Rev. Pat Robertson often attributes horrific events to God’s wrath as when he explained that the 9-11 attacks and the Katrina disaster were punishments for our sins. Now, Robertson has proclaimed that the earthquake in Haiti was sent by God to punish Haitians for a “pact with the Devil” made to overthrow the French.
Robertson favors that Old Testament God filled with anger and wrathful impulses. On this occasion, in Robertson’s mind, God wanted to kill over 100,000 people because of something that some of their ancestors allegedly did. Makes perfect sense. Here is what the good Reverend said “happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it”:
You know, Christie, something happened a long time ago in Haiti. And the people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third or whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you get us free from the French. True story. And so, the Devil said, Ok, it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another — desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God, that out of this tragedy, I’m optimistic something good may come, but right now we’re helping the suffering people — and the suffering is unimaginable.
He may be taking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reference to “Biblical damage” a bit too literally. However, President Obama seem to be offering a rebuttal by promising the Haitians that they “will not be forsaken.”
Native Haitians defeated French colonists in 1804 and declared independence. If only they had stayed virtual slaves under French rule, God would have been pleased and they would have been earthquake free.
This is line in with Robertson’s prior explanations of God’s wrath in terms of killing people in New Orleans and New York as God’s way of “vomiting” us out:
My only question is why we want to spend eternity with God if he is this horrible being filled with rage and wrath who speaks to guys like Pat Robertson? Isn’t God supposed to be better than us? Even my four-year-old does not hope that her classmates are wiped out in earthquakes when she is mad at them. If this were true, God would be in serious need for intense therapy over his anger issues and violent disposition. It is a bit hard to imagine Jesus saying “serve’s em right, Pop, for that stuff that their ancestors did over two hundred years ago.”
By the way, I missed that history lesson about how all of the Haitians swore a pact with the Devil. There are sacrificial and voodoo practices certainly on that island, but I was unaware that the whole revolution was one big Satanic movement.
There is no such “true story” about a nationwide pact with the devil. There were various revolutions by people like Padrejean in 1676 and François Mackandal in 1757. Robertson seems to be referring to Dutty Boukman who helped led the uprising in August 1791. He was a houngan, or Haitian priest, who held a traditional ceremony in which a pig (symbolizing the power of nature) was sacrificed and an oath administered to the fighters to be fearless in battle. However, accounts of his words notably omit Robertson’s alleged pact:
h! Eh! Bomba! Heu! Heu!
Canga, bafio té!
Canga, mouné de lé!
Canga, do ki la!
Canga, do ki la!
Canga, li!We swear to destroy the whites
and all they possess.
Let us die rather than fail
to keep this vow.
Indeed accounts have him referring to God not Satan for some old-fashioned wrathful justice (which would seem to appeal to Robertson:
“The god who created the sun which gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules the storm, though hidden in the clouds, he watches us. He sees all that the white man does. The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms and aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all.”
For more on this oath, click here.
Of course, even if there was a pact with the Devil, God can really keep a grudge. Over two hundred years later, he kills over one hundred thousand people to teach their long-dead ancestors a lesson. I find that hard to believe, though I am warming to the idea of God sending Pat Robertson to punish us for our sins.
Bdaman12,
Is it really. I am so glad for you. Just take one day at a time. That’s all it takes. Ask your higher power and I am not talking that white powder for a daily reprieve. You can do it over and over until you get it right. But then again, you can always do what your Boss says and keep up the good work.
The interesting quandary for you poses indeed a juxtapose. How can you be good at being a troll if you don’t have your gojo and the will to live? Thats where professional help can help you. Did it work the last time? How many times will your insurance pay until you have to start paying all expenses out of pocket? Well then you always have the County or Rush to rely upon….
Nobel-Winning Panel’s Warning on Glaciers Discredited
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: January 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/science/earth/19climate.html?scp=1&sq=himalayan&st=cse
Oh Ay, the day that you can think clearly without your mind being in a fog is the day that you will have much appreciation for.
I can see clearly now the fog is gone. It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshinie day.
And as a Troll, you have many more possibilities of resurrection and life than others do. How many incarnations may a troll have in its particular role?
Jesus didn’t say when you would die for doing such things. It’s not like he said, let them die the death immediately. We all shall perish as sinners.
What Jesus promised all of us was the chance for eternal life.
Mespo:
if cursing your parents should be a death sentence I imagine we would all be dead by now. In fact we probably would not have made it past 16.
Dont you think that is more of a request to honor your mother and father rather than a literal statement? Did anyone get put to death for cursing their parents?
Give the guy a little slack, the idea of oblivion is rather hard to wrap your mind around. But if more people could, they might be a little nicer to their fellow man and not so willing to go to war for stupid reasons.
30%:
“Why did you remove the first half of the verse?”
***********************
To answer you directly, I left it out because it was irrelevant to my point. Jesus could have said exactly what he intended had he left out the barbarism that was the death for dishonor rule. Had he simply said you cannot avoid Moses law of honoring your parents by paying tribute to the Temple, his point would still have been made. Instead, he added the death sentence and emphasized that he was there to stand up for the law of Moses.
