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[Squire]

Amazing story in The New Yorker today.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...church-megan-phelps-roper?mbid=social_twitter

On December 20, 2009, Phelps-Roper was in the basement of her house, for a church function, when she checked Twitter on her phone and saw that Brittany Murphy, the thirty-two-year-old actress, had died. When she read the tweet aloud, other church members reacted with glee, celebrating another righteous judgment from God. “Lots of people were talking about going to picket her funeral,” Phelps-Roper said. When Phelps-Roper was younger, news of terrible events had given her a visceral thrill. On 9/11, she was in the crowded hallway of her high school when she overheard someone talking about how an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. “Awesome!” she exclaimed, to the horror of a student next to her. She couldn’t wait to picket Ground Zero. (The following March, she and other Westboro members travelled to New York City to protest what they described in a press release as “FDNY fags and terrorists.&#8221 But Phelps-Roper had loved Murphy in “Clueless,” and she felt an unexpected pang—not quite sadness, but something close—over her death. As she continued scrolling through Twitter, she saw that it was full of people mourning Murphy. The contrast between the grief on Twitter and the buoyant mood in the basement unsettled her. She couldn’t bring herself to post a tweet thanking God for Murphy’s death. “I felt like I would be such a jackass to go on and post something like that,” she said.

It's all a good long read. Stories like this really reaffirm your faith in humanity.

 

[Skellig Gra]

You didn't put anything positive in the OP

 

[DOWN]

You put the bad shit we all know about in the OP. Pick an excerpt that at least hints at what you found amazing.

 

[Squire]

You didn't put anything positive in the OP

You have to read the whole thing. It's not really something you can pull a paragraph from to sell people on it. So I just posted some of the beginning.

 

[Skellig Gra]

You have to read the whole thing. It's not really something you can pull a paragraph from to sell people on it. So I just posted some of the beginning.

The Brittany Murphy part is a good blurb I think.

 

[Squire]

The Brittany Murphy part is a good blurb I think.

Okay, I'll edit.

 

[BHK3]

You put the bad shit we all know about in the OP. Pick an excerpt that at least hints at what you found amazing.

Here, I'll do it for OP.

...but Phelps was not deterred. He had been a committed civil-rights attorney in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, one of the few lawyers to represent black Kansans in discrimination suits, before the state disbarred him, in 1979, for harassing a court reporter who failed to have a transcript ready in time.

Yeah. THE old man Phelps that started all this. I didn't even know they had a lawyer firm until now.

One day, she was in the grocery store and picked up a container of yogurt with Oreo pieces. She stared at it, thinking, We won’t have modern conveniences like this in the wilderness. Is it better to learn to live without them, or to enjoy them while we can?

Westboro was thinking of leaving the country but was kept in America because of Oreos.

 

[this_guy]

You have to read the whole thing. It's not really something you can pull a paragraph from to sell people on it. So I just posted some of the beginning.

I refuse. How do we know it's not Westboro propaganda?

Spoiler

/s I'm too lazy to read right now

 

[Wilsongt]

Great read.
Glad they were able to get out.

 

[Shmuppers]

Great story. Feel for anyone caught up in that church's lies. Can't imagine being born into it *shudder*

 

[Skellig Gra]

It is really amazing how one little thing can change your whole world view.

 

[Aztechnology]

"came to question its beliefs." I agree they are barely human. But she's it is getting there.

Spoiler

I'll actually get to reading it now

 

[GavinGT]

She was the one that always seemed conflicted when Louis Theroux was talking to her, right?

 

[Vermillion]

Great read

 

[Risible]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

 

[LegatoB]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

She was also a high-schooler on 9/11. I don't know about you, but I was a massive selfish jerk when I was a teenager, and I definitely would've thought it was funny/cool to make all kinds of edgy jokes about it. So I think I'll cut her some slack.

