“The Westboro Baptist Church is heading out on a ‘God Hates the Media Tour,’ with plans to picket pretty much every major technology company in Silicon Valley,” Cavan Sieczkowski reports for The Huffington Post.
“The quasi-religious group, known for its vitriolic anti-gay rhetoric and picketing of funerals, will kick off its latest crusade on Aug. 12. Facebook, Google and Apple headquarters are just a few of the sites on the docket,” Sieczkowski reports. “In a release about the Apple picket, the group calls the company’s late co-founder, Steve Jobs, ‘a rich, proud fool who now inhabits hell.'”
Sieczkowski reports, “Even Reddit is a target of the Aug. 12 event, because the site’s late co-founder, Aaron Swartz, was ‘a poster boy for this online community: a fag, an atheist and a thief.'”
Read more in the full article here.
The Westboro Baptist Church goes “on to claim Steve Jobs resides in hell as a result of seeking out alternative therapies for his cancer treatment,” Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac.
“Apparently losing that train of thought, they then (somewhat bizarrely) claim that Jobs was put on Earth to create Apple products, which are today used without complaint by the Westboro Baptist Church,” Dormehl reports. “To punish Apple for its user-friendliness, the loopy churchgoers are planning on picketing Apple headquarters for a rather-unimpressive half hour on Tuesday, August 12.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: The Westboro Baptist Church’s website, the lovingly-entitled www.godhatesfags.com, which supposedly houses the press release, seems to be rather unresponsive.
Tip: If you decide to mess with the entire Silicon Valley, you should expect “network issues” that resolve themselves on the first Tuesday after never. So, good luck with that, WBC wackjobs.
As we said back in 2011 when these batshit insane fsckers last threatened to picket Apple: Hopefully, someone’s made up some signs that say, “Drink the Kool-Aid already!” They’re always good for a chuckle.
[Thanks to pretty much every MacDailyNews reader for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple fans unite to counter-protest Westboro Baptist Church in Cupertino – October 19, 2011
Westboro Baptist Church uses iPhone to condemn Steve Jobs; announce protest at Jobs’ funeral – October 6, 2011
The GOOD NEWS of the Gospel is that all sin can be forgiven as it has been paid for by Jesus on the cross.
Interestingly, Jesus told the following story…I wonder where the Westboro ppl see themselves in it.
Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 18:9-14 (New Living Translation (NLT) Study Bible, Bible Te)
The moral of this story, as I understand it, is God says “don’t be an attention whore” and “stop collecting taxes you godless IRS lackeys”! Both messages have a lot to be said for them.
Not quite – it’s about admitting fault (i.e. a repentant heart) before a Holy God.
The key, no matter how ‘good’ you think you are (or religious), is that you are filthy dirty and sinful when compared to God. But He is a loving forgiving being who has done everything for you to be forgiven and avoid the otherwise inescapable place for sinners – hell.
God is a woman and she is Black!
Either way it should be in a war crimes Court yo account for its acolytes evil ways.
God is omnipotent.
Got made the whole universe EXACTLY how it is – down to the smallest vibration of every sub-atomic particle in every galaxy.
As a part of that, you are EXACTLY how God made you.
Every action you take is only EXACTLY how it could be. (Because if you can do something that God did not make you to do, then he is not omnipotent.)
So there is nothing to forgive. And the idea of punishment is blazingly infantile irrationality.
Filthy, dirty sinful? Sheesh! Your god is a small-minded, petulant, whiny, insecure psychopath who promotes rape, slave-holding and genocide (and does so over and over and over). If there were such a thing as hell, your god should be booted down there pronto.
You say, “if you can do something that God did not make you to do, then he is not omnipotent.”
This is a logical fallacy. Just because God can do something does not mean that he must.
But, if He is capable of omnipotent power and He fails to exercise that power on a pre-emptive basis, but then gets pissy and sulky that we mere humans didn’t follow him in his mysterious ways, that’s kind of passive-aggressive bullying.
I’m surprised He doesn’t follow up each act of divine retribution with the phrase “Why do you keep hitting yourself?”
It is not a logical fallacy at all. You didn’t follow.
The tiniest vibration of EVERY tiniest fundamental particle in the universe is due to God… because God is omnipotent.
Similarly, everything you do, feel, think, choose is because of what God made you to be. Not a single atom in you can vibrate without it being due to God… and not a single thought or choice can happen without it being due to God.
Just as a watch can only do what we make it to do, you can only do what God made you to do…. only infinitely MORE so, since your maker is omnipotent.
