Hateful Cultists Gone Wild!

I've known of the existence of the Westboro Baptist Church (don't be fooled by the name, they have no connection with any Baptist organization) for several years now because I had come across one of their hateful websites. These last couple of years, though, they haven't been content to just stand out on the highway with bilboards and signs. They've been "protesting" at soldiers' funerals. Spewing hatred like vomit from demon-possessed little girls (you know how they can be), they usually stay out of the spotlight. Their primary message is that virtually every horrible thing that happens in this world (Terrorism, hurricanes, dead soldiers, etc.) is the result of a vengeful god exercising his wrath against the people of the earth. They expend most of their vitriol reserves exhorting against the acceptance of homosexuality, but they have plenty of contempt to go around, weighing in on such lofty topics as why God deliberately killed the people in the World Trade Center, mocked them, and cast them into hell and why the Holocaust was deserved because the Jews killed Jesus (but wasn't a big deal anyway).

Side note: I've always wondered how people could be stupid enough to hate Jews because "they killed Jesus". By that logic, shouldn't they also hate Italians? But I digress...

Why would anyone waste their time keeping tabs on a group full of lunatics like this one? Why would I create a post on my blog about them? Why not just leave them to eventually fade into obscurity? I'm about to tell you why, because it would be a little strange to ask myself a bunch of questions out loud and then not let people know the answers.

Where was I? Oh, yes. I've kept an eye on this "church" for the same reason I've scoured the Internet, looking sometimes in places that I wish I hadn't later (don't ask). I've always wondered how much of what I experience is unique. I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to understand how much of what I've known arises from the human condition, and how much I created myself.

When I was about six years old, the world seemed so large to me that I thought surely there must be someone out there doing exactly what I was doing at the exact same time. I would walk across the soccer field and imagine that person, maybe somewhere on the other side of the world, that was walking in another field, our steps matching exactly by pure chance. At the same time it also occurred to me -- although I never connected the ideas -- that it was entirely possible that everybody in the world saw different colors than everyone else. We would, of course, never know the difference, because you and I would still call the color we saw "green", even if what I really saw looked more like what you see when you're looking at something purple.

As I got older, the world shrank a lot. When I first heard about the idea of the infinite monkeys at their infinite typewriters, it reminded me of my doppleganger theory from when I was a kid, but by then it just seemed ridiculous. The world of people grew smaller too, but it stretched thinner, and I started to give up trying to understand them. Words are really only "good enough", and I realized that I would never be able to ask anyone how we were similar, because they would never be able to tell me, even if they wanted to.

Here's my point, if there could be said to be one: When you see the limits to which someone's humanity can be stretched, it helps you understand yourself. In a way, observing someone with whom you seem to have nothing in common reveals more about yourself than a conversation with a good friend. Like it or not, we all share commonalities with Fred Phelps, spiritual leader of the Westboro Baptist Church. We may never wield our words with such venom, but in him and his there are certain negative qualities distilled to a form so pure that I can't help but watch with fascination.