You may have read my dad’s post about Tuesday’s election in Dover, Pennsylvania, wherein voters ousted the Board of Education members who introduced “intelligent design” into the town’s biology curriculum. Well, there are new developments to report. Proving once again that his design is anything but intelligent, Pat Robertson had some choice words today for those voters:
“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city,” Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, “The 700 Club.”“And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there,” he said.
Okay… not that he deserves it, but let’s take Robertson seriously for a moment. Let’s suppose that the citizens of Dover really have “rejected God” by siding with evolution over intelligent design (a preposterous idea, but I want to assess Robertson’s statement on its own terms). Even if that were true, isn’t the idea that God would reject their prayers — that they shouldn’t bother to repent and turn to Him, because he “might not be there” — completely antithetical to everything that modern Christianity teaches? I’m not exactly a biblical scholar, so correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Robertson basically stuck in the Old Testament here? Even on his own terms, isn’t he completely full of sh*t?
Back in the aftermath of 9/11, Robertson seemed to agree with Jerry Falwell’s repugnant comments about how gays, feminists and the ACLU were responsible for the terrorist attacks. Falwell eventually “apologized” under political pressure, but it’s fairly clear that Robertson’s views on such things haven’t changed. Indeed, as far back as 1998, “Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Florida that it risked hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist bombs after it allowed homosexual organizations to put up rainbow flags in support of sexual diversity,” according to CNN. Unlike mainstream Christians, Robertson believes in an angry, vengeful God — one who is apparently willing to turn His back on whole communities, perhaps even inflict disaster upon them, because of political decisions made by non-unanimous voting majorities in earthly elections.
Does anyone out there take this guy seriously? And if so, why?
November 10th, 2005 at 11:30:32 pm
It was suggested here http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA503568.html?display=Special+Report
that the 700 Club is watched by 1 million viewers daily.
That’s 1 million people too many that don’t realize what a whack-job Robertson is.
November 10th, 2005 at 11:34:07 pm
I watched him pray for the hurricanes to turn south so they wouldn’t hit his studios in Virginia. I guess if you pray hard enough God will kill those people that pray slightly less in North Carolina. Pat Robertson is one of about three people in this country that I would refuse to shake hands with if offered. He also has huge investments in the Gold mines of the Ivory Coast and as a result wants the government to support the corrupt government there.
November 10th, 2005 at 11:44:10 pm
Remember, he’s the original “idiotarian”. And yes, he’s living in the Old Testament here.
I suppose, in addition to his perceiving that Florida is at risk of hurricanes, he’s also suggested that California might face earthquakes for the godless ways of its people. And I just bet God has a blizzard or two up his sleeve for the North East.
November 10th, 2005 at 11:52:08 pm
LOL Doc.
Domer, might I ask, who are the other two?
November 10th, 2005 at 11:58:13 pm
Evolutionists to Pat Robertson:
Go stuff yourself, you self-righteous hypocrite.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:14:51 am
Robertson is getting feeble-minded in his age. Didn’t he pray for the deaths of Supreme Court justices? and pray for an assasination of the president of some latin american country (Venezuela i think?)
The guy is seriously losing it.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:15:12 am
I don’t think that Pat Robertson’s take is Scriptural at all, old or new testament. The Old Testament is very clear that God, even in his Justice, does not turn his back on his people, even when they turn their backs on him. He continuously offers them mercy. To me, Robertson isn’t really even Christian.
The real problem with Robertson from a Christian perspective is that he pretends to know the mind of God, and when and where God dispenses with his mercy or his justice.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:15:43 am
Maybe a half-million of them watch because they do realize what a wingnut he is & get a perverse Enjoyment out of hearing him Blither. Let us Hope so. / Pray so, even. ;> (I used to watch “rev.” w. euGene scott for somesuch Uncharitable reasons but nevermind about him now, he was in California so I figured that was normality Out There anyway. Hola, Andrew. ;}
It’s not only Evolutionists, God Hates F*gs too y’know. ‘Tis a queer thing but true. That’s why He felt p*sspoor about it when our original parents Ate that Apple. Meant we all had to don f*g leaves forever after. :) No wonder we get Hurricanes. ;->
“… isn’t Robertson basically stuck in the Old Testament here?”
