{"id":7060,"date":"2010-01-13T23:23:05","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T04:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/?p=7060"},"modified":"2010-01-13T23:23:05","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T04:23:05","slug":"pat-robertson-in-trouble-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/pat-robertson-in-trouble-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Robertson in trouble again"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time, because on his TV show he tells us that Haiti is cursed due to a pact they made with the devil.<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aQ4dA6kZsEs&f]<\/p>\n

This hasn\u2019t been particularly popular either in the mainstream media, blog-land or, in fact, anywhere at all. The National Post<\/a>, for example, call the remarks \u201cdistasteful comments\u201d, and according to Keith Olberman<\/a>, Robertson has revealed himself <\/em>to be the devil.<\/p>\n

Robertson\u2019s organisation, CBN has attempted to settle things down by pointing out<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God\u2019s wrath. If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson\u2019s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster. They have sent a shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow and begin operations to ease the suffering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And has links to Operation Blessing<\/a> which is collecting for disaster relief.<\/p>\n

The almost universal \u2013 by Christians and non-Christians – condemnation of Robertson\u2019s comments, seems to be fuelled by the following undeclared ideas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The devil doesn\u2019t exist; Robertson is a fool to believe he does, let alone that a nation could make a pact with him.<\/li>\n
  2. People are not responsible for their own condition; Robertson is implying it\u2019s the fault of the people of Haiti and they only have themselves \u2013 or their ancestors – to blame.<\/li>\n
  3. Even if Haiti did make a pact with the devil, God would not punish them because even if the devil exists, God\u2019s wrath doesn\u2019t. God would also not allow the devil to punish them.<\/li>\n
  4. Spiritual forces are not at work in the world; an apparent evil that befalls a nation is the result of \u00a0a natural accident (which means it isn\u2019t evil, of course, just – accidental).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    None of the above points are particularly consistent with a Christian view of reality, so they should not evoke an outpouring of high-minded indignation from Christians. For materialists, atheists and Darwinians, a disaster killing hundreds of thousands of people is nature culling excess numbers of a species that has over-reproduced \u2013 neither good nor evil, but possibly beneficial to the species in the long run.<\/p>\n

    So why is everyone so upset at Robertson? Perhaps because he was tactless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This time, because on his TV show he tells us that Haiti is cursed due to a pact they made with the devil. [youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aQ4dA6kZsEs&f] This hasn\u2019t been particularly popular either in the mainstream media, blog-land or, in fact, anywhere at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[2080],"class_list":["post-7060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","tag-christianity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}