the world's biggest closet cases themselves.
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I don't take the WBC klan seriously anymore. They're just a bunch of over the top attention whores, half of which are probably the world's biggest closet cases themselves.
They're a cult that gets their funding by pissing people off and then winning First Amendment lawsuits when people sue them.
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I don't take the WBC klan seriously anymore. They're just a bunch of over the top attention whores, half of which are probably the world's biggest closet cases themselves.
They're a cult that gets their funding by pissing people off and then winning First Amendment lawsuits when people sue them.
That's what bothers me most about them. If they were just another fringe lunatic cult that upset people, that'd be annoying and unacceptable in regular society, but not so aggressively malevolent. But instead they prey on people at their most vulnerable and attack them where it hurts the most--and then exploit loopholes in the US government to make their victims pay up. It's like poking a pit bull in the face with a garden rake until it bites you, and then exploiting dangerous animal laws to get it put down because it defended itself. It isn't right, even if it's technically strictly speaking following the law.
Anyway. I'm glad the ranks of the WBC is shrinking and what remains is getting steadily older. It just goes to show you that no matter how hard you try and isolate your cult, people will STILL figure out from the inside that it isn't okay and it's not a decent way to live. It also suggests that some kind of morality is innate, because even people from some of the worst circumstances can understand what is and isn't okay to do--which is also, coincidentally, what religious people dread. Because if morality is innate, then what need is there for god?
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Actually, if morality is innate, one could take that as evidence for G-d.
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Actually, if morality is innate, one could take that as evidence for G-d.
I've heard this argument a lot but I have to respectfully disagree with it. What is considered to be "innate morality" in most people is probably a combination of biology and social conditioning. (I think there is a small minority of people who are not born with the same degree of innate morality as the general population - psychopaths and the like - but they are not the focus of this post.) I think that morality is an evolutionary advantage for humans because, for a social species like Homo sapiens, it's healthier to have a revulsion to harming and killing members of one's own circle. These stabler communities are more likely to survive and propagate than the communities that consider killing one's own family to be high entertainment. Of course, this is conjecture, but the important thing is that there are naturalistic explanations for morality that don't necessarily indicate the existence of a higher power. Some people might see the presence of the same basic moral rules in the vast majority of people as evidence of a higher power, but personally I do not.