Pat Robertson is a Jerk
Posted in News/Opinion by Lithobolos | Tags: Haiti, News/Opinion, Pat Robertson, Religion
A day after the horrendous 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, Pat Robertson had the gall to blame the victims themselves, the likely 100,000 dead Haitians, as well as their country and its history for their hardships.
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti … they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and 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 Prince. True story.
I can’t believe Pat Robertson would say such a thing… Ok, I believe it. Still, it’s way over the line. This man is a jerk. I hate it when people bring up divine intervention, or the lack of it, when it comes to tragedies.
If a violent bus crash involves no fatalities, it’s the result of “the power of prayer” and “God watching over them.” However, if all the people on the bus die, it’s “God’s will.”
This is pretty illogical, but for the most part, it is just a coping mechanism for people dealing with death and hardship.
In this case, Pat Roberson’s comments go beyond any attempt to look for comfort and understanding for said tragedy, and instead craft a manufactured pseudo-history revolving around Haiti’s “pact with Satan.” How does he find cause and effect between an earthquake and the religion of Africans who fought in one of the only successful slave revolts in the history of the world??
Anyway, watch for yourself after the jump.
You can also read more commentary here, and get some background on the topic with an actual explanation of some of the historical aspects of Haiti and its religion as compared to Robertson’s comments.
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Cadha13 says:
Pretty much I think almost anything that comes out of his mouth is a lie or an insult. The thing i think is that people rely on religion as a means to fix their current situation from say poverty to the Good Life. Mostly evangelicals are the worst people in the world. This is an totally natural act and was and is expected to come. It is not the people fault for this, the poverty might due to inaction of themselves and of the country as a whole. Still, these types of people and their ideas should not be believed since they have no bearing on existence or current reality and future. Haiti is not being punished by anyone or anything, it was just the time of probability that this happened.
“Religion is the opium of the masses.” – Oscar Wilde
Lithobolos says:
Thanks for the comment Cadha. I don’t see anything wrong with people using their religion or spiritual beliefs to give themselves more motivation, or a raison d’etre. I also don’t see a problem with religion when it’s used for good; abolition, the civil rights movement, and charity. Although I do see a problem when religion is used as a means to gain power over other people in such a way that one would feel violated if another person did the same with their religion.
Wasn’t it Karl Marx that said that quote?………………………………….looking it up
Yep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_People
The quote is not as straight forward as it looks and I never knew that the Marquise de Sade used the Metaphor first. Sade and Marx…..don’t quote them on TV if you are running for something. ^_^
poorkmart says:
Religion has nothing to do with it. As with many things, religion is just used to justify people’s actions. In this case, Pat Robertson is an ass. Nothing new there. He is no different than Danny Glover saying Haiti is in response to nothing happening at Copenhagen. Does Glover being an environmentalist mean that environmentalism is to blame for his claim? No, Glover is a self righteous ass, no different from Robertson.
It’s the same situation in many issues today, focus on individuals rather than the issues themselves. Anyone with common sense would dismiss both statements without a second thought, but when this nonsense takes front stage(which is just what Robertson wants), it takes away from the real issue: humanitarian aid for Haiti.
Lithobolos says:
Religion is not just another tool to gain power, it is the most powerful tool and the tool most resistant to rationality. Let me say there is a difference between religion and faith, between religion and spirituality. Religion with its organization, its orthodoxy, orthopraxy, dogma, and often the need to proselytize is different then lets say one’s ignorance of plate tectonics.
I can use scientific evidence to show that Glover is full of it. I can’t use scientific evidence to show that Pat Robertson is full of it because he’s making a metaphysical argument that is not bounded by any empirical evidence.
If Dannie Glover, when faced with the scientific evidence, still doesn’t accept reality and falls back on some weird magical connection between earthquakes and carbon emissions, well then that is not a science, that is a religion.
poorkmart says:
Religion is just another tool in this case. It is right up there with nationalism, institutional equality, party and issue-based politics, and race/ethnicity in basic ways to gain some kind of popular support for what usually turns into the individual beliefs(I say again, beliefs) of the institutions leadership. Science as an impartial source of information is mostly illusory in the first place. Scientists are thoroughly fallible, and science can be used to prove many things later shown invalid.
I would also point out that the “organization, its orthodoxy, orthopraxy, dogma, and often the need to proselytize is different” also applies to most influential(especially long-standing) institutions(including scientific fields).
And both Glover and Robertson are relying on emotional arguments in the first place. Anyone concerned about scientific evidence could disprove both arguments by pointing out the complete lack of connection between the disaster and either man’s claimed reason for it.
Lithobolos says:
I understand your comparison on orthopraxy, institutions etc, but my comparison was to point out the difference between the most often positive irrational spiritual practice and sometimes negative irrational religious practice. I do not believe the same can be done between religion and rational science.
Even if science is a human endeavor and thus is subject to human error, in theory one can argue rationally and prove the Glovers of the world incorrect but no matter how much you know, along with anyone who has a brain knows ,that Part Robertson doesn’t have it right, you can’t prove that his god didn’t go sadistic and create that earthquake.
You can say the same thing about nationalism, pointing out that the myths a person has about their country’s history or current economic or political state are not based in reality. Though they may disregard these facts, I’d say that at that point, if you want to get into semantics, their country has become divine and their beliefs religious.
If we use the word ‘religion’ in that sense, I think we both essentially agree that anything, including ‘science’ can be turned into a ‘religion’, but I believe there is a difference between arguing the physical and the metaphysical.
Danny Glover is Also a Jerk | Pancake Landing says:
[...] pointing this out) I think we should also call out Danny Glover’s idiocy, which joins that of Pat Robertson regarding asinine explanations for the causation of the disaster in [...]