It’s like calling the watch filthy and punishing it because it runs a little slow. It runs a little slow because its maker made it that way. So any ideas of sinfulness, punishment and forgiveness are neurotic bullshit.
mccfr – good one.
Sean you have a very narrow minded view of God and a complete misunderstanding of omnipotence.
God isn’t ‘making’ people do things. He has created ppl with free will. Unlike you, He doesn’t want robots or forced ‘love’. He is love (not the love you know and display, but pure, selfless love) and shows it in the way He loves to forgive despite our constant failures…and ignorance.
Despite what you believe and the reasons you balk at the idea, He loves you…and you will face Him one day. I pray you have had your sin removed by trusting in Jesus before that day.
Omnipotence doesn’t necessitate micromanagement. Therefore your logic crumbles.
Applying logic to the illogical is a waste of time.
re “admitting fault”… let’s look at it another way, for a battered wife. To edit whatisploth slightly…
Not quite – it’s about admitting fault (i.e. a repentant heart) before your husband and lord.
The key, no matter how ‘good’ you think you are (or obedient), is that you are filthy, dirty and disobedient if he says you are. But he is a loving forgiving being who has done everything for you to be forgiven and avoid the otherwise inescapable fate of disobedient wives, getting the crap beaten out of you every day.
(What makes the comparison even more sickening is that the above is, more or less, what some of these violent, so-called ‘husbands’ actually say. I used to work in the field.)
An absence of vice does nothing to add to one’s virtue.
Say! Isn’t it Emancipation Day this weekend?
Why aren’t we marching for that for Christ’s Sake.
Because the 19th was national martini day and the gang is still recovering from a massive hangover.
Ahh thanks for the laugh MDN. I needed that.
They organized the hate rally with their iPhones.
Psychos.
Somebody needs to smite that so called ‘church’. They are no more than domestic terrorists hiding behind religious freedom. Why aren’t people outraged? For every protest, there needs to be 10 times the amount of counter protestors present to drown out their messages of hate and intolerance.
xactly
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/04/AR2010100406662.html
I despise these people, but at least they are not bombing clinics or killing people for worshiping idols, just making huge asses out of themselves.
Until some of them imagine a voice from their god to sacrifice somebody that do not agree with them . Like somebody said ” good people do good things, bad people bad things , but for good people to do bad things it takes religion “
“… But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
You mean like the 99 percenter protests?
“Why aren’t people outraged?”
Because most people are SO well trained in giving extraordinary deference and respect to religious belief in ways that we don’t to ANY other system of belief. We are all supposed to tip-toe around, not saying anything at all in contradiction.
If people believed like this about their belief the earth was flat, everyone would laugh… and then lock them up. But because it’s their FAAAIIIITH, everyone tip-toes… even for the most extreme nut cases like these.
Agreed. People are willing to send schizophrenics for psychiatric
treatment when they espouse wacky beliefs, hear voices or see visions, but as soon as they claim God’s talking to them, the wacky beliefs are their deeply held faith or the visions are of saints or angles, it’s no longer schizophrenia but religion and psychiatric help is off the table.
People should treat religion as a mental illness, not excuse childish beliefs as “faith”. A 5 year old with an imaginary friend is cute, a 50 year old with one is just pathetic.
Well there you have freedom of speech in operation. It is always fulfilling to have some nutcase group come up to the table and reaffirm our dedication to the concept of freedom of speech.
Kurt said it best: “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
don’t i recall a great line from an old john wayne movie ….
“kids are great aren’t they ? too bad they have to grow up to be people”
only these people are not very grown up, at least in any positive sense of the word.
Anyone that covers the event is a sinner! How do you get the news out when picketing is a form of media?
Hoist with their own petard.
Well, that’s certainly something… of what, I have no idea.
“All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbor as yourself.” – Jesus Christ
I am not religious, but that is pure wisdom.
Well, you know, the quoted wisdom probably was pretty pure considering the source. 😉
Bravo First-Then! There’s a conservative value I love.
You had to equate that sentiment only with conservatives. You are delusional, DC. If you think that conservatism = good and pious, then you are in for a lot of disappointment. And if you think that converse is also true, then you are excluding a lot of great people from your social circle. Good luck with that.
I think Derek was just responding positively to First 2014 with a bit of humor, as First 2014 often expresses conservative viewpoints. You took the compliment too seriously.
There was no ‘only’ in my post, was there. There was no exclusion of anyone who shares the goal of love in human behavior, was there.
Therefore, huh? You expect me to take into account the THE WORLD when all I did was compliment First-Then for a change? I don’t think so. I seriously cannot comprehend where your comment came from. WTF?!
