I mean, you’d think that trolls were limited to internet schmucks who go around and say deliberately provocative things for the sole purpose of getting noticed and stirring up trouble. One generally assumes them to be adolescents at best, living in their parents’ basements.
And then we get Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson, Trolling for God. God’s troll. No tragedy too great, no suffering too unspeakable, to prevent Robertson from trolling for God. You’ve heard of Holy Rollers? Meet the Holy Troller. You know it must be working, because really, how many times do you see what this jáçkášš has to say and–no matter what your faith–you find yourself saying, “Jesus!”
Ariel Sharon, according to Pat Robertson, had a massive stroke courtesy of God because of the way he was trying to make peace in the Middle East. As Jon Stewart pointed out, certainly the fact that he was in his seventies, overweight, and overstressed might have had SOMETHING to do with it. If Ariel Sharon had suddenly spontaneously combusted, okay, maybe the hand of God is in there somewhere. Short of that, I have to think that it’s just nature catching up with him. But it is nothing short of repulsive that Robertson views everything in terms of God’s approval or disapproval, and that when tragedy befalls someone–no matter what it may be–the Holy Troller claims that it’s God’s wrath that the hapless individual brought down upon himself. Eternal punishment. You know what eternal punishment is? Five minutes of being exposed to Pat Robertson. Yes, it’s only five minutes, but it FEELS like an eternity.
Personally, I’m dubious about the whole life after death thing. But boy, it sure would be nice if such a thing existed, just so one could imagine Pat Robertson coming face to face with the Being whose words he’s claimed to represent all these years, just so that Being could say, “I swear to me, you’re SUCH an áššhølë.”
PAD
• 
I don’t know that the theme park is a hypocritical idea…though I have a hunch it will turn out to be something like what Ned Flanders would come up with. Jesusland. With the Walk On Water Rides, John The Baptist Wave Pool, chariot races and stuff like that. Lame. Though a Dante’s Inferno Spookhouse would rule.
Didn’t Ned Flanders once build “Prayerland” or something like that in honor of his dead wife?
Pat’s actually tried to build a theme park in the US before.
Of course, nothing beats defending African dictators who help him mine for silver with slave labor.
It’s hypocritical because Robertson is condeming Sharon for giving away Isreal land while he (Robertson) is receiving Isreal land being given away.
IIRC, Flanders opened Praiseland, which was based on his late wife’s drawings.
Well, I don’t think that they are actually GIVING him land. They are letting him build on it–not quite the same.
Back to teddy Kennedy for a moment. You know, the funny part about the whole thing isn’t that he’s writing a book for kids. The funny thing isn’t even that the book is from the point of view of his dog. The funny thing is the name he gave the dog.
Splash.
He’s either oblivious or just doesn’t give a dámņ.
Praiseland. Yeah, that was it. I remember every falling down and having visions when they walked up to Maude’s statue. Turns out there was a leaking natural gas line running right in front of it.
Hmm. Maybe there’s a natural gas leak at the 700 Club?
Teddy’s book looks pretty pathetic. Didn’t Barbara Bush already write a book from the point of view of her dog?
Yeah and I think that Hillary Clinton wrote one from the point of view of her cat.
Someone needs to tell Teddy that the jokes over. Move along.
And apparently even the FCC can’t do anything about Robertson spewing hate speech from his bully pulpit
Would you really want to live in a country where they could do something about that?
I’m quite happy to live in a country where he’s free to blather on all he wants, and we’re free to mock him all we want.
Of course, maybe the FCC SHOULD step up, since ol’ Pat is a bigger bøøb than Janet Jackson could ever show us.
-Rex Hondo-
I didn’t read through all the comments so this may be a repeat, but it’s interesting in an ironic sort of way:
The use of the word “stroke,” to indicate a cerebrovascular acccident or infarction of the brain, comes from the phrase “stricken by the hand of God.” This goes back to when medical school was a one-minute process: all illnesses were a punishment from God, all cures involved penitence. Really simplified those MCATs. But strokes were scary, because they hit suddenly and inexplicably, and they generally did creepy things like rob people of the ability to talk, or paralyzed them on one side–stuff that was pretty dámņ hauntingly spooky at the time. So, such people were deemed to have been struck down directly by God’s hand, and had their faculties ripped from them in the process.