 

[ryseing]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

Or maybe an actress she quite liked dying meant more to her than 3000 people who she had no idea about. Also the age thing.

Fuck her is a bit of an overreaction I think.

 

[ponpo]

She was on a Sam Harris podcast a while back.

http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/leaving-the-church

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

A probably rare instance of someone radicalized by religion having a change of heart and the response is "fuck her" lol.

 

[Weetrick]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

She was a brainwashed child. At least she grew up and finally realized how horrible those people are.

 

[jakomocha]

Wow, that was a great read. Thanks for sharing OP.

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

She was only a teenager at the time, and was raised her whole life to think that way. I'm not excusing her actions, but the blame lays almost entirely on her parents and the environment she was raised in. She was older when Brittany Murphy died. It's unfair to blame that on her.

 

[Squire]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

Sure, I mean it's not like there's eight years of adolescence between the two events or anything.

 

[Weetrick]

I'm legitimately surprised that the church members sent their children to public schools.

 

[Hypron]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

There's an 8 year period between the two events.

I don't think you can personally blame her for the indoctrination her parents inflicted on her.

Anyone that was raised up in a religious setting will tell you that renouncing those beliefs is neither a quick nor an easy process, even when your parents are progressive - she was raised in the Westboro Baptist church.

She was told all her life that she should be happy about stuff like 9/11 and was only 14 at the time.

And it's not like Murphy's death was the only thing that made her question her beliefs.

 

[Einchy]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

I mean, it makes sense for a young person, I feel. At that point someone who she liked died and everyone around her was joyful over it and it made her realize how much of a monster everyone around her (and herself) was.

She was much younger during 9/11 and she didn't know anyone that was killed then and she was told that they were all sinner who deserved death. Forward 8 years, now she's older and someone who she knows is a good person is dead and she's supposed to be happy about it because of her religion.

 

[stufte]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

This kind of attitude stinks. Sometimes change comes from the unlikeliest of places. Embrace what she is now, not what she was or how she got there.

 

[Dai101]

3,000 dead on 911 - "Awesome!"
Brittany Murphy dead - "I'm questioning everything I believe in"

I'm glad she's had a change of heart, but fuck her.

Son, what the fuck is wrong with you?

 

[av2k]

Really interesting article and an amazing story of her coming to her senses. Thanks for linking it.

 

[EulaCapra]

On December 20, 2009, Phelps-Roper was in the basement of her house, for a church function, when she checked Twitter on her phone and saw that Brittany Murphy, the thirty-two-year-old actress, had died. When she read the tweet aloud, other church members reacted with glee, celebrating another righteous judgment from God. “Lots of people were talking about going to picket her funeral,” Phelps-Roper said. When Phelps-Roper was younger, news of terrible events had given her a visceral thrill. On 9/11, she was in the crowded hallway of her high school when she overheard someone talking about how an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. “Awesome!” she exclaimed, to the horror of a student next to her. She couldn’t wait to picket Ground Zero. (The following March, she and other Westboro members travelled to New York City to protest what they described in a press release as “FDNY fags and terrorists.”) But Phelps-Roper had loved Murphy in “Clueless,” and she felt an unexpected pang—not quite sadness, but something close—over her death. As she continued scrolling through Twitter, she saw that it was full of people mourning Murphy. The contrast between the grief on Twitter and the buoyant mood in the basement unsettled her. She couldn’t bring herself to post a tweet thanking God for Murphy’s death. “I felt like I would be such a jackass to go on and post something like that,” she said.

Phelps-Roper increasingly found herself turning to Bible passages where tragedy is not met with joy. The Old Testament prophet Elisha, for example, weeps when he foresees disaster for Israel. One day in July, 2011, Phelps-Roper was on Twitter when she came across a link to a series of photographs about a famine in Somalia. The first image was of a tiny malnourished child. She burst into tears at her desk. Her mother asked what was wrong, and Phelps-Roper showed her the gallery. Her mother quickly composed a triumphant blog post about the famine. “Thank God for famine in East Africa!” she wrote. “God is longsuffering and patient, but he repays the wicked TO THEIR FACE!” When Brittany Murphy died, Phelps-Roper had seen the disparity between her reaction and that of the rest of the church as a sign that something was wrong with her. Now the contradiction of her mother’s glee and her own sadness made her wonder if something was wrong with the church.