With you. The morality police have a political fine spectrum analyser. A better tool would be a moral context parser. As it happens, I have been working on just such an algorithm, incomplete as yet, but it shows promise. I can go into more detail later on the blog I’m setting up, but the gist is to use outrage to calibrate a predictive function. Naturally, the raw materials for such research into applied ethics are right here, in the interwebs.
You make me smile, dear goddess. 😀
The way they see it is that they ARE ‘loving others as they would want to be loved’.
Analogy:
You’re driving down the road alone in the rain near a psych prison and on the radio there is a report that a dangerous inmate has escaped. All of a sudden a man appears out of no where in front of your car yelling and screaming as you pull to a stop. He runs at your window and as you are about to revisers away, you just make out the words “the bridge is out, the bridge is out”. Just ahead of where you are driving, the storm has knocked out the bridge and you would have plunged to certain death – he saved your life.
It is easy to focus on the delivery – but the fact remains the bridge is out – we will all face judgment for every thing we have done. Without Jesus you are doomed and will just see conservatives as people want to control / hate. But in reality they are trying to save you.
Personally I can’t assimilate the message of Westboro with the words of Christ or the Bible but I guess they believe they are trying to ‘save people’ by way of their actions – and they would want to know, treating people as they would want to be treated.
Well, you should love yourself first. And that is much harder to do than you might think.
It’s easy if you would’ve loved a neighbor like this one I had as a boy.
And in doing so, discredit and undermine their own cause.
Westboro has done far more to promote acceptance of the gays and lesbians among us, than to foster intolerance of them, and force them back into the closet.
This is why free speech is priceless, and PC restrictions on free speech is not a good thing.
Let the radical haters and extremist hang their dirty laundry out for all to see! Be their works, and words we shall know them.
They really are loathsome group of people.
If Jobs is in hell, he surely is working to make it a better place
True! Imagine a slimmer, trimmer, more efficient Hell with a much lower coal bill!
Lol ok you made really laugh
It’s only funny if you don’t understand the reality of hell – no one will be doing anything that resembles good, fun or otherwise in hell. It’s a place designed by God to punish satan and the demons that attack His beloved people.
Think about that for a minute. The One who designed the world, the birds, the flowers, the bees, the ecosystem they all exist and rely on each other in, designed a place of punishment – wouldn’t you want to avoid it?
You can – but only by faith in Jesus.
How about Santa? I only believe in Santa.
He’s believable. The rest?…..
Nah, I don’t think so… pretty ridiculous, actually.
Thor! And we have stories, and books — some of them with REALLY great artwork (especially those by Apostle StanLee).
Those are the criteria, right — a book that says it’s true and people who believe… period.
Bullshit. Hell is a place of your own making. Not made by God. God is Love. Not vengeance. God is disappointed when you are in hell. He does not want you there. It is your free will that places you there.
I get a real kick out of when people talk about the reality of something purely imaginary.
As, for infinite example, the rumours of suspected products never announced by Apple yet iterated unto absurdity by prodigal tech analysts?
A consistent example.
Hell is Microsoft. MDN just posted a story about the Hoboken, NJ School District abandoning loads of Dell laptops because of poorly constructed software and hardware and all the time and money lost just trying to keep this junk running. If these idiots wanted to do some Good, why aren’t they picketing the M$ head office in Redmond?
Of course, the idea behind a ‘tour’ like this is to attract attention by exhorting the core Christian value of HATE.
Darn, I got it wrong. The core Christian value is LOVE. So who’s the real ‘fool’ around here ❓
The core Christian value is love. Not everybody who claims to be a Christian is actually a Christian. These Westboro “Baptist Church” people don’t act like Christians ought to act.
It doesn’t seem to matter what religion is involved. There seem to always be people who exploit religion as an opportunity to benefit themselves and hurt others.
For me, the worst demolition of the human thought process as well as ‘truth’ is for someone to claim ‘God Says…’. It’s certainly a favorite prelude to murder and totalitarian control of others, none of which is a good thing. Loons of this sort end up giving the religion they pretend to represent a bad reputation, promoting ignorance and bigotry.
I don’t know exactly what is Westboro’s problem, but the last thing I call them is Christians.
When people assemble as a group, odd and arcane social forces can, at times, twist the individuality of each person into conformity with an emergent horror of a consensus forged from the cruellest blades of human instinct.
Spirituality may, or may not, be a reality. Only a truly arrogant entity believes that they are the very highest and most powerful on the ladder. Whether those more powerful entities care about those further down the ladder (or even know they exist) is debatable. (And in some contexts, spirituality does not even require entities more powerful than oneself.)
