Pat Robertson The CNN headline reads "Robertson warns Orlando that gays bring hurricanes, meteor". There was an annual event in Orlando Florida called Gay Days. In response, Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club" announced on his show that homosexuality will bring terrorist bombs, and natural disasters including "possibly a meteor." The meteor disaster scenario has become all the rage recently. It is interesting to know that the God that ex-presidential candidate Pat professes to speak for is picking his actions on the basis of whatever is playing at the local theatre. Do you know what the '700' refers to in The 700 Club? Seven hundred dollars is the minimum level of annual support that they expect from their supporters. How seriously would you take an organization named "The Rent-a-Pew-for-$30-a-Week Church"? By the name they chose for their 'ministry', it is easy to tell what is important to them. It is a little sad that a numbskull can react to a behavior that he believes is evil by predicting all manner of disasters -- and continue to retain followers. That is a common phenomenon, of course. There was an initiative to permit lotteries in our state a few years ago. In an effort to defeat it, many of the local bishops of the largest organized religion here warned their congregations that if lotteries were legalized, there would be a drought for seven years. We got the lottery, but not that predicted punishment from the God whom those bishops presume to speak for. I am not against religion. I do not believe I am reproaching faith. I am, however, amused that a person -- pretending to speak for God -- can announce an event that's either patently ludicrous, or later shown to be simply untrue, with impunity. Their followers do not seem to notice. If faith means to believe a person who announces from a pulpit that red is actually green or that the sum of 7 and 7 is 15, then I'll have no part of it. Next thing you know, s/he would be telling me how to live -- or how to vote. William Miller was an early American religious leader. Elements of his movement became a church that is still around today. Mr. Miller predicted that the Christian Messiah Jesus would come to earth in 1843. When that did not happen, he tried 1844. Charles Russell, another founder of a religious movement still extant today, made similar predictions based on measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza. He and later leaders of that church predicted Jesus' return by 1914, 1918, 1925 and 1975. In 1970, Hal Lindsey, in his best seller The Late Great Planet Earth, predicted disasters leading up to Jesus' return by the mid-1980s. In spite of these huge blunders, the movements founded by William Miller and Charles Russell are still around. Hal Lindsey is still making a nice living selling books and lecturing. He has finally predicted the return of Jesus at a time beyond his expected life span. The bishops of the largest religious denomination in town have not been branded as liars or fools in the local newspaper. Pat Robertson has not been dragged out of his office and burned at the stake on national television for being a complete idiot. Of course, in light of recent bombings of abortion clinics by fundamentalist sympathizers, maybe the terrorist bombs he was talking about wasn't so much a prediction as premeditation. Charles Russell's tomb I could document similar false prophecies buried within nearly every religious movement on the planet. Does that mean that they are all worthless? Not necessarily, but people who claim to get regular photocopies of the Almighty's Daytimer book inevitably lose their credibility. Apparently, credibility is not actually a job requirement for religious leader. I suppose this would explain their emphasis on faith.

Responses to this article

Be informed when new content is added.

Email a Link to this page.

Email the SOB who publishes this.

Ingress		Archive		Skewed
	Comic		Rumours