OMG Brittany Murphy died for this woman's sins.

 

[Rayis]

Fantastic read, it put a smile on my face.

 

[Einchy]

Fred Phelps died in March, 2014, at the age of eighty-four. Former members of the church told me that Fred had had a softening of heart at the end of his life and had been excommunicated. (The church denies these claims.) Zach Phelps-Roper, Megan’s younger brother, who left the church later that year, said that one of the precipitating events in Fred’s exclusion had been expressing kindness toward the Equality House. At a church meeting, Zach recalls, members discussed the episode: “He stepped out the front door of the church and looked at the Rainbow House, the Planting Peace organization, and looked over and said, ‘You’re good people.’ ”

Wow, I would have never guessed this.

I always thought he was removed as their leader since of his failing health but it sounds like it was because he had a change of heart.

 

[Piggus]

She was also a high-schooler on 9/11. I don't know about you, but I was a massive selfish jerk when I was a teenager, and I definitely would've thought it was funny/cool to make all kinds of edgy jokes about it. So I think I'll cut her some slack.

Sounds like your school system taught you fuck all about compassion. I was in middle school when it happened and very few people thought it was "awesome" or funny. By high school someone should know better.

BUT this person was essentially brainwashed her entire life, so it's pretty amazing that she was able to get out of that life.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Wow, I would have never guessed this.

I always thought he was removed as their leader since of his failing health but it sounds like it was because he had a change of heart.

Whoa. Fred Phelps had a change of heart? Holy crap. If he said 'You're good people' to the rainbow house....that's actually pretty interesting to hear.

 

[Khaz]

I never gave much thought about the Westboro church, I only knew them from the news, when they picketed some people funerals.

So the Westboro church revels in the suffering and death of everybody else? Because they see it as an act of god on sinners? That's some twisted scary belief. What are they thinking of all the people who keep on living even though they are obviously sinning? God works in mysterious ways? What about their own death, is still an act of god on a sinner?

 

[Ether_Snake]

I always thought the old man was excommunicated because he was dying, so they couldn't have the leader die since it would mean God killed him cause he's a sinner.

 

[ponpo]

I never gave much thought about the Westboro church, I only knew them from the news, when they picketed some people funerals.

So the Westboro church revels in the suffering and death of everybody else? Because they see it as an act of god on sinners? That's some twisted scary belief. What are they thinking of all the people who keep on living even though they are obviously sinning? God works in mysterious ways? What about their own death, is still an act of god on a sinner?

Isn't this how most very religious people think? My disease was cured, thank you Lord! My daughter was killed by a disease, God works in mysterious ways.

 

[gabbo]

An interesting read.
It's similar, though obviously not on the same level, as stories you read of people escaping from totalitarian countries.

I always thought the old man was excommunicated because he was dying, so they couldn't have the leader die since it would mean God killed him cause he's a sinner.

I had read somewhere that he was excommunicated because he had softened, though it sounds like they could just use his own changing ways to further their own bullshit (he changed, so god killed him)

 

[Relentless 757]

I always thought the old man was excommunicated because he was dying, so they couldn't have the leader die since it would mean God killed him cause he's a sinner.

Actually, if what is said is true in this thread, followers would probably argue he did die because he was a sinner. If he really told the people at the Rainbow House that they were good people, it probably came as a massive shock to the church.