On the other hand, religion is all about power. By it’s very nature it concentrates the power to define what is, and is not, appropriate spirituality into the hands of a few who then attempt (too often successfully) to force those definitions onto the masses.
A very wise man once told me, “A true creator is someone who can create something that can exist without him.” His concept was that if what you “created” really still depends upon you then it is just an extension of you and not at all independent. You’ve just extended yourself, not creates something new and separate. If, as many people believe, we humans need “God” or “Gods”, is that god, or are those gods, truly creators?
From my point of view, a human herd is a different animal from the individual human. I friend of mine sent me a book about ‘The Wisdom of the Crowd’ that optimistically points out positive herd behavior. But of course, as with individuals, there is negative herd behavior. The big problem with a herd is that when they tip over into negativity, the effect of their choices can be far more deadly and profound than that of the individual. War, as I expect I pointed out previously, is human herd behavior.
Thank you Derek for putting down what I would have said but didn’t because I was so angry at these lunatics. Had to keep expunging my language.
Damn, screwed that up 😀
Just go to YouTube and search go “George Carlin religion is bullshit “
Jesus and George Carlin are geniuses rendered from the same rough cloth, drenched in vital fluids and wrung out at our feet
“For me, the worst demolition of the human thought process as well as ‘truth’ is for someone to claim ‘God Says…’.”
Even worse than, “Steve would/wouldn’t…” 🙂
Apple should do what the group “Panic! At the the disco” recently did. Apple should announce that for every member of the WBC those shows up to protest, Apple will donate 1,000$ to HRC or some other similar group.
Guys, religion is incidental with these guys. Their motivation is heat and attention. They decided to picket these big brand companies specifically so that media organizations – including MDN – would give them press. So now they’ve succeeded before they even set one foot in the Valley.
Whether you abhor them for their opinions, or think they’re hateful or crazy, they absolutely have as much right as we do to express their opinions. I support their activity as much as I absolutely I abhor their message. And I think that is an important distinction to make, against the tyranny of the majority.
In fact, the most radical, fringe opinions are that we all have endure to protect our own rights to free speech. You can’t pick and choose what gets heard just because you disagree with it or think it is wrong. The most powerful thing you can do with these people is to ignore them. They’re moths. So stop turning on the porch lights.
The philosophy you espouse seems admirable, but think of its application to different populations. What if the minority consists of insane people? Worse, what if the majority are insane? What if the majority defines insanity? It is exactly these distinctions that have made human history a bloodbath. Human rights are a recent invention and have by no means been universally adopted because no compelling incentive to do so exists.
It’s still a jungle out there, and probably always will be.
The beauty of free speech is that anyone gets the say whatever crazy shit they want. Without nut jobs like the WBC folks, life would be so, so boring.
Keep up the good work WBC. The entertainment value you provide is priceless.
Meh, these people are addicted to publicity and the flow of money donations to keep their business afloat.
It wouldn’t surprise me to later learn that the leader is found guilty of a variety of sex immoralities.
I’m proud to have participated in a counter-protest against the so-called Westboro church.
Someone still cares what those people think about anything?
Picket technology… On your web site… Go figure.
Religious idiots are the most dangerous ones
One who escaped — one of the head guy’s sons…
http://natephelps.com/bio
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2585399/Fred-Phelps-son-Nate-speaks-just-hours-Westboro-leader-dies-reveals-truth-fathers-excommunication-hate-group-Phelps-destined-fail.html
Steve Jobs didn’t believe in Christianity, Zen Buddhism was the religion associated with him.
Buddhism teaches that after death, you become reborn in a different body. It’s often likened to lighting a candle from the last flickerings of a previous candle and then lighting another when that one burns down. It’s not the same candle or the same flame, but one gives life to the next.
Hell is not a part of Buddhist teachings, so these people are being disrespectful and intolerant towards other religions. Maybe there is a special place in their hell reserved for Christians who are intolerant of other religions ?
Religion is brilliant.
Being hated by The Westboro Baptist Church is a sign that you’re on the right track, but two things piss me off. Apple only rates a half hour slot?! Surely Apple deserves at least an afternoon!
And The Westboro Baptist Church uses Macs? That’s the most convincing argument to switch to Windows I’ve heard to date!
I don’t get why they have have not yet been officially recognized as a hate group. Whether they count as a religious group is very questionable, but them being group dedicated to hating could not be more obvious.
God sent his only son to save mankind and that didn’t work so next time he’s sending his mother-in-Law!
They are better defined as a family of lawyers that try to provoke someone into touching them. They they sue for assault. Follow the money.