Oh so he’s a Jew for Jesus izzit. :) Torah! Torah! Torah! Yeshua fit the Battle of Megiddo, Megiddo, Megiddo…but I better quit, here, lest I be deemed anti-semantic, oy veh ist mir. :>
November 11th, 2005 at 12:50:40 am
Brendan,
While I think Robertson is a fool, I don’t believe he is saying that God hates evolutionists. After all, any self-respecting Christion knows that God doesn’t hate.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:59:23 am
These are some embarassing comments. BOTH the Old and New Testament put “grace” high on the list of God’s attributes and motives for His actions. This would not appear to be a good example of extending grace to others, regardless of a severe disagreement in idealogy (which I happen to agree with the “creationists” or “ID” on this one).
November 11th, 2005 at 1:11:02 am
Patrick,
Outside of the title to this post, does Brendan even insinuate that Robertson thinks God hates evolutionists? No, he was obviously, unmistakably using a striking title to draw people to the post. If you had actually read the post, you’d have realized that Brendan was commenting on the ludicrousness of Robertson’s assertions. Next time, before critiquing our gracious host, take your head out of the sand.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:16:31 am
Lack-of-Authority,
Next time, before patronizing others in every comment you make, eat a slice of humble pie and realize that you have no authority to speak of.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:22:10 am
Patrick,
You are officially the king of lame comebacks.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:46:33 am
crap, lost my title, gaurd it well Patrick ;-)
November 11th, 2005 at 2:50:58 am
“Even if that were true, isn’t the idea that God would reject their prayers — that they shouldn’t bother to repent and turn to Him, because he “might not be there” — completely antithetical to everything that modern Christianity teaches? ”
In a word, YES. I would shudder to see what Robertson would say to Christians who believe that evolution is true but still believe that Jesus Christ is God and died for their sins (that’s what Christians believe in a sentence). While I think it is important to believe that God created the world, I do not think it that important to believe that he emphatically used NO evolution to do it.
November 11th, 2005 at 3:42:42 am
B. Minich, thanks for injecting a dose of reason into this thread (not that there wasn’t some already). I think fundamentalists have a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that belief in evolution does not exclude the possibility of intelligent design. They automatically think that the theory of “evolution” necessarily argues that man evolved from monkey, which does not comport with their “made in God’s image” conception.
That genetic mutations can spawn environmentally preferable traits is now well documented in nature. Why is this so difficult to understand? Just because predominant genetic traits change over time doesn’t mean that man completely evolved from one species to another. Don’t fundies realize that even evolutionists acknowledge that we haven’t found the proverbial “missing link”?
I’m presbyterian, and I have no problem incorporating evolution into my Christian framework. While I personally don’t believe that man evolved completely from another species, even if this were the case it wouldn’t necessarily contradict scripture. At some point human life as we now know it came into existence. Whether that was an instantaneous creation or a gradual evolution, it was nevertheless a singular moment. If by evolution, one could argue that prior to that final genetic mutation that spawned human life as we know it, man had yet to come into existence. Creationism can certainly fit into evolution’s framework.
The concept of “intelligent design” and how one could argue that it is incompatible with evolution further baffles me. If life can evolve, such intricate genetic capability seems MORE intelligent than a simple waving of a magic wand and, POOF, man exists. If evolution is true, God’s creation seems even more intelligently designed. Creation + Evolution = Intelligent Design. Seems simple enough for me. I’m moving to Pennsylvania and sending my kids to Dover High School.
November 11th, 2005 at 4:17:33 am
Not to drag this thread into it, too, but to The Authority:
It’s not that ID is “incompatible” with evolution, it’s just that ID isn’t scientific. It just sounds like it is.
