Posted on 11/10/2005 6:23:12 PM PST by lightman
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.
All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" - the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power - as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."
Eight families had sued the district, claiming the policy violates the constitutional separation of church and state. The federal trial concluded days before Tuesday's election, but no ruling has been issued.
Later Thursday, Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that "our spiritual actions have consequences."
"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever," Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."
Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
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Agreed. Pat needs to get off our side.
Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city"
Where did he say that? Is AP just making that up?
But you won't hear/see it in the MSM. They will only print every single mistake.
And those who love to hate him will believe the MSM and jump on every single one of those.
Whatever the conservative version of "moonbat" is, he's it.
Didn't show up in search for whatever reason. Slightly different headline than the WGAL story.
Dear Pat,
Open mouth, insert (bible, foot, crucifix etc).....he needs to get a PR guy....he feeds the libs more ammo everytime he pontificates on the "wrath" of God......
That man has become a living caricature.
Pretty soon he'll make Benny Hinn look respectable.
Has he reported this to the Department of Homeland Security?
As much as I agree with much of what he says, sometimes, Pat is a JACK@SS! This time, he is. He needs to STFU. I could understand the Chavez comment(even though he was stupid to say it), but this one is beyond the pale.
Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps should get a room.
Maybe Pat can tell me what I did wrong.
A disgrace to Christianity?
Well, I can understand him saying that. Isn't that what we're told in the Bible somewhere? That if we turn away from God, that he will turn away from us? Know us not?
What Robertson may not have realized is that at least two of the now-defeated School Board members have been exposed as perjurers in the Federal trial that has just concluded.
To defend liars as paragons of rightouesness is just incomprehensible to me...as is the fact that self described Christians would consider it justifiable to lie, deceive, and delude in the pursuit of what they consider to be truth!
Just proves that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with science, but with feelings. In this case, the sense of spiritual security.
"Just proves that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with science, but with feelings"
And I guess you believe the ID/Evo debate is best decided by a popular vote?
Keep reading.
Really, and the Bible says this about the latter days and its a pretty apt description of what is happening in America today:
II Timothy 3:1-9
You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. 2For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, 4treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! 6For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, 7who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth. 9But they will not make much progress, because, as in the case of those two men, their folly will become plain to everyone.
He needs to start smoking and going to Hardees.
Where does spiritual security end and spiritual pride and arrogance begin?
Yes, there are consequences to bad choices. God doesn't just give out candy. He applies the rod too.
I met Pat Robertson in NH in 1988 when he was running for president. I think I even voted for him in the Primary.
The building where I met him was the very hotel where Nathaniel Hawthorne died. It has since been torn down.
"And I guess you believe the ID/Evo debate is best decided by a popular vote?"
Since American public schools are publicly funded and run by the community/city/state/government, they have elections, board votes, and other democratic things.
In a perfect world, even absolute majority has no effect on science.
Sorry. There's no discernable evidence that that happens at all in the present living universe. That's simple, obvious reality to any unbiased observer. We don't live in the Old Testament.
can you direct me to the story about 2 of them being purjurers? Were they convicted or what?
You sound like an atheist. It's up to you. But don't forget eternity.
Yeah, but the New Testament also says this:
Romans 2:5-13
5But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: 7to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. 9There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11For God shows no partiality. 12All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Paul has some tough words, doesn't he? Reading them helps me stay on the straight and narrow.
Any sort of judgment in the afterlife is an entirely different issue and, of course, unprovable either way.
You know, there are babies born with cancer that die painful deaths when they're very young.
Richard Speck, who killed a houseful of nurses, lived to a ripe old age in prison enjoying himself having sex and doing drugs.
There's no discernable pattern of towns in the US that are more sinful than other towns being more prone to disasters. Nothing has happened to Las Vegas, ever, and every year whitebread God-fearing boring little towns in the Midwest get vaporized by a tornado, for example.
It's people like yourself and Pat Robertson willfully deluding yourself, and with a nonsensical conception of reality, that drive people away from religion.
And sometimes even "absolute truth" has no effect on science.