Cool, huh? So basically, Pat Robertson is correct in some ways–at least in terms of primitive, pre-scientific medicine…
…but he’s still an áššwìpë.
But then we stopped treating all diseases with bloodletting and drilling holes in people’s heads to let the demons out.
Pat needs an updated medical dictionary.
Would you really want to live in a country where they could do something about that?
When you’re getting into the realm of hate speech (blaming 9/11 on gays, etc) and wanting political assassinations, well, there has to be limits.
Personally, I also would be among those against censoring Robertson, despite these instances of revolting psycho-ness. The danger of allowing the expression of ideas to be repressed for being “repulsive” just creates too much of a window for abuse, too dangerous a slippery slope. Now, if it could be proven that he was actively committing a crime during his rants – directing people to commit a specific attack on someone, for instance …. But creating the power to censor “disturbing” talk is too dangerous, as some people’s definition of “bad” expression will be far more wide-ranging than others ….
On a lighter note, reading this thread, especially when the theme park came up, has reminded me of the spoken lines near the end of the live version of Genesis’ song “Jesus He Knows Me”. The whole song is a swipe at dirty televangelists – the members of the band claim that the first time they came across a televangelist show, on American TV, they thought it was a comedy for several minutes before realizing that it was intended to be serious – but these lines, added to the song on the ’92 tour, seem particularly apropo. (Quoting from the “Genesis Live: The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts” album)
Now I believe, that the Lord came to me,
and He said – get me 18 million dollars by the
weekend! So that I can build that theme park
to the Lord! So that I may put gasoline into
all of my limousines – for the Lord! Would I
lie to you??
🙂
When you’re getting into the realm of hate speech (blaming 9/11 on gays, etc) and wanting political assassinations, well, there has to be limits.
I think the limit should be between words and deeds. If all he does is spout off about how he thinks we should “take him out” or babble nonsense about gays and witches causing 9/11, then the only punishment should be public ridicule. When he starts making overt moves towards an actual assassination or burning witches at the stake, then we can talk about charging him with a crime.
Oops – that should have been “CAN put gasoline into all of my limousines”; should’ve re-read again before I posted …. 🙂
It’s funny. Our church’s Sunday Bible class is currently studying the Book of Job, and one of the big themes of Job is that it is wrong to interpret tragedy and misfortune as Divine Retribution for some sin or other. Our pastor has repeated that over and over again in the course of our study.
I was tempted to bring up Pat last Sunday but decided against it. The last time Pat made that kind of a pronouncement our pastor got so mad he almost said “darn.” He’s conservative in a lot of his views, but he really dislikes Pat Robertson and especially hates Robertson’s theology.
The Book of Job does not offer a clear answer to the question of why God allows bad things to happen, but one thing it makes perfectly clear: Anyone who says your suffering is God’s punishment for something, is stupid.
Ironically enough, talking to a co-worker today who just received a crucifix that was apparently blessed by the Virgin Mary(appernetly She’s appearing somewhere in Europe)and then in my camera tower watched Indy and the Last Crusade, it kinda started me thinking. (Not much else to do in a camera tower between races) Anyways, started me thinking, and I wondered among the Christians you’ve got Catholics, Lutherans, Protestants, Evangelicals, etc. etc. so on and so forth. And they all follow THE Holy Bible. And each interpretation is THE Interpretation, straight from the Mouth Of God. So, how can there be so many different kinds of Christians, let alone those of the Jewish faith, my Pagan friends, that wierd atheist guy who gets on everyone’s nerves at work, and any others that I just haven’t thought of? And Pat Robertson has a direct line to God. I can see it now, a red translucent phone under a cake glass that beeps, Pat picks it up, talks a minute, then rides down the fire poles behind a bookcase and rides around in the Popemobile….
And of COURSE Pennsylvania rejected intelligent design. Anyone who has ever tried to drive anywhere in the Eastern part of the state would doubt the intelligence behind ANY design…
I was listening to Bob & Tom on the way home from work this morning and they had an “advertisement” for the Pat Robertson version of the Bible. My favorite line had to be the part about how Jesus had been misquoted, and the actual Golden Rule is, “Do unto others, then find a made-up religious reason to justify your actions.”
-Rex Hondo-
Well, among Christians the Bible is generally considered to be the inspired word of God, as interpreted and transcribed by men. So there is room for disagreement and interpretation. Ditto Judaism, so there is nothing strange about wise Jewish scholars arguing over the meaning of a single word.