 

[Rap2thaMoon]

It's kinda off-topic but is New yorker a decent news site to find well written articles? or is there a site that you can recommend instead that has a balanced viewpoint? About the article, I'm reading it right now and it's pretty hateful stuff to say the least. I never did pay much attention to the church sins it's fairly small but it encompasses much of how religion can be twisted and used for such hate. To bad that even if other people aren't in the church and condemn their believes many religious people share some of the views.

 

[Squire]

It's kinda off-topic but is New yorker a decent news site to find well written articles? or is there a site that you can recommend instead that has a balanced viewpoint? About the article, I'm reading it right now and it's pretty hateful stuff to say the least. I never did pay much attention to the church sins it's fairly small but it encompasses much of how religion can be twisted and used for such hate. To bad that even if other people aren't in the church and condemn their believes many religious people share some of the views.

Stick with New Yorker. They post really interesting stuff pretty often.

 

[CreepingFear]

I have all the respect in the world for her. It must be extremely hard to break that cycle, especially when you have been brainwashed since you were a baby. I'd like to believe that I would have been strong and broke away if I was raised the way she was, but I'm not so sure.

 

[Fourth Storm]

Brittany Murphy changing hearts. God bless her.

 

[krioto]

Excellent article - I'm glad both the sisters finally got away from those nutjobs

 

[Kwixotik]

I liked the article a lot. Not exactly the same thing, but my fiancee left the Jehovah's Witnesses (a lot more cultish than people realize) after starting to talk to me online. Reminds me of Megan and CG.

 

[Samara]

A lot of the women who have reached a college education have left the Westboro church.

Hopefully she's not the last. They hope she and the others the same fate as all the ones they picket the funerals at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPDrzfaZHKs

 

[CreepingFear]

I liked the article a lot. Not exactly the same thing, but my fiancee left the Jehovah's Witnesses (a lot more cultish than people realize) after starting to talk to me online. Reminds me of Megan and CG.

I have family members that are/were Jehovah Witnesses. It's hard to leave. My uncle didn't not leave until he was in late 40's/early 50's. My grandmother and my aunt took me to their kingdom halls when I was baby sat by them as a child. I was a believer until 10 or 11 and I realized that religion is just all made up.

 

[Count Dookkake]

If she did it, so can you.

 

[kris.]

A lot of the women who have reached a college education have left the Westboro church.

Hopefully she's not the last. They hope she and the others the same fate as all the ones they picket the funerals at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPDrzfaZHKs

I actually went to college with one of the grandsons a few years ago. I didn't realize it at first until someone told me and the last name clicked. I of course had reservations about him, but we talked once or twice about his family and he loved them because they were his family, but didn't agree with any of their beliefs anymore and if I remember correctly he was ostracized by them and didn't have much contact anymore. I felt bad for him. Nice kid.

 

[Kwixotik]

I have family members that are/were Jehovah Witnesses. It's hard to leave. My uncle didn't not leave until he was in late 40's/early 50's. My grandmother and my aunt took me to their kingdom halls when I was baby sat by them as a child. I was a believer until 10 or 11 and I realized that religion is just all made up.

My fiancee was really lucky in that regard. By some miracle, she convinced her whole immediate family (one sister, two brothers, sister-in-law, mom, dad) to leave with her, so they have eachother to fall back on and aren't horribly isolated by the shunning thing. They still all had to go to therapy though.

You dodged a bullet leaving early.

 

[CreepingFear]

My fiancee was really lucky in that regard. By some miracle, she convinced her whole immediate family (one sister, two brothers, sister-in-law, mom, dad) to leave with her, so they have eachother to fall back on and aren't horribly isolated by the shunning thing. They still all had to go to therapy though.

You dodged a bullet leaving early.

The only people left in my family that are Jehovah Witnesses are dead or dying off. Good to hear that your fiancee's family left without any issues. That whole shunning or disfellowshipping as they call it can really ruin families.

 

[danm999]

Really great story of someone overcoming social conditioning and learning empathy.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I was born into an environment like that and I hope I would have been able to escape too.