As I have stated previously, ID doesn’t bother me in the least as a philosophy. Indeed, if it helps others reconcile their religious view with scientific reality I’m all for it.
I, and others like me, don’t believe a non-science topic should take the place of real science in the biology classroom, especially if that non-science topic is religious in nature. ID is perfectly at home in philosophy & theology classes.
November 11th, 2005 at 7:34:02 am
Robertson is about to bust loose the way Oral Roberts did years ago….
Someone correct me, but was Oral Robertsn the one who saw a vision of a 700 foot Jesus who told him he needed to raise a specified amount of money or God would “call him home” or some such nonsense….?
And it always strikes me as funny that the biggest natural weather disasters like hurricanes strike into the heart of Bible country, often times decimating parts of clearly REPUBLICAN states….maybe God is speaking to you Red Staters to clean up your act?
;-)
.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:06:58 am
I like to think that a sizeable portion of Robertson’s 1 million viewers do, as Joe Loy puts it, “realize what a wingnut he is & get a perverse Enjoyment out of hearing him Blither”, and are just inescapably drawn to him (I watch Bill Maher for precisely those reasons). It frightens me to think otherwise. Robertson and Falwell are roughly as “Christian” as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Seriously, is there anything creepier than wealthy men of the cloth?
November 11th, 2005 at 9:17:52 am
The citizens of Dover haven’t rejected God. They have rejected the Christian Taliban, who are essentially modern day pharisees. If these people lived during Galileo’s time, they would be the first ones calling for him to be locked up.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:19:25 am
Patrick-
God doesn’t hate. Just some of his more ignorant followers do.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:26:37 am
Yeah, I really hate the “Christian Taliban” . . . they’re so intolerant and hateful ;-)
November 11th, 2005 at 9:37:23 am
“God, save me from your followers.” (Quoted from a bumper sticker.)
The reason creationism and evolution don’t mesh is because one is based solely on observations of the world around us, while the other is not. (Guess which is which.) It’s like saying, “Of course I can believe that the Mayan gods created us all from corn AND that we evolved!” Or “The Great Spirit led us up four layers inside the earth and had to literally take a knife to give us mouth, ears, eyes, anus, etc., but everything else was evolution.” Or “The Aesir created the first man and woman from an elder tree and an ash tree, but Alder and Ask’s children all went through evolution.” It’s just silly.
When anybody can offer a single shred of evidence for any of the (literally) 100,000 or so creation myths on this planet beyond wishful thinking, then you can introduce it in a science classroom.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:37:46 am
Jerry Falwell is one other and the third spot is held open for whoever pisses me off that day.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:41:21 am
What’s worse, the theory of Intelligent Design or, as Instapundit puts it, “scientific McCarthyism”?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5007508
November 11th, 2005 at 9:49:47 am
Pat Robertson is so beyond mainstream kids that he is in a whole nother realm.
Joe Mama - But ‘Christian Taliban’? I hear that phrase come up all the time, but last I checked, women in the ‘Christian Taliban’ weren’t shot for showing any skin. Men weren’t killed for sheer amusement. Its an obnoxious comparison, hyperbole or otherwise.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:50:23 am
I agree with Joes Mama and Loy - there does seem to be an odd fascination with Pat Robertson. That fascination seems to be an equal mix of support and horror. No doubt he receives numerous emails and letters in support when he calls for the hit on Chavez, notes that NOLA deserves their fate, etc.
It seems like Robertson is devolving into a religious straw man, passionately supported and reviled, and thus polarized he may be increasingly unable to withhold his un-Christian proclamations.
Many of us, as the great evangelist Paul frequently suggested, have a difficult time withholding our own un-Christian proclamations. The rest of us usually receive only negative feedback when being un-Christian, which hopefully makes further such behavior less likely.
I worry that Robertson is in fact being goaded into further extremist, non-Christian positions. Might the devil be in those details?
November 11th, 2005 at 10:03:20 am
Lojo,
You’re quite right of course. Your comment should be directed towards Mad Max, who first used the term “Christian Taliban”, not me, who was subtley jabbing him for it.