It seems your charming veneer has worn off — much like the snake oil salesman who is confronted about the ineffectiveness of his pitch. That’s typical for those who’ve drunk the Kool-Ade and are confronted with their own intentional obtuseness. Your defense of the faith through anger or hurt feelings wins little sympathy in any rational argument. What say we let the readers decide who is the more accurate analyzer of the intent of the man who clearly said, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” (Matt. 5:17 NLT).
Now answer me this: Do you believe cursing your parents warrants a death sentence? If so, you are on firm theological ground.
Here I’ll help with your selective memory.
Here we see you presenting Mark 7:10
“Jesus also wasn’t too fond of disrespectful brats either:
“Whoever curses father or mother shall die” (Mark 7:10 NAB)”
– mespo727272 1, January 14, 2010 at 11:21 pm
And here is the actual verse;
– Mark 7:10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: –
So we see not only did you use a newer translation that omits the “the death” (which refers to the second death, not killing someone now) , apparently because it fits you arguments better, but you removed the first half of the sentence.
If you’d left that in then people would see he was merely quoting from the Law of Moses, not issuing a commandment or directive as your post presented it as.
So please explain to me.
Why did you remove the first half of the verse?
Please explain why you removed the first part of the sentence.
And I can’t help but notice that after a disappearing in the middle of the discussion when called on it, …you come back the next week and still “bob and weave” rather than explain why you edited Mark 7:10 to meet your argument.
I think given the fact I answered every one of your barrage of questions, and considering that after answering them you ignored being caught editing scriptures to meet your argument and insulted me and disappeared, … I think its time for you to answer at least one of mine.
Please explain to us all how why you edited Mark 7:10 to leave out the first part of the sentence that shows it was a quote of Jesus.
You are.
You’re first mocking my faith and the faith of a billion or so people with your childish “magic book” slurs.
And you’re being disingenuous by ignoring the fact that in the following verses he proceeds to “fulfill” the law of Moses by changing the commandments to his commandments, and even completely reversing parts of it.
30%:
“I cannot see how you could have done this as you literally had to dissect the sentence in order to present it as you did. It seems you purposely removed the portion that makes it clear Jesus was not presenting this as a commandment, but merely quoting from the Law of Moses. Of course I’m not saying you did, maybe it was a mistake. But I’m having a hard time understanding how you could have made such a mistake,..”
***********
I think it is you who needs the reading comprehension test for your magic book. In this episode from Mark, Jesus was admonishing the assembled Pharisees for perverting the commandments of God in favor of their own traditions (and themselves). He expressly cited the law of Moses and two of his commandments that were perverted by the Pharisees who changed the Mosaic “Honor thy mother and father” and the penalty for such disobedience (the infamous “death for dishonor” rule) by the Pharisees’ insistence on a reprieve for those who made their gift of gold to the Temple (Corban) instead of supporting their needy parents. Though admirably Jesus calls the Pharisees out for their selling of indulgences, NOWHERE does Jesus distance himself from the barbarism of Moses’ prescription for parental dishonor, and in fact, he expressly advocates strict obedience to the rule. As he said in his prefatory remarks “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.” Mark 7:9 (NASB).
Now who is truly being disingenuous here?
Flurries hit southeast Australia as towns record their first-ever summer snowfalls
By: Rod Mcguirk, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
18/01/2010 3:40 AM
CANBERRA, Australia – Australia is following its second-hottest year on record with extraordinary snow flurries in its southeastern alpine region, where some towns have recorded their first-ever summer snowfalls.
Australia’s temperatures during the summer months of December through February can be uncomfortably hot even on its highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, which stands a modest 7,310 feet (2,228 metres) above sea level.
Snow fell to 3,000 feet (900 metres) above sea level Monday in parts of New South Wales and Victoria states, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jane Golding said.
“Any time of year, it’s unusual to have snow down that far,” she said.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/81953342.html
Good Morning AY, hows your head feeling this morning?
Bdaman,
Do you think that this is enough?
In 2007, Professors David Douglass, John Christy, Benjamin Pearson, and Fred Singer wrote a scientific paper in the International Journal of Climatology, which compared Global Climate Models (GCMs) with real observed data. GCMs were theoretically designed to forecast how greenhouse gases (GHGs) are warming the planet.
There are certain rules that must be followed in scientific investigations in order to ensure that the results and conclusions are not erroneous. Basically, the process requires an investigator to operate under multiple hypotheses so that he is not blinded to facts that might contradict one of his hypotheses and leave him with a dead end. An investigator should start by working from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, and always bend the theory to fit the facts — not the other way around. This is exactly how the four scholars led by Professor Douglass conducted their investigation into the accuracy of the GCMs.
The GCMs were touted by the now-discredited Dr. Jones as accurate predictions of how the planet is responding to GHGs, but no serious published work had been done to compare these GCMs with real observations to find out if the theoretical models agreed with the established facts. The results of these comparisons done by Prof. Douglass and his team were found to be significantly divergent. The paper states the following:
Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean.
