The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Condolences to his family

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20091215_18_0_OralRo862074

He's gone on to that great tent show in the sky.....

Death Don't Have No Mercy

Love him, hate him, or disagree with his religion you cannot deny what an influential human being he was.

Just like the late Billy Joe Dougherty, he put thousands upon thousands onto a better path in life.

O, Death, where is your victory?

O, Grave, where is your sting?

Oh please....define "better path."

Played with Oral once....golf that is. :o

A better path than addiction, hopelessness, dispair, sickness, and spiritual illness.

I'm a flag waiver for spirituality, whatever flavor someone wants to choose to get there matters not to me.

A Unitarian! Let loose the hounds!

Jeebuss.....just another crutch (tossed).....

but you are correct about what one chooses for spirituality. Just keep it to yourself....

stray from proselytizers.

Nah, no labels for me anymore.  I found what I've got primarily through Christianity, but other world religions figure prominently in my spiritual life.  I don't prostheletize because what works for me would send another person into heroin addiction, prison, or listening to the Grateful Dead.

Lots of dear friends at All Souls, but that's still organized religion and I've still got a slight issue with that and too many damn liberals...LOL.  They do have some great social meet 'n greets though.

To me it's all about being the best humanitarian you can and finding inner and outer peace.  All things that have happened to me in the last year.  Well, I can always improve, but you get my drift.  This has been a totally remarkable year for me that others would have thought to be a total downer if they were in similar circumstances.

For Dr. Roberts..... [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4at-v1GGhI&feature=related[/youtube]

So you are 180 degrees out of phase with reality?

No no....it's just that he is totally remarkable...guess he tossed his crutches.

The thread on TUROBY's facebook page on this read likes a TW comments thread. I'm not a fan of Oral but never would've imagined there are so many ready to pee on his grave.

I grew up being back door neighbors w/ the Roberts family; we shared a fence between our properties. It was like having an area 54 for a neighbor.  Never was a big fan personally of his ways. Ran into a relative of his once...at Burningman (what a small world)!

+1. A Marshall's to you, sir.

And by the grace of God, or Allah, or Buddha, of whatever the hell his or her name is, we go.

Messed up Tulsa then went off to California to live.  He was the epitome of Protestant belief.  God rewards the righteous with money.  Which may be the historic foundation of Protestant wealth but clearly mundane and lacking in the spiritual picture. 

Yeah really jacked it up, left behind a University which provides jobs and buys from local provisioners and vendors and brings money into our economy from out of state and other countries.  Then there's that 1.9mm square foot office complex which used to be the ORU hospital which provides a place for thousands of Tulsan's to work.  Damn him! 

FOTD reserves the rights to damNation on this forum, CoCo....

Oral liked Elvis (bet that Elvis loved oral) and that's good enough for me.....

Damn you

This is by far the friendliest Oral Roberts thread on the internet.

Channel 6's went bad right away. Outside of Tulsa, it gets much worse.

I think the whole 'I have to raise $8 Million or God's going to take me home,' thing really damaged his reputation.

Others have said he made his living off of scamming the elderly.

Personally--not speaking as one without sin myself--but I would not want to die and have to explain to God why I was living in a mansion with security guards paid for by church donations.

Jesus didn't act anything like that.

Maybe all that money corrupted his brain to some extent. I just don't know, its up to God whether or not there is a mansion for him in Heaven, but somehow I doubt it.

--

Sorry, while I respect the 'good intentions' behind ORU and evangelism Oral Roberts was a scam artist.  His son Richard was even worse embezzling university funds for his lavish lifestyle.  Good riddance, and I am glad the Roberts no longer have any control of ORU.

On a related note, a very recent article in the Atlantic tied Oral Roberts' "prosperity gospel" to the real-estate bubble that burst. Pretty doggone compelling story.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/rosin-prosperity-gospel

O, Oral, what hath you wrought?

The Atlantic?  Isn't that the rag that mega-conservative Andrew Sullivan writes for?  That article is really reaching or just a reach-around.

Let's blame Christianity for the housing bubble?  I'd expect that out of FOTD, but not you.

I'd never call it a rag -- especially when James Fallows still writes for it.

Everyone is looking for someone else to blame for their own naivete, stupidity, and greed.  Does anyone believe in personal accountability anymore?

The investors or the Oral Roberts followers?

All of the above

Not as long as they are allowed to pass blame, no.

Oh, I have no doubt there was naivete, stupidity and greed involved. One of these days I'll tell you more about when when my maximum mortgage qualification went up 100 percent in three years with the same lender, without the corresponding 100 percent increase in income. I knew then there was funny stuff going on in the real-estate industry (fortunately, I demurred in my "fortuitous" rise in credit).

But there's no doubt that prosperity gospel is one of the most bastardized interpretations of the Gospels ever -- and one of the most harmful. I've seen otherwise-sensible people over the years who've recklessly overextended themselves financially and slough it off by saying, "God will take care of it." It was piety that metastasized into stunning naivete or simple greed. There's no doubt that Ol' Oral, wittingly or unwittingly, was a big driving force behind that.

It's one of the primary reasons (if not the biggest) for my distaste of organized religion.  I can't stand the five minute appeal about responsibility when the plate is passed.  "I'm 44 years old, pass the bucking plate, I know what to do."

HEY! This demon DOES NOT blame the housing bubble on Christianity. It was the devil and his Armey.


"Everyone is looking for someone else to blame for their own naivete, stupidity, and greed.  Does anyone believe in personal accountability anymore?"  COCO, everyone? There's many of us who are responsible, willing to take both risk and blame.

Face it, Oral Roberts initiated the ability for our government to send missionaries worldwide vis a vie satellites.
C Street would not exist without his likes.

Oral rest in peace.

I DO generalize every now and then when I get on one of my spittle-flying rampages...

Bette Davis once said "never say anything bad about the dead". Well, Oral's dead, and that's good!

Why anyone could mourn a TV fakir is beyond me.  Surely there is a special place in hell for a charlatan like Oral Roberts who took every dime my grandmother had left.

Tulsa once had ethics, now it has none, and I think the evangelistic right wing-nuts are to blame, and Oral was certainly a right wing-nut. I'll pray for him, though, that he doesn't burn too long, just long enough to think over what he did to the many pennilesss old people he ripped off, and the many people who thought they were "healed" until they got home.

Thank God he's dead....believe me, I won't watch the TV coverage of his funeral.  Why can't his followers raise him from the dead?   Not enough faith I guess......