Pat Robertson Has Seen Our Demise!

[Mr_Vindictive]

Prophet or Profit?

Does anyone actually listen to this guy?  I don't care if you are a right winger and devout Christian...do people actually believe what this man says????

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=609&id=15712007

Read the last line.  I'm still laughing.

[ulthar]

Yes, that last line is pretty laughable.

I'm Christian and don't give what he says much attention - or any.  But I do know some who do.

As for his predictions, guys in his ilk have been making those same kinds of predictions for centuries...millenia.  It's hard to take seriously.

Last year, I had to the opportunty to attend a class dealing with bblical interpretations of Revelation, the apocalypse and "the rapture."  In brief, according this class, the 'popular' ideas about these things are not theologically consistent with the rest of the Bible, and Revelation, upon closer, scholarly study, does not mean what the 'conventional wisdom' suggests.  If anyone is interested in more detail, I'll try to dig up the book we used in that class.  It was very interesting.  The author of the book, a Christian scholar, was not shy about making the claim that a lot of folks out there spouting off about 'the rapture' and interpreting Revelation are charletons.

[Derf]

Fifteen or twenty years ago, Robertson was one of the few televangelists worth listening to; he was well-spoken and reasonable for the most part. Since he got into politics, he seems to have gone off the deep end. I can't say that his prediction is entirely unreasonable in this case; the way we (the U.S.) are viewed by the world, and by terrorist organizations in particular, it is quite likely that we will be attacked again in the relatively near future. Will millions die? Doubtful, given the current technological level of most of the extremist groups; however, Iran is already claiming that if anybody interferes with their "right" to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, they just might build a bomb and use it. And I would say that Israel or the U.S. would be primary targets. Technically, I guess, that would be an act of war rather than a terrorist attack, but since Robertson has gone nuts, I'm sure to him most Middle Easterners would be considered terrorists, and an Islamic government would be by definition a terrorist government.

As for the leg press claim, I saw another article about that. His trainer is apparently a record-setting leg presser (???) and defends the claim. It has nothing to do with an energy drink, though; I don't recall any mention of a magic elixir in the article. Maybe that came later. It does seem unlikely, though.

[trekgeezer]

At  least Robertson wasn't asking for money. I remember a few years ago Oral Roberts made the claim that if he didn't bring in $5 million dollars within a certain time period God was going to take him home.  Jay Leno made fun of the story by saying that Oral had said that if  he didn't get $2 million by that afternoon God was gonna punch him in the nose.


I don't listen to any of these guys. Pat Robertson has been off his axis for a very long time.

[Dennis]

One of the great things about this country is that you can say, print or broadcast just about anything you want, it's guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, this also means that if you can get enough people to believe whatever it is you're selling you can collect money, buy a TV station, make silly broadcasts, predictions, etc.
I've always felt that Mr. Robertson was on the extreme side of things and lately I would have to say he's kind of a nut, and he'll go right on being one, it's his right, just like it's the right of the rest of us to ignore him if we choose to do so.

[Yaddo 42]

Ah, Patty-whack, I quit watching you and you go off the reservation yet again!

Robertson tends to save up the money begging for those pledge drive hes has several times a year for the real 700 Club and the various higher level of donation.

His political clout coasted for waaaaayyyy too long on "shook up George H W Bush in the primary in 1988". 

I used to watch the opening news segment and his commentaries/responses to the various items. Now that his son Gordon fills in most Fridays it became less fun. IL loved to see when he would say crap like this. His "stock up the end of civilization is near" routine during the lead-up to Y2K was classic, since as part of his warnings he would usually point out that starting less than 18 months to a year ahead was probably too late. Thanks for the leadtime, Pat.

I was surprised at the uproar over his advocating the assassination of Hugo Chavez, since he used to suggest the US farm out the assassination of Yassar Arafat to Israel quite often. His reasoning was that the Arab nations and peoples couldn't hate Israel anymore than they already did so why not let them go ahead and kill him.

Praying away the hurricanes from Virginia Beach works, except when it doesn't.

The prayer campaign to "move the hearts" of O'Connor, Ginsburg, and/or Stevens to vacate the Supreme Court to make way for more conservative Justices would have been funny if he hadn't taken it so seriously. He kept invoking the line "move the hearts" to leave the bench due to age or ill health rather than say "pray for these folks to drop dead", which is what he pretty much wanted.

His advocating taking sex ed. out of the schools and letting kids learn about it the same way his kids did, by watching the animals on their farm was too damn funny and should be better remembered.

He had one of the Freakonomics authors on when it was in the news about their claims that legalizing abortion lead decades later to the signification drop in the crime rate. Robertson did try to argue with the guy, mostly seemed to think that the books title was really wild. He, or his producers seemed to ignore or not care that years earlier they had Christian economist Larry Burkett on the show who argued that legalized abortion had basically stunted the American economy by wiping out millions of future members of the workforce and taxpayers. However good the economy was doing at the time, it was late in the Clinton era, we would have been an even stronger economic powerhouse if they had only lived and grown up.

The leg press thing, I've read about elsewhere. Many folks who agree he lifted it say he used a form that is considered cheating in exercise and competition circles. Besides, unless a bull or horse falls on you while you and the young 'uns were getting a closer look during your husbandry lessons, how often do you need to lift that much weight?

[CheezeFlixz]

I'm no bible thumper so I'll leave it at that... These televangelists like Pat undermind there mission with there wacky demands and crazy claims. Anybody remember one of them see a 900 foot Jesus in the desert? Or smacking someone in the forehead and all the the sudden they are cured and you can be saved for the low-low price of $1000.00 for Jesus! These nut jobs should be banned for TV for stealing for the elderly as that is there target group it seems.
Ok better stop before I get off an some long raving rant and no ones wants that.

[Yaddo 42]

Smacking foreheads sounds like Ernest Angley or maybe Benny Hinn, although his faith healing-fu was a more gentle form more like faith healing tai chi. Peter Popoff maybe? Angley with his head smacking and his "Herb Tarlek-style" bad clothing was a favorite of mine on late night Sunday TV when I was little, seeing him probably helped sow the seeds of my later skepticism, I could not take the man seriously, turned out he was very popular among kids I knew staying up too late.

Until looking it up I forgot about Roberston' s telling Dover, Penn. no to pray to God if a natural disaster happened since they had turned their backs on God by rejecting intelligent design for the school science curriculum.

Or his defense of and financial ties to then Liberian dictator and American prison escapee Charles Taylor. A plane Robertson had refurbished as a flying hospital with funds donated by viewers and supporters, was found to have logged many more flight hours being used as a transport plane for Robertson's commercial interests in Africa than humanitarian or relief efforts.

Also his attempt to buy and reopen a closed petroleum refinery in California. I noticed after he was denied permission to enter the refinery business, pro-alternative energy stories began to air more often on The 700 Club.

I better stop too, I've already had two parts in this rant. Like I said Robertson had been a favorite target of mine, he's provided so much good(bad) viewing over the years.

Now if you want to laugh and get angry about an out and out conman huckster religious crook, with a pair you'd need a radio telescope to calculate the size of since he's so bold and arrogant, look up Rev. Ike.

[ER]

He correctly predicted the world would not end on Mayan Doomsday 2012. Jeesh, what more proof of his being a prophet do you need?