Look at how many people have been ostracized in their time for a finding that went against the misguided science of their day. And then later it was been found that they were right and the scientific community, of their time of course, were wrong.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Toward the end of last week, board member Alan Bonsell was questioned severely by the Judge Miller in this bench trial for major discrepencies between his deposition and his courtroom testimony. Former board member Bill Buckingham had similar inconsistencies.
No one has been indicted, yet, but I will not be surprised if that occurs after the trial is completed.
He does and they came from the Holy Spirit too. His teachings show the balance that God has in His personality. Love, Mercy, Kindness, Holiness, Righteousness and Judgement.
"Where does spiritual security end and spiritual pride and arrogance begin?"
Indeed, those who spout their sense of spiritual security have masked their own insecurities and fear with the supernatural blanket that supposedly protects them from evil and disasters.
That happens when people don't understand natural events due to the physical forces present in nature.
That's what I mean about eternity. It's what matters. This life is a blip.
It's not painful to hear of innocents' deaths when you know they go a better life.
And the evil...well, they may live till 90 here but so what? They suffer their due for a much, much, much longer period than that.
I believe it.
They played a long excerpt of what he said. It was pretty much sensible. He's not preaching ear tickling stuff like one hears from most comfy, carnal social club megachurch preachers these days. He may be a phony, but then again, he may not be. God knows.
Problem is, any time we see natural disasters of Biblical proportions hit certain areas, we want to immediately cite every possibility except the permissive will of God. If major immorality and idolatry rule the affected areas, we scratch our heads and dismiss any possibility of divine wrath. . like DUH!
In the past year, roughly half a million people on this earth have been wiped out in natural disasters. I saw large idols which people worshipped broken up and washed off their foundations and I wondered. I saw other awesome disasters and I wondered. I couldn't help but wonder.
I dunno, but if I had given my only son to die on a cross for blood to cover the sins of the world, I think I would be royally po'd if that world rejected him. Of course, I can't speak for God, but I can wonder. Christ was humble and never demanded anyone to get down on their knees and worship him. Now we have a chance to appropriate his blood and his spirit to overcome sin, and the day is coming when every knee will bow, willingly or unwillingly.
"And sometimes even "absolute truth" has no effect on science."
What "absolute truth" do you mean? If you mean ancient scriptures, then those can hardly be called truth and can be deconstructed with common sense and little logical thinking.
"Look at how many people have been ostracized in their time for a finding that went against the misguided science of their day."
Again, time corrected itself. Science won and feelings and dogmas were set aside. Science is truth. But scientists are just humans.
"And then later it was been found that they were right and the scientific community, of their time of course, were wrong."
Supernatural explanations have never been proven right. Ever.
My point of course is the absolute ridiculousness in pretending that people or a city or region are punished IN THIS LIFE by a deity for their misdeeds, which is what Pat Robertson, many WingNutDaily articles, and posters such as Quix and many others repeatedly suggest.
Any sort of punishment or reward in an afterlife is, as I said, a different (and unprovable of course) issue.
It's painful for the mothers of those innocents. Very painful.
I hope you don't ever say something like that to a grieving mother. It's small consolation at the time.
These judgements get people's attention who normally would go on with their lives with no thought for long-term consequences. Crises tend to make people think more seriously about things, so there is a redemptive purpose for them.
An average of 100,000 people a year are killed in earthquakes. Year to year this number will vary wildly, of course, but long term the average is pretty constant. The population of the earth has been rapidly increasing; if anything, the earth was unusually lucky disaster-wise the previous 20 years.
I saw large idols which people worshipped broken up and washed off their foundations and I wondered.
How much wondering did you do about this?
Saturday January 1, 9:01 AM
Car Nicobar's famous church flattened by tsunami
By Hindol Sengupta, Indo-Asian News Service
Port Blair, Jan 1 (IANS) The famous John Richardson church in Car Nicobar in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been completely destroyed by the giant tsunami that also killed thousands in the pristine archipelago.
"Nothing remains of the church," moaned pastor Silvanus, who has just been rescued by navy from Car Nicobar, part of the archipelago which has 572 islands, islets and rocks in the Bay of Bengal.
Officially named the St. Thomas Cathedral Church, it was established in the 1930s during British colonial rule and was one of the oldest and most distinguished churches in the region.
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