One problem that Islam has is that the Koran is believed to be the direct word of God, with Mohammad acting as a stenographer. This is why you are only supposed to read it in Arabic–if God writes in Arabic you’d dámņ well better learn how to read it.
The problem then is that unlike Judaism and Christianity, it will be much more difficult for people to modernize Islam. An Islamic Luther will have a very tough time, to say the least.
As for the different interpretations of the Bible, consider. Assume, just for a moment if it isn’t your belief already, that God exists. Imagine the difficulty inherent in so unimaginable an entity communicating with a lifeform so primitive. There’s no analogy that works but imagine explaining advanced astro physics to a group of kindergarten kids. You’d have to make it pretty basic and simple and when you were done if you asked all of them to repeat what you said and what it meant, the answers would be all over the place.
So if God exists and He/She/It saw fit to pass on some words of wisdom to the clever monkey boys of planet Earth it should come as no surprise that their grasp of the concepts has been a bit slippery.
Well, among Christians the Bible is generally considered to be the inspired word of God, as interpreted and transcribed by men. So there is room for disagreement and interpretation.
Not among the fundamentalists groups. Their central tenet is that the Bible is the literal word of God.
As for differing interpretations of Islam, well, we do have the Sunnis, the Shi’ites, the Wahabbists and several other sects in Islam.
Structurally, Islam today is more like Eastern Orthodoxy, with numerous regional religious leaders, but no single central authority like the pope is to Roman Catholicism for a rebellious monk to challenge. Realistically, the only unifying factor for all of the Islamic sects is their mutual desire to be rid of Israel and all western influences. Take those away and they’ll go back to fighting among themselves.
Rat:
“…that wierd atheist guy who gets on everyone’s nerves at work, “
Hey, when did you start working with me?
Seriously, although I don’t believe in God, The Gods, The Devil, Gaia, David Koresch (sp) or even Herman the Wonder Cabbage I find that the word athiest doesn’t apply to me. I guess I’m just too dámņ stuborn to attach myself to a group that is so narrowly defined. After all a religious position (no, not the missionary position. You Perv.) is but one facet of an individual.
However, the best to annoy a christion co-worker is to say, “How very christian of you,” when you catch them committing a misdeed. Especially if they are particularly pontificous.
As for Pat Robertson, well, he’s an ášš. Fortunately for me being an ášš is not a crime. Mom always said I should excel at something…
Hats off,
Mitch
PAD,
Talk about an easy target. Robertson’s recent string of comments are without excuse. (Probably old ones too — I never paid attention to him.) Not sure why the media even wastes their time quoting him. I would almost guess a certain percentage of those who watch the 700 Club do so just to wait for the latest “train wreck.”
While you may not be sure about an after life, I am. He will give an account for what he has said.
Iowa Jim
Not among the fundamentalists groups. Their central tenet is that the Bible is the literal word of God.
If so that’s dumb. God wrote Paul’s letter to the Corinthians? And Paul took credit for it? Who did he think he was, Molly Ivans?
If so that’s dumb.
And this would be a revelation wrt fundamentalists? 🙂
I would think the general purpose of religion and religious texts is literal interpretations of the supposed “word of God”.
But then, literal or otherwise, most pick and choose which parts of their religion they want to believe and follow anyways.
“Seriously, although I don’t believe in God, The Gods, The Devil, Gaia, David Koresch (sp) or even Herman the Wonder Cabbage I find that the word athiest doesn’t apply to me.”
Do not use our Lord Herman’s name so lightly, infidel!
Seriously, although I don’t believe in God, The Gods, The Devil, Gaia, David Koresch (sp) or even Herman the Wonder Cabbage …
What about The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
(http://www.venganza.org/ if anyone doesn’t know who FSM is)
/rAmen
Looks like Robertson’s words have finally come back to bite him in the ášš. Isreal won’t give him the land because of his comment about Sharon.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3198541,00.html
(insert picture of Nelson here)
HA-HA
Hmmm… reports indicate that “Sharon is showing signs of coming to life”. Does this mean that God changed his mind?
Okay, for the record, I “corrected” the correct word in my Jesus He Knows Me quote. In both lines he says “so that I MAY …”. That’s what I get for quoting lyrics from memory without double-checking, I guess …
“While you may not be sure about an after life, I am. He will give an account for what he has said.