In English, that says that the models could not be trusted. This news publicly enraged the group led by Dr. Jones. They fired off more than 29 e-mails concerning this one paper. But the real story is that these findings did not surprise them. In one of the recently uncovered Climategate e-mails from Dr. Fred Pearce to Dr. Keith Briffa, dated the 13th of October, 1996, Dr. Pearce delivers the bad news that the data does not agree with the models.
The models’ error was not, perhaps, too surprising. As Barnett points out, they do not include vital “forcing” mechanisms that alter temperature, such as solar cycles and volcanic eruptions. Nor can they yet mimic the strength of the largest year-on-year variability in the natural system, the El Nino oscillation in the Pacific Ocean, which has a global impact on climate.
This statement means that as far back as 1996, the Jone group knew that the GCMs were producing significant errors and problems. This resulted an inability to reconcile the forecasts with reality. They seemingly knew that specifically excluding solar and El Niño influences would cause the forecast to be untrustworthy. But apparently they wished to keep these problems a secret. So to accomplish this, they chose to deal with the problem in a surprising way, as the e-mail further states:
Of course we don’t have to believe the proxy data.
So now are they suggesting that they alter or ignore the data rather than bend their theory to fit the facts? In other words, are they completely disregarding the scientific method?
When trying to come up with a response to Prof. Douglass’s International Journal of Climatology paper, Dr. Ben Santer wrote to Dr. Jones and admitted that the basic premise of the work done by Prof. Douglass and his collaborators was correct. They had run head-first in to the cold, hard truth (ouch), as revealed in Sater’s e-mail, dated the 12th of December, 2007, when he stated the following:
It is difficult to identify a subset of models that consistently does well in many different regions and over a range of different timescales.
What Dr. Santer is saying here is that clearly, the GCMs are broken, but that even a broken clock is right twice a day. As any forecaster at the National Hurricane Center will tell you, such as Dr. William Gray or Dr. Neil Frank, the only forecast models that they trust are models that consistently perform well. When lives are on the line, you don’t take chances by using an unreliable forecast model.
So in response to their dilemma of having to deal with the truth, the Jones Group seems to abandon all scientific methods and decides to proceed down the rabbit hole and embrace the tactics of attorneys. In law school, they teach the students that if the law is on your side, argue the law; if the facts are on your side, argue the facts; but if neither the law nor the facts are on your side, then you have no choice but to try to discredit the witness.
The difference between scientists like Prof. Douglas and lawyers like Al Gore is that scientists seek the truth, while lawyers find the truth to be a simple matter of convenient choice to be used or obscured as needed.
The choice that the Jones group appears to make is to impugn the reputation of these scholars by referring to them as charlatans and pondering how to get them fired, as is detailed in this e-mail Dr. Tom Wigley sent on the 10th of December, 2007, to Dr. Santer:
… what Douglass has done would cause him to lose his job.
It is true that five hundred years ago, when a scientist challenged the prevailing accepted view of things, he would lose his job (and even get locked up like Galileo), but this is the twenty-first century! The inquisition is over…or is it?
The apparent plotting seems to take shape as this cabal begins to scheme and set traps for Prof. Douglass’s collaborators, as is suggested in this e-mail from Dr. Wigley, dated the 29th of December, 2007:
Dear all,
I was recently at a meeting in Rome where Fred Singer was a participant. He was not on the speaker list, but, in advance of the meeting, I had thought he might raise the issue of the Douglass et al. paper. I therefore prepared the attached power point — modified slightly since returning from Rome. As it happened, Singer did not raise the Douglass et al. issue, so I did not use the ppt. Still, it may be useful for members of this group so I am sending it to you all.
Please keep this in confidence. I do not want it to get back to Singer or any of the Douglass et al. co-authors.
If this were some floor fight in Congress, where the “honorable” members are duking it out over some piece of legislation, this kind of language could be expected, but these are supposedly scientists. Men of science are supposed to be ethical and motivated only by the pursuit of truth. These e-mails seem to paint a very different picture of the Jones Group.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117857349/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/modeling/
I should have just walked away. Something I am doing now.
For the third time, will there be a forth?
Seems to me
you dont want to talk about it
Seems to me
you just turn your pretty head and walk away.
Well I guess I’m as much to blame as anyone Stephen. I should not have bothered to respond to these ridiculous neoconservative attempts to make any website they find a stump for denying global warming. They tend to bring out the worst in me, and I’m sorry.
I should have just walked away. Something I am doing now.
A great read up to the point of hijack. Some sites would have banned three times over, those who consistently degrade the dialog. Thanks to all who stayed on topic.
Who cares what you two think? Like you made clear earlier, you’re not scientists so therefore your opinion means nothing.
And since the majority of the scientific community disagrees with you, your support for a handful of looneybirds, many of whom think the world is 6000 years old, counts for nothing.