The Problem

There’s something wrong with human beings. This semester, I am taking a class called Death and Dying. Last class period, we watched some YouTube videos of a group of radical Christians and their message. These people are part of an edgy Baptist congregation that teaches God’s hatred to man and his eagerness to punish people to eternal hellfire.

The videos focused on the effects of the message, and the family behind it. The first one was an overview, showing scenes from the family’s anti-military funeral protests and other rallies. It showed footage of the family telling passersby that God hates them, and some of the public’s response.

The other video was a more in-depth journalistic feature story, with a reporter going in, meeting members of the family, and doing an interview. This video featured the story of one of the family members, a young woman who left her family after she realized how negative their message was. It also explained more about the family’s church and its involvement in the story, showing that the church had basically the same message, but that the family was just doing a great job at taking it one step further.

While I watched the first one, I remembered hearing things before about the family. I had heard a few things here and there, and heard them referred to as “the most hated family in America,” but I hadn’t known much more than that. It was interesting to be able to learn more about the story in a visual manner.

I felt very bad for the people the family was attacking. There were family members of dead soldiers that, in addition to having a loved one dead, had to deal with this vicious verbal onslaught from an unknown and unexplained party. This showed me in a tangible way that, when faced with the death of a loved one, people largely want to be left alone so they can deal with it, without having to worry about opinion, controversy, or conflict at the same time that they are processing the death of their friend or family member.

Although I feel awful for the people negatively affected by this Baptist family’s message of hate and anger, I fundamentally remain a thinking man. I try to evaluate situations and experiences objectively, especially when there are strong emotions and controversy involved. In doing so in regards to this case, I found something interesting. Those that disagreed with this very angry family were themselves spreading even more passionate messages of hate, directed toward the vocal churchgoers. They screamed at them, threw rocks, and even chased them down the street in anger. It seems like those that disagree with the haters show an even more hateful message. It’s as if, after thousands of years, humans haven’t even learned how to handle themselves in a disagreement.

We talk about how advanced society is, about how much of what we are is foundationally better than it was a hundred or so years ago, about why humans are progressing and becoming so much more civilized, but after all the talk, we see situations like this arise. One party has a particularly hateful message, and instead of responding rationally like the mature, advanced thinkers we believe we are, we become like feral beasts. We lash out in exacerbated anger, and rip and tear at each other’s souls and bodies in the hope that everyone and everything that disagrees with us will just go away so we can go back to being civilized. There’s something wrong with human beings.