Iowa Jim”
See, I’m not as lazy as you, I don’t beleive in or expect some being that doesn’t exist to meet out justice after its too late to do anyone any good.
meet should’ve been “mete”
I must admit, initially, I laughed my ášš off on this. But after actually seeing the clip from his TV show someone sent me on ifilms (http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2686955), I gotta say, I don’t think what he said was that outrageous.
Much more polite about it than our religious fundamentalists (I live in Israel). And, I mean, he IS a religious fundamentalist, afterall.
As far as he’s concerned, reading the bible very literaly, God has been quite consistant in interfering with local politics in this region, so it make a lot of sense to him. Looking at that piece, I honestly don’t think he was trying to be provocative or inflamtory at all, just reading his honest beliefs out loud. Can’t really blame him for that, even if it is backwards.
But then, US constitution protects people’s right to be backwards.
Me? I don’t beleive in God, but if he does exist, I’d gather that
A) He doesn’t care if I eat kosher, or if I eat at all. Maybe he generally cares what I’ve been doing with my life. Maybe.
and
B) He isn’t an interventional ‘personal’ deity. That seems to stand in contradiction to the notion of omniscience and omnipotence. Lowering him to our level, as it were.
On a completely different note, kinda excited to see the new Fallen Angel next week..! *sw00n*
Just to show that people never learn—here’s someone else who talks to God and gets the signals mixed up: http://www.nbc13.com/news/6153685/detail.html
New Orleans Mayor: God Wants City To Be Mostly Black
In a Martin Luther King Day speech to a crowd at City Hall, Mayor Ray Nagin said, “It’s the way God wants it to be.” He said you can’t have New Orleans any other way.
Also: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/16/D8F61AV80.html
New Orleans Mayor Says God Mad at U.S.
“Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it’s destroyed and put stress on this country,” Nagin, who is black, said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day.
Words fail…I wonder if this will provoke any outrage or calls for an apology. I’m guessing probably not.
Words fail…I wonder if this will provoke any outrage or calls for an apology. I’m guessing probably not.
I’m curious. Why do you believe that?
Is it because he is a Democrat and black, and therefore safe from those who critise Robertson the loudest? Or simply because he’s not as big a name, and therefore unlikely to attract as much attention?
Not a trap question, honest, just wondering at what brought you to that conclusion.
For what it’s worth, I tend to agree with you. My personal feelings tend to fall more into the second explanationas to the ‘why’ behind it.
A bit of both, actually. I probably lean a bit more to the first explanation though. I mean, imagine if the white Mayor of some city said something similar–even if he was not a big name I think it would get major press.
There’s also a thrid explanation that may make the most sense–nobody expects much better from Nagin, given his sorry performance during the crisis.
Or a fourth explanation — people might be a little inclined to give Nagin some slack, given the stresses he’s been dealing with ever since Katrina.
I suspect that overall you’re right, but I think the reasons for it are going to be a mix of the four possible explanations that have been brought up.
Doesn’t change the fact that I think the statement is deeply stupid, though.
TWL
Agreed Tim. My first inner response was that this guy has been at ground zero throughout the entire event, something that Robertson can’t use as an excuse for his remarks. Both statements from these individuals scare me, though I wonder if Nagin hesitated to consider some of the repercusions that may follow from his statements to the disenfranchised.
Nagin’s a dope, but he did apologize today:
http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4373165
Only a day later. It took Pat, what? A week?
Only a day later. It took Pat, what? A week?
And losing out on a choice financial oppourtunity…
I’m surprised Pat didn’t try to advertise his beauty cream with holy water, while apologizing for his remarks! He’s such an “enlightened soul”! As for Nagin. It was HIS city “God” was attacking. He is mayor, if nobody else wanted to help, he should have! There were plenty of buses just sitting there, which he should have used to transport people out of New Orleans. It’s interesting that nobody seems to care about the people in the smaller towns of Mississippi and Louisiana, who were just as affected. Many people in Mississippi didnt’ have any buildings left to hide in!
SEX TOYS now –
Almost spit my cofee out of my nose looking at the comments section only to see SEX TOYS,/b> on Pat Robertson, Holy Troller. Wow, THERE’S an image…
I think the end of Pat Robertson and his like are nigh if new material circulating the web turns out to be authentic.
Check these links: http://www.energon.uklinux.net or
http://thefinalfreedoms.bulldoghome.com