Rev. Pat Robertson appears to have isolated the reason for the decline in miracles and faith in general — education. In a recent answer to why there are more miracles in places like Africa, Robertson explained that in places like Africa people are “simple, humble” and just accept what you tell them.
A viewer named Ken asked Robertson about the miracle gap with Africa and other parts of the world:
Why do amazing miracles (people raised from the dead, blind eyes open, lame people walking) happen with great frequency in places like Africa, and not here in the USA? What can we do to encourage those things to happen here? Is America too far gone for miracles like this? — KEN
Pat Robertson explained that people are ruined by over-education:
“Those people overseas didn’t go to Ivy League schools. Well, we’re so sophisticated, we think we’ve got everything figured out, we know about evolution, we know about Darwin, we know about all these things that says God isn’t real, we know about all this stuff. And if we’d be in many schools, the more advanced schools, we have been inundated with skepticism and secularism. Overseas they’re simple, humble. You tell them God loves them, and they say ‘ok, he loves me’. You say ‘God will do miracles’ and they say ‘okay, we believe him.’ And that’s what God’s looking for, that’s why they have miracles.”
It is a truly embarrassing suggestion that education undermines religion. According to Robertson, religion needs less educated people who simply believe what they are told by people like Robertson.
Jim/Blaine/whatever,
Yeah, I know perfectly well and probably better than you who Wm. Blackstone was, however, if you think his “Commentaries on the Laws of England” is based on the 10 Commandments? You’ve clearly never read him.
They are rational, elegant, scholarly and constitutional in nature but what they were not is theocratic. They are a commentary on the precedent that forms the common law and the English common law, which relies on precedent rather than codification like Roman civil law, is the basis of our laws and form of legal system but they are not nor have they ever been based in Christian canon law.
The four volumes cover very specific areas of the law. You’d know this if you’d actually read them.
“The Rights of Persons” covers social status (relative to the monarch of course) in England. “The Rights of Things” is a treatise on property law. “Of Private Wrongs” covers the subject we call torts. “Of Public Wrongs” is a treatise on criminal law. None of them, not a one, is based on the Bible, but rather on the collected decisions of the English judiciary.
Whoever told you Blackstone was based on the 10 Commandments? Was quite frankly full of crap.
Blackstone did write some Christian-ish poetry though. “The Pantheon: A Vision” which he published anonymously. It has nothing to do with the law, theirs or ours.
And I’ve got some bad news for your, sunshine. The 1st Amendment applies to the states via the Incorporation Doctrine and the 14th Amendment.
Your attempts to revise history are failing miserably just like all would be theocrats fail in their arguments that this is a “Christian Nation”.
Factual nonsense. Our Founders specifically founded a secular form of government. The history of the 1st backs this contention as does the writings of almost all of the Founders.
Deal with it.
rafflaw
Constitutionally I agree. That doesn’t matter when compared to how we Christians think in relation to what is right and wrong. For example, the people, states, and even the court may agree that Gay marriage is ok. Constitutionally that would be fine but according to God it is still wrong as we believe the Bible. I do not believe Madison thought gays should be getting married either.
“Constitutionally that would be fine but according to God it is still wrong as we believe the Bible.”
Jim so the solution for this for devout Christians is don’t be gay and leave the rest of us who do not believe as you do, alone.
Hutch should read Church.
Jim,
The Constitution tells us what is right and wrong outside of hutch or the temple. Once again, the words they wrote control, not what their religious beliefs were.
rafflaw
What you do not seem to understand is that as Christians we obey the laws of the land but won’t let a secular court tell us what is right and wrong. It does matter who the founders were for it was their beliefs that flow into our constitution.
“What you do not seem to understand is that as Christians we obey the laws of the land but won’t let a secular court tell us what is right and wrong.”
Jim,
Don’t you get that many Muslims feel the same way about Sharia Law? Shall we all live in a theocracy? If so which Christian Sect is the one in control. For instance the Catholic Church accepts Evolution, while many Baptists don’t. Both are Christian. Who gets to decide?
Mike Spindell
Once again you are wrong. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” God changed the old law here with what we eat and paved the way for the Gentile.