November 11th, 2005 at 10:09:44 am
What ever happened to “Love thy neighbor”? What ever happened to “And the meek shall inherit the Earth”? What about the myriad of other teachings presented by Jesus in the New Testament that said that pompus, self-righteous followers were not what he had in mind?
November 11th, 2005 at 11:46:17 am
Lojo-
I don’t think anyone who calls nuts like Pat Robertson “Christian Taliban” is trying to make an accurate comparison to the real Taliban. It is meant as an insult and should be treated as such. Maybe calling Robertson a “Christian Mullah” would be more to your liking.
As for the way fundamentalist Christians treat their women, does Andrea Yates ring a bell?
November 11th, 2005 at 11:47:14 am
josh-
Or running a multi-million dollar McJesus out of the Compaq Center in Houston, for that matter.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:03:20 pm
“As for the way fundamentalist Christians treat their women, does Andrea Yates ring a bell?”
A&A, I’m just dying to know what THAT means!
November 11th, 2005 at 12:26:36 pm
Joe Mama-
I guess you don’t read the newspapers.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:33:36 pm
Joe Mama-
Here. There is a Time Magazine article about this, but it is only available through registration. This person refers to some of the issues brought up by the article, however…
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/852
November 11th, 2005 at 1:38:58 pm
Joe - My apologies, I did not see that he used it first.
Angrier - Actually, in the context of extremism your comparison is apt in that Pat probably adheres to the Old Testament like a Mullah adheres to the Koran. But comparing a christian extremist to a muslim extremist is like comparing a pump-action salad shooter (it even julienne’s) to a 500-hp wood chipper (mmm, Fargo). I just prefer to call Pat a religious moron and dweeb and leave it at that.
As for Andrea Yates, what do you think is the main contributing factor for her actions? Religion, or psychosis? Or more to the point, if one of those was removed, would that mean the whole incident would never half happened? And which one would it have been, eh?
I don’t equate Pat Robertson with the whole of fundamentalist Christians, and I doubt they do either. Why do you?
November 11th, 2005 at 1:41:36 pm
Josh,
Pompous and Self-righteousness are human traits not religious ones. You’ll get that no matter what religion or secularism you adhere to. For every Pat Robertson you hold up, I can hold up an ACLU that tries to expunge a tiny cross from the seal of California, even when a huge picture of a Greek Goddess is in the center.
Its a pity that the pompous and arrogant get all the press, but then again, those two words describe most of the press anyways, come to think of it.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:56:45 pm
Lojo-
Pat Robertson equates himself with all fundamentalist Christians. Frankly, I haven’t met many that don’t think the way Robertson does.
As for Andrea Yates, it is one thing to have post-partum depression. It is another thing to murder your own children because, as she put it, they were going to go to Hell if she didn’t. If you look at what happened with Yates and her husband, she started out pretty normal. After a decade of being forced to be a submissive, “Good Christian Wife,” she gradually lost her mind.
Was she pre-disposed to have a mental illness? Possibly. But being forced to live in a bus with five kids and no running water by a guy who thought God gave him permission to treat his wife like a servant or animal or both certainly took what might have been a situation that could be managed and turned it into a tragedy.
I think extremism in any form is dangerous - right/left…Islam/Christianity. Keep in mind, a Jew killed Rabin and a Christian blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:58:23 pm
A&A,
I confess to not reading womensenews.org, and after reading that laughable article by Anne Eggebroten I’d say with good reason (although, to be fair, the website had the good sense to distance themselves from the author’s assininity by disclaiming that “[t]he opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women’s Enews”).
