Scarry Thoughts
We all know about Fred Phelps. I think if I were to label anyone anti-Christ (Martin Luther got to do it, why can’t I?) it would be him.
I do like to keep track of the nuts though. There is a new one I had not heard of before, his name is Darwin Fish. I’d never even heard of him before, but that really is his name (and it has nothing to do with fish with legs on them, just an apparent joke of fate on him). He is really quite a guy. You can read about him (from an opposing side) here. He is against everyone, and really doesn’t leave a side to stand on. It is fun to read really.
Anyway, one reason I like to watch these people is because sometimes when I find myself out on the edge of the mainstream, or the tried and true, I know that I haunt the same dark passages that these guys live in. I very much do not want to “go there” if you know what I mean.
However, the instant I pulled up his site, it was so obvious. Fear and hate. It just drips from the site.
Sorry guys, “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate is the path to the dark side” And, so, yet another “want to be taken seriously” movement struck down at the first checkpoint.
Never do anything motivated by or that motivates fear and hate.
Now, lest you think I’ve just pinned myself up as impenetrable, I know I am not. Even ask I get irked at the likes of Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson, I know that I can easily fall into the same trap of hate and anger.
Ah well, what can we do? It was God’s decision to submit Himself to the humiliation of having His name carried exclusively by we fallible humans. If it makes us sad to see what people do with His name, how do you think it makes God feel?
I also like to read these people, because the error is so blatant, that sometimes I can find the end results of some of my own lines of thinking before I get there. Kind of a shortcut to learning if an idea is going to turn out to lead to a dead end. For instance, I don wonder sometimes if you can still go to heaven, even if your theology is flawed, and if so, how flawed can it be? David Fish makes it clear that you cannot go to heaven if your theology is flawed, and his Biblical defense of his position clearly proves that he is wrong. 
I also enjoy reading the blatant misuse of scripture by crazy people. Why? Because I was subjected to it for several years myself. It just underlines for me the fact that, yes, just because the Bible “says it” does not make it true. You probably cannot understand how much I still battle with ideas in my head that, because of some obscure scripture or example in the Bible, I am condemning myself and my family to hell, or at least hell on earth, by my current actions (like listening to Lawrence Welk music).
