If you are ever tempted to think, “Nah, nobody could be that crazy“, then it is time for you to tune into the 700 club so that you can rapidly have that notion dispelled. Mr Pat Robertson is a well-known kook, loved by the faithful, and laughed at by the rest of us for the utterly insane silliness he dispenses on a regular basis.
Take for example, the time when there was an interview between Pat Robertson and televangelist Benny Hinn, the prosperity gospel guy – “god blesses the truly faithful with money” – who is now broke and in debt for millions. It was the week before the presidential election and during this chat Robertson informed Hinn that “the Lord told me” that Mitt Romney would defeat President Obama. Note that he is not saying, “I think”, or “In my opinion”, or even, “I’m convinced”, but rather, “God has personally spoken to me and told me …”, and that is indeed a rather bold claim.
It is about here that most critical thinkers will roll their eyes. If Mr Robertson’s claim was true, then how exactly is this vote-rigging by God supposed to work? A claim such as this takes us off in two very interesting directions …
- Does God know the future, and so is simply advising Pat on how the voting choices of millions will work out … in which case we then get into a heavy debate about concepts such as free-will and what it means to have a god that on one hand attempts to persuade, but on the other knows exactly how things will turn out, and should also know exactly what would actually persuade everybody that he is real, but has opted not to do so.
- Alternatively, does this instead mean that God gets to decide who wins an election, and will simply rig the vote, hence the way people actually vote has no meaning because god will personally manipulate how people vote thus we kiss this free-will concept goodbye once again
Additionally, there is also the rather obvious – he was wrong, so clearly god made a mistake. Am I truly sure he made this claim? Yep …
- In late 1976, Robertson predicted that the end of the world was coming in October or November 1982 … wrong.
- In January 2004, Robertson said that God told him President Bush will be re-elected in a “blowout” in November … wrong, no blowout, it was very close, one of the closest in history.
- In May 2006, Robertson declared that storms and possibly a tsunami would hit America’s coastline sometime in 2006. Robertson supposedly received this revelation from God during an annual personal prayer retreat in January. The claim was repeated four times on The 700 Club. … wrong.
- On the January 2, 2007, broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson said that God spoke to him and told him that “mass killings” were to come during 2007 … wrong.
- On the January 2, 2008 episode of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson predicted that 2008 would be a year of worldwide violence … wrong.
- And of course we also have the above prediction of a Romney win
This guy keeps getting it wrong time after time, the above is not in any way an exhaustive list, just a few examples that quite clearly demonstrate he is indeed a complete nut who keeps predicting things that god has told him, but never actually happen.
Now I have a problem … do I take his guidance and listen to his advice to avoid false prophets such as himself, or do I ignore that guidance and pay attention to him telling us to ignore himself … (oh bugger, I think my head just exploded).