To answer your question Lojo, you might be interested to learn that “the long, sad story [of Yates murdering her 5 children] would not have happened” but for “a conservative Christian culture that continues to empower abusive husbands while telling women they belong at home with their children”. Ah subtlety, thy name is Eggebroten. Only an idiot would take that bit of commentary seriously.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:07:10 pm
Given the prevalence of that evil “conservative Christian culture” throughout redstate America, you’d think we’d hear about more mothers killing off their kids.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:22:18 pm
The only person who could possibly think that type of lifestyle is typical in “conservative Christian culture” is someone who has no experience with it.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:37:48 pm
Please. I have spent most of my life in Red State America, primarily in the heart of the Bible Belt. The Yates murders are an anomoly, but not the way Rusty Yates treated his wife. If you live in a Red State and aren’t aware of the problem, maybe you are part of the problem.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:41:15 pm
Joe Mama-
As for the article, as I mentioned before, it was based on an article in that “feminist magazine” called TIME. TIME basically identified the same issues with Yates and the overly puritanical nature of her husband’s faith without the fire-breathing feminist overtones.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:45:31 pm
“Pat Robertson equates himself with all fundamentalist Christians. Frankly, I haven’t met many that don’t think the way Robertson does.”
You’ve outdone yourself, A&A. First of all, who you’ve met in your life is apropos of exactly nothing, sorry.
Second, your simple little world doesn’t seem to allow for the fact that all “fundamentalist Christians” might not agree with everything Robertson says, regardless of who he “equates himself” with. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton “equate themselves” with all blacks (to the extent that sloppy phrase even has any meaning) at least as much, if not more, as Robertson does with “fundamentalist Christians”. Does that mean all blacks necessarily think the way Jackson and Sharpton do? Of course not.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:51:07 pm
Yates is a murderer. She is married to an abusive husband. The husband is a fundamentalist Christian. Ergo, all fundamentalist Christians are abusive towards their wives.
Bravo, A&A . . . your logic is airtight!
November 11th, 2005 at 3:51:39 pm
“Yates should have been an easy case for the insanity defense. She had a long, documented history of schizophrenia and postpartum depression. She had attempted suicide twice, and only weeks before she had been held in a mental hospital. Shortly before the murders, her doctor had taken her off her medication. She soon began to experience delusional communications from God telling her to kill the children to protect them. Her treating doctor at the time described her as “one of the sickest patients I’ve ever seen.” ”
That’s the LA Times, BTW. But your telling me Christianity was the kicker, eh? Well, actually no, your not saying that. Your saying, though your not admitting it, that an abusive husband was the cause. Your just wrapping his beliefs around it.
Abusive husbands are hardly based in Christianity bucko.
Don’t you think it could be slightly possible that she’s just plumb ol’crazy?
Here’s a suggestion. Go rent the movie, ‘Elephant’. Its a movie based loosely (though not that loosely it looked to me) on the Columbine Killings. The movie, in and of itself, does not assign blame at all. It just coldly presents the actions and reactions of what happens, showing, to me, one stark truth in the world:
Some actions are senseless. There is no base cause, root cause, or otherwise. Because the action itself is non-understandable to those who did not perform it.
So, long story short (too late), Yates actions were the SENSELESS killing of her children. You can blame it all of christianity or fundamentalism all you like. But senseless actions like this are done everyday by the religious and secular alike. Your attempts to pin it on religion are nothing short of feeble.
November 11th, 2005 at 4:53:44 pm
Atheist secularists have killed many millions more people than fundamentalist Christians. Ergo, A&A’s beliefs are dangerous and he is the real problem here.
I keep holding out for the day that Dumb & Dumberer avoids baseless polemics and makes a valid argument, but alas I’m still waiting….
November 11th, 2005 at 5:07:25 pm
any self-respecting Christi[a]n knows that God doesn’t hate.
Patrick, my whole point is that Robertson’s beliefs are, it seems to me, not compatible with those of “self-respecting Christians.” The Authority is correct (though his insulting tone was uncalled-for) that my title was deliberately provocative and not meant to be taken literally; Robertson didn’t literally say anything about “hate.” But he did essentially say, or at least it’s a fair inference from his statement, that God might not love you anymore (”might not be there,” might not answer your prayers, etc.) if your town “rejected Him” in an election. It seems to me, and again please correct me if I’m wrong, any self-respecting Christian knows that isn’t an accurate description of God.
