Pat Robinson - Towing the Line

This is my response to a comment my friend made regarding Pat Robinson's most recent debacle regarding why he thought that Haiti was stricken by earthquakes.

Pat Robinson said:

"And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil.

"They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.'

"True story. And so the Devil said, 'Okay, it's a deal.’

"And, uh, they kicked the French out, you know, with Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by, 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 side is the Dominican Republican. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etcetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and 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."

Here is a link commentary about the broadcast in question. Here is a link to the video of his broadcast.

She said, "I do believe he (and those like him) are a plague on the Reputation of Christianity."

I responded with, "Reputation of Christianity? He's towing the line, and that's what is so sad. He is a plague on humanity PERIOD," and further went on to say the following:

A group of U.S. Christian missionaries went to Uganda saying they were experts on homosexuality and that homosexuals were trying to destroy the "normal" family, so they proposed laws that homosexuals should be executed. Article here.

In California, the biggest backers of Proposition 8 was a coalition of Mormon and Catholic churches. In fact, "The e-mails and other memos detail the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' involvement in Proposition 8 -- for instance, that there was at least one LDS volunteer working in every California ZIP code." This prompted an upsurge in anti-gay violence. An article regarding their involvement is here.

During the Bush administration, and because of the Republican party's view on family planning, funding for birth control was reduced not just in this country but for Africa. Here is an article about the cuts. And here is another article.

"Bush's mammoth global anti-AIDS initiative, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, poured billions of dollars into Africa but prohibited groups from spending any of it on family planning services or counseling programs, whose budgets flat-lined."

And most recently, there has been a backlash against a gun sight manufacturer who was putting Bible verses on their gun sights. They were under exclusive contract with the US military and used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the militants in those countries have one more reason to say that the United States is trying to fight a holy war - Christianity vs. Islam.

Pat Robinson is just part of a huge group of people who make this country and the Christian faith look bad. I am agnostic, but I was once a devout Christian. A Sunday school teacher for many years. I would never want to go back.

On illogical hate

This weekend I was chatting in my usual chat room, and I was confronted by a horrible truth: it does not matter how intelligent one appears nor how nice one appears to be, hate can exist in anyone.

A chatter I respect for his intelligence and seemingly kind disposition was spewing hate towards homosexual people. As a former military man, he was voicing his opinion on whether gay men should be allowed in the armed forces. He was adament that they should not be allowed in the military because a relationship between two men in the same group could reduce the combat readiness of this group should emotional issues distract. He said the same thing about women in the military.

I noticed that he had a blog on his chat profile so I went to read some of it. When I started reading it, I was startled by the vehemence with which he discusses homosexual people. The first post I read was about the use of derrogatory terms in reference to gay men and women. The gist of his argument is that because homosexuality is a sin, then it is not wrong to use derrogatory terms to refer to the "sinners." That they deserved to be called the ugly words because what they were doing was wrong. In another post, he went as far as to state that he was a contributing financially to an organization whose sole purpose is to stop homosexual people from obtaining equal rights in regards to marriage.

In the chat room, another chatter who obviously did not agree with this man was asking him what reason he had to believe that homosexuality was wrong. The answer was that the Bible, and thus ultimately God, said that homosexuality is wrong and immoral. The other chatter then asked if the Bible never mentioned a thing about homosexuality, then what reasons would there be to dislike or condemn homosexuality. The man said there were no other reasons he could readily state but that arguments could be made about the propogation of the spieces. He then said that moral and religious reasons were enough for him to believe homosexuality was wrong.

How could a seemingly intelligent person believe and think this way? Religion has long been abused by people to further their agendas and prejudice. One cannot say "God told me so," or "the Bible says so" to justify their actions. There has to be a true and legitimate factual reason for something to be wrong. Murder is wrong because it infringes on a person's right to exist. Physical and sexual abuse is wrong because it hurts and damages another person and thus hinders their right to exist peacefully. Homosexuality does not hurt anyone. There are all kinds of people who just happen to be homosexual. Just like there are heterosexual promiscuous people, there are promiscuous homosexual people. Just like there are heterosexual couples that love each other and are monagomous, there are homosexual people that love each other and are monagomous.