Falwell is not alone or even among/in a small group of people. One can easily make a case that all of the 59 million who voted for Bush, on both ocassions, are in the Falwell/Robertson group of haters and/ or at least intolerants.

Lets start with Pat Robertson, Hagee, Dobson, Reed, Norquist, GWB, the entire Bush family, the next Bush president the awful Jeb Bush, Murdoch, O'Reilly, O'Hannity, Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback, Russert, Cheney, Wolfie, The Krystals, Krauthammer, Podhoretz, the Heritage Foundation, the AEI, the Carlyle Group, Jack Welch and crew(Charlie Rose), the present and previous popes, William Donohue, Tom Monoghan and his rancorous Ave Maria group, Georgetown U for hiring Feith and his cronies, Phyllis Schafly, Peggy Noonan, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Francis Fukuyama, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito, Michelle Malkin and all those who conflate Jesus/God and the B.V.M with the evils of politics, specifically their politics, the politics of hate.

How anyone in his right mind could ever do such a thing is totally unconsionable and an abomination. They are all of the Falwell genre/ilk. They are all goats who are leading the sheep to the slaughter, the abyss. They drag humanity down to the lowest levels as they are led by their baser instincts. And they try to force their baser instincts on to the other 241 million of us who do not support their mindset of hate and intolerance.

I'll take Pope Leo XIII, aka the working mans pope, and Thomas Merton. I'll follow Bishop Desmond Tutu, Fr. Michael Pfleger and his good friend Rev. Otis Moss, Jimmy and Rosalind Carter, Bill and Judith Moyers, Pastor Joel Osteen who three weeks ago in his sermon advocated for sharing with others by how we lead our lives as the best form of ministry.

are all guilty of blasphemy because they all claim to speak for God. They are guilty of the sin of PRIDE, setting oneself equal to God. And the cure is the virtue of Humility, but they have none of that.

My only hope is that right wing religions off themselves before they off all of us.

I disagree with your assertion that Falwell added nothing to the christian movement; because of him, christianity is no longer a religion, it is a political party. Even today many christians feel they have to defend their faith unnecessarily because of built in associations with the religious right. I personally question this newfound interest in social wellfare issues that conviently sprang up only after the GOP lost the 2006 elections. It seems more like a desperate attempt to continue to sound relevant in an era where gay bashing has long since lost social acceptance and there is a growing backlash to religious politics and an increase in libertarianism.

The death of Falwell may very well be symbolic of the state that the "old school" christian political movement. They are dying for lack of new leaders and new ideas. D. James Kennedy's Corral Ridge Ministries had to recently shut down two of it's centers for shaping public policy because, well, they hadn't shaped it all that much. The blind association with the republican party and it's ups and downs doesn't help matters either.

On other message boards, when I talk about how I fear the religoius right being as much a theat to my freedoms as the terrorists are, I get no one defending them. Every christian I talk to wants to distance themselves from the religious right. This could be a good sign for the future.

Falwell has caused lasting damage by teaching fairy-tale science at his ‘University’, poisoning young, eager minds with ‘new earth creationism’ nonsense. His Hate speech about gay people shows what a vile man he really was. And for what? To make money by claiming that gay people were an imminent “threat”. He had the chance to use the bible for peace and instead used it as a weapon against sections of the community. What an utterly repugnant and shameful thing to do! America has become demented by christianity which has become accustomed to preaching the preposterous at the expense of science. He has done more for society by dying than he ever did in life! As a European, I am mystified at the level of religious hogwash preached in America - I even hear that they (the christians) don’t even believe in evolution in the US. Evolution, unlike the bible, is supported by overwhelming “mutually buttressed” evidence from biology, biochemistry, geology, sedimentology and genetics, palaeontology. Perhaps these creepy christian nutters in the US should read Sam Harris’s book ‘The End of Faith” and Richard Dawkins’s book “The God Delusion”. Then, perhaps, they just might grow up!

This man (and others) have used this opening phrase to spread lies, attack the American people, demonize opponents and push a particular right wing agenda. When I hear someone open a statement with this phrase, I watch my wallet and my back.

Falwells dead!

With all due respect to his family; thank god!

That said, his followers are all still out there preaching the same vile un-Christian hatred that he did. We tend to forget that douche-bags like Falwell, Bush (and just to be dramatic, Hitler) are supported by thousands if not millions of other people and without their support these people would be nothing. Demonizing someone like Falwell lets those who supported him off the hook. His followers are all culpable and some of the hatred towards him should be redirected to those that support his legacy.

"The discovery of the carcass of Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labeled "credulous idiot." The first such category consists of those who expected Falwell (and themselves) to be bodily raptured out of the biosphere and assumed into the heavens, leaving pilotless planes and driverless trucks and taxis to crash with their innocent victims as collateral damage. This group is so stupid and uncultured that it may perhaps be forgiven. It is so far "left behind" that almost its only pleasure is to gloat at the idea of others being abandoned in the same condition."

Read the rest of Hitchens' absolutely brilliant essay at http://www.slate.com/id/2166337/nav/tap2/. Yes, I spend most of my posting time on Salon pointing out the violence and lies behind mainstream Islam, but I despise the virulently anti-intellectual (hell, anti-intelligence) "Left Behind" strain of Christianity. They are not equivalent, of course, but Hitchen's article is dead on and a delight to read.