November 11th, 2005 at 7:49:54 pm
We are in agreement with one another.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:56:12 pm
Andrew-
How do you know A&A is an athiest secularist? Seems to me there are a lot of mainline Christians who agree that the Christian Right is out of control. Talk about baseless polemics.
November 11th, 2005 at 10:00:55 pm
On the subject of looney Christians, “The Lojo doth protest too much, methinks.”
November 12th, 2005 at 2:37:04 am
“The Yates murders are an anomoly, but not the way Rusty Yates treated his wife.” A&A, there are still obviously many things about their lifestyle which are extremely anomalous even for “Red State conservative Christians”
An excerpt from an article at crimelibrary.com:
Rusty introduced Andrea to a preacher who had impressed him in college, a man named Michael Woroniecki….Rusty corresponded with Woroniecki, who wandered around with his family for several years in a bus, and eventually he believed he had found the Holy Spirit….He also preached austerity, and his ideas were probably instrumental in the way the Yateses decided to live….
“From the letters I have that Rachel Woroniecki wrote to Andrea,” says Suzy Spencer on Mugshots, “it was, ‘You are evil. You are wicked. You are a daughter of Eve, who is a wicked witch. The window of opportunity for us to minister to you is closing. You have to repent now.’”….
According to a former follower, the religion preached by the Woronieckis involves the idea that women have Eve’s witch nature and need to be subservient to men. The preacher judged harshly those mothers who were permissive and who allowed their children to go in the wrong direction. In other words, if the mother was going to Hell for some reason, so would the children….
After two more children had come along, Rusty decided to “travel light,” and made his small family sell their possessions and live first in a recreational vehicle and then in a bus that Woroniecki had converted for his religious crusade and sold to them.”
Do you still honestly believe that this represents a typical lifestyle for a conservative Christian? Living like vagabonds in an RV? Preaching stuff like “The window of opportunity for us to minister to you is closing.”? Claiming that children will go to hell if their mother does? If you really think that is what most of your Red State neighbors are doing on Sunday (while you and i read brendanloy.com =)), I think you should try to get to know them a little better.
November 12th, 2005 at 8:20:31 am
I took an abnormal psych class during my Study Abroad in Mexico. (Just to explain how secular this country was, I saw signs on houses warning against “Protestant propaganda” and a University employee suggested I write Catholic as my religion on my visa, even though I wasn’t. So you can’t claim secularist bias.) Seems religion does help trigger schizophrenia and OCD that might otherwise remain latent.
Andrew brings up a point about atheist atrocities, all of which were Communist. It wasn’t atheism that drove them to mass murder. It was Communism. You’ll find that any irrational system has to be spread by force, not reason. Christianity. Islam. Communism. Civilization (ie Living in cities and working hard for very little when you had more, worked less, and were happier with your brand of tribalism). Anarchism. There are no atheist inquisitions or crusades or jihads. Though people like to pretend that’s what we’re up to when we ask if we could pretty please not have to pray to your god with you. Hell, you won’t even find two well-dressed atheists at your door trying to guilt-trip you into the same beliefs.
November 12th, 2005 at 8:23:44 am
?-
I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I have heard that B.S. about “The window of opportunity for us to minister to you is closing” from nutty evangelical types. You don’t get it, do you? I have gone to many evangelical church services in Red State America. I’m not talking McJesus, I’m talking traditional rural Church of Christ, Assembly of God churches that the majority of evangelicals attend.
As for my personal beliefs, I grew up Catholic and became a Lutheran many years ago. Your judging me and not even knowing me just reinforces my belief that “Christians” like yourself are intolerant and judgemental and part of the problem in this country.
November 12th, 2005 at 12:52:07 pm
There may not be an atheist jihad, but we do have the next best thing: the Unitarian Jihad (Apologies for having posted this link before; I just find it so funny…)