Don’t quote scripture when you do not know what you are talking about.
““Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.””
Jim,
This is precisely what you don’t understand. The Gospels and Jesus are not in my bible: The Pentateuch, and I believe my bible is the truth, not yours. You are trying to enforce your beliefs on me and that is why the tradition in this country is that religion and State are separate, to protect your belief and to protect my belief.
The words in the Constitution control, not the bible. It makes absolutely no difference what religion was practiced by the authors. It only matters what the document says and what the courts say the Constitution means.
rafflaw
It doesn’t. However, that doesn’t change the reality that 55 of those who wrote the Constitution were professing Christians and as stated above based much of their work on William Blackstone who based his work on the 10 commandments.
Just where in the US Constitution does it say the bible is the real law?
Gene H.
BTW notice Otteray hasn’t replied after looking like a fool. Also, what you said above doens’t change what Pat Robertson was saying which is truth based on the Bible. You can have your law but it will pass away and what will be left is God’s law!
Jim,
You eat pork don’t you? You are commiting an abomination in God’s eyes according to my bible which is better than yours. If you don’t get the irony than you are hpoeless and bound for prrdition.
Gene H.
Have you ever heard of William Blackstone? It was his commentaries that became the foundation of the American Constitution. His commentaries were based on the 10 commandments. Learn your History! Also,congress shall make no law doesn’t mean that a state can’t!
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” U.S. Constitution, 1st Amendment.
If you want to live by the rules found in the Bible, Blaine? Even the contradictory ones?
Knock yourself out. Your choice. Your right to free exercise.
But you cannot force your beliefs on others through the force of law. People are free to believe what they want – including things that you don’t believe or agree with – and any regulation of religious practice must serve a secular purpose, must not advance or inhibit any one religion over another and the government’s action must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971).
Sorry, but by the letter of the law, this is neither a “Christian Nation” nor a theocracy.
What the Bible says is meaningless to the rule of law. “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814. That’s the simple truth of the matter.
Enjoy your evening.
Otteray Scribe:
Handouts: 2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
Abortion: Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” We are commanded not to murder and together with Jeremiah 1:5 abortion is not permitted
Marijuana: Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)
So, where are the drugs mentioned in this verse? Actually, the word translated “sorcery” is the Greek word pharmakeia,4 from which we get the English word “pharmacy.” The primary meaning is “the use or the administering of drugs” (usually associated with sorcery or idolatry). Since this verse comes from a list of things that, if practiced, would preclude one from heaven, this should be a reasonably strong suggestion that the Christian should not practice drug use.
Gay marriage: Leviticus 18:22 is translated: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
Romans 1:26-27: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence [sic] of their error which was meet.
Blane,
I searched all through the Bible and simply cannot find any of the issues you mentioned, although I really did not expect even Leviticus to condemn Colorado. Would you be so kind as to point me to the Bible verses which address your points?
Everybody here is ignorant of what Pat was actually saying. It is true that educated people tend and I mean tend to want to make simple things complicated. The Gospel is simple yet so many Americans won’t believe it for that reason. The American culture is anti-God. Simply look at abortion on demand, gay marriage, Colorado legalizing marijuana, giving handouts instead of making one work for what they need unless they have a physical handicap, etc. Pat was right and all of you are living in la la land…..
‘Scuse me … Hebrew name
Everybody recognizes the intro to Spirit in the Sky … when they hear it, some turn the volume up, others turn it off. Greenbaum, who is Jewish, set out to write a religious rock song. Instead of using a Jewish word for God, he used “Jesus” because he thought it would be more marketable.
I understand Robertson’s position, but he is speaking from the viewpoint of a version of Christianity that is anti-intellectual at its core and is prepared to call virtually anything a miracle. I think it’s safe to say that he has never read Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
I’m so mean. Don’t you just love it?
I don’t know music, but I know what I don’t like.
Bob K,
Don’t forget “Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. That song makes to dogs in my head start barking. But I kinda like “What’s New Pusscay?” just because its silly. In the end though, when discussing art, never forget what Groucho said, “Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.”
Wise words indeed.