The Real Free Thought Heroes

Atheists are often angry skeptics[1], and this type of atheist is just as annoying as angry fundamentalists; neither side can let the other enjoy a little harmless diversion.

Christopher Hitchens died recently➚; he was celebrated for his acerbic atheism; he said if you had given Jerry Falwell an enema before he died, you could have fit him in a coffin the size of a matchbox.

This is unfortunate on many levels, not the least of which is a incredible irreverence for the dead. The angriest atheists seem to delight in being angrily witty[2], and there is a temptation for the listener to grant more value to something that is said well.

Now, there is some merit in the assertion that anything said well is worth hearing, regardless of what is said (much poetry exists for that reason alone), but it doesn't mean the words give us any insight into the human condition, and it can often mean they hurt others.

The best writing shouldn't hurt anyone (not intentionally), but it often does; Truman Capote's Answered Prayers comes to mind; it is first great writing and secondly gossip (which would have faded with the personalities it embarrassed had Capote not so sublimely elevated the lowly deeds of his celebrity friends[3]).

Hutchins' comment on Falwell was clever, but that's about it. Taken out of context (which is how another atheist presented it on the radio), it offers no insight into Hutchins, Falwell, or atheism, and certainly has no regard for my sensibilities, the listener, and I am probably among those most interested in the dialog.

Unfortunately, the angriest atheists only want to be heard and applauded by like-minded atheists, allowing of course for a few chortles here an there at the absurdity of befuddled believers (of which there is no shortage). It's not about listening, understanding, and debating, it's about ensnaring and embarrassing the gullible (also of which there is no shortage).

And so I offer two diametrically opposed heroes of free thought, two role models, one for each side of the coin, two men who had more in common than either would admit, and seemed even to like each other: Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt.

Jerry Falwell
I liked Falwell, not because he was a Christian, but because he had the balls to engage Larry Flynt as a human being on national TV and to really mean it, and that's no small thing when you're running a multi-million dollar ministry; there were real dollars and careers at stake. Call him right, wrong, or crazy, Falwell was nothing if not genuine, and he took the high road after suing Flynt for the unflattering parody linked below. In the course of filing and losing the lawsuit, Falwell and Flynt got to know each other quite well, and I think they liked each other on some level, even while disagreeing with each other on just about everything.

<- Jerry Falwell Talks About His First Time[4] Rated MA 
I'm not kidding, this is from Hustler, okay?



Larry Flynt
And Larry? After all these years I can't figure out if his conversion by then-President Jimmy Carter's sister was genuine or not, but it sure seemed like it at the time, and I'd like to think it was; he made a couple odd financial decisions for Hustler at the time that he probably wouldn't have done otherwise, including a cover declaring "We Don't Need a Cover Girl to Sell This Magazine."

(But they did; it was one of the poorest selling issues in the company's history. A few companies have experimented with "we don't need _____ to sell you _____, including Ford, IIRC, who had an actor walk out on a white background and just talk, which didn't sell any more cars than Larry sold magazines.)

In any case, Larry made a public profession for Jesus and took a lot of crap from his readers. Call him right, wrong, or crazy, that took courage, and I think he did "come to know the Lord," as we say back where I come from.

In this light, Falwell was more open-minded than any atheist I have ever met, and should be an example for both atheists and Christians.

And Larry, despite having since embraced atheism, if he was truly genuine, he'll be rejoicing with the angels someday along with the rest of us when we all get to heaven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Flynt ➚

They both took the time to know each other, and in so doing could disagree civilly.

Larry Flynt, Jerry Falwell on Larry King live 1996, Part 1
(The rest is on Youtube➚; if you watch all four parts, you can sense a connection between these two. They have more than their girth and extremism in common.)

[1]
"Often" because no group is always anything, even if it's mostly something most of the time.

[2]
Not in a funny ha-ha way, but in a Neo-Classical capital W Alexander Pope way.

[3]
Well, former friends, for those stories were the beginning of the end of his career, though in my opinion Music for Chameleons, more or less an anthology of late magazine pieces and published not long before he died, contains some of his best work.

[4]
Like most kids from that era, we found ways to get magazines like Hustler, and we read this issue when it first hit the newsstand. I was too young to understand the implications of what I was looking at (implications don't matter to children, they're an unfortunate facet chiseled into us as we enter adulthood; consequences - that's a different matter), but I felt like I was news along with this glossy, taboo, center of attention. I was probably the only person in my church that knew first-hand what all the ruckus was about. Of course, that's the only reason I read Hustler in the first place, for the articles. I was a very well-informed child.