Pat Robertson on Haiti: Quake Is Cost Of Deal With The Devil

We knew that pagans, the ACLU,  gays and lesbians caused 9/11

Now we discover that Haitians "swore a pact with the Devil" and have, consequently, been cursed.  On the upside, Reverend Pat Robertson is optimistic that this tragedy may help Haitians have a "great turning to God."

I will admit that my reactions to these comments reflect my own closed-mindedness about certain religious views.  But I just don't believe that yesterday's earthquake had a great deal to do with getting out from under the heel of the French 200 years ago.

Comments

[DrKeithCurrie]

Lets prayfor preacher Pat Robertson So that he can come out from such mind. We must pray for Haitian So that they over such a massive disaster.

[Jeff Lipshaw]

Pat Robertson is to thoughtful religion as Andy Fastow is to prudent financial reporting. That is, the knucklehead who is the basis for the availability heuristic that EVERYBODY in similar circumstances is like him. Dan, I don't think being judgmental is the same as being closed minded about CERTAIN religious views.

We have very good friends who were on a church sponsored mission - we are hoping they are okay, but there's been no news (they were in a remote town in the mountains between Leogane and Jacmel). As far as I know, they did not enter into a pact with the Devil.

The philosopher Pierre Bayle's reaction to theodicy of this sort was that God could be all good or all powerful, but not both. Why would an all good AND all powerful God punish a baby in 2010 for something Toussaint L'Ouverture did 200 years ago? You either have to reject God as being an evil concept, or significantly scale back what you are willing to attribute to God. And if this is simply an imponderable, that is, it's not for me to say that God could be evil (not understanding God's ultimate purposes), why did God give me a mind that could reason to the conclusion that God, if all powerful and allowing catastrophes, would have to be evil?

By the way, the "Caribbean pact with the devil" is not a new thing. Port Royal, Jamaica was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, and nobody gave it a second thought among the European intelligentsia because it was, as everybody knew, a den of iniquity. Sixty-three years later, an earthquake destroyed Lisbon, and it shook the Enlightenment to its core. It didn't make sense that God would punish a good and beautiful Christian city unless it turned out that God didn't control earthquakes.

[Generationvoice]

I do not agree nor disagree with Pat Robertson, however, God has both the power and the right to destroy man because of evil. Bible history is full of incidents where Intire countries and cities have been brought to ruin because of their sinful ways. The Roman Empire rejected God and persecuted Christians to the point of taking their lives in horrendous ways. The Roman Empire is no longer. God did not even spare his own race but he did give them opportunity after opportunity to repent of their wicked ways. Hitler fell because He persecuted not only Christians but Jews and every one who was different from his self proclaimed standards in looks and religion. Did the Jews and misfits feel that God did a good thing by bringing Hitler down and stopping the mass murdering and horrible treatment? I should think so.
Who is to say that God did not send an earthquake to open the eyes of the Haitians, or....Here's a thought: Could it have been the devil, the antithesis of God who caused it? In the end doesn't it come down to whose side you are on?