by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 18 of the Pillars of Faith series
No Joke
Skewering Pat Robertson, The Most Dangerous Man in America, in 700 words or less is no easy task. Where does one begin? Books, like the above by Robert Boston, have already been written, and there may not be enough trees to cover all the facts.
On top of that, Pat hides his sins easily in broad daylight, bumbling his way through fundie TV so we assume no one takes him seriously. Hasn’t everyone been rolling their eyes at the mere mention of the 700 Club for decades now?
I’ve been recently called out for my mean-spirited attacks on these poor, innocent, easy targets who are so woefully misled and far out that they threaten no one. Who listens to some jerk blaming immigrants and other heathens and homos for hurricanes, who calls them “termites” and calls for a “Godly fumigation”? Clearly, anyone who famously states that women seeking equality are actually socialists looking to “leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians” is a joke and nothing more. Pat’s prophecies have come and gone with the wind, and his conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Masons were nowhere near as riveting as Dan Brown’s.
Blood Diamonds
But it’s no joke. Marion “Pat” Robertson is an extremely influential man in matters that extend beyond spirituality and blundering racist faux pas. He has a political agenda, twisted morals, huge media power, insatiable thirst for money at all costs, tremendous business acumen, and influential henchman saturating every aspect of American life, from dieting to banking to war. And then there’s the little matter of blood diamonds.
I encourage all of you to look up Pat’s proclamations on the evil Hindus, Satanic atheists, homosexual Scots, the “rightful” dominion of Christians (but only some kinds of Christians), the evils of yoga, the voice of God as special immunity for people blowing up abortion clinics, his calls for various assassinations of leaders he doesn’t like, and how his own half-million dollar racehorse had nothing to do with gambling, which he speaks against. And how “Women should listen and learn quietly and submissively.” Or how the special energy shake God used to nourish him made him capable of 2,000-lb leg presses, nearly 1.5 times the power of the world record champion.
The Elephant in the Room
But these sheer idiocies with which we cull hilarious lists really detract from the sinister reality behind the scenes. The media mogul formed the first Christian Broadcast Network and today pumps his belligerent 700 Club mumblings to a million people a day. Other programming goes around the world in some 50 languages. Founder of the Christian Coalition for America, The American Center for Law and Justice, and big wig at the Moral Majority and umpteen other rhetoric-spewing think tanks, Pat’s putting your grandma’s money toward making sure justice exists only for his approved brand of Christians and no one else. (And for his private jets.) Pat’s ties to, funding for, support of, and influence on political players is huge. He has been involved in politics himself, and is extremely influential in pushing his creationist, dominionist, racist, anti-women, anti-progress agenda from behind the scenes.
What a Relief
Pat has close business ties to shady political figures linked to genocidal warfare. Indeed, he’s a good friend of Zaire’s (now Congo) Mobutu Sésé Seko. Mobutu was the totalitarian dictator of Zaire from ’65 to ’97, a man especially fond of public executions for anyone whom he didn’t like. Pat sunk some 8 million into blood diamond mining, given permission to mine by his friend Charles Taylor, Liberian warlord. (Pat has said that the investment was for “evangelism.” Riiiiight.) Taylor has recently been arrested after living in hiding, and faces 11 charges for war crimes, including arming, funding, and instructing rebels to pillage, rape, steal, and hack off people’s arms and legs over diamonds. Even Bush was against Taylor, and Pat lambasted him for not supporting Taylor, a “Baptist, Christian president.”
Considering that Pat’s “Operation Blessing” supposedly helps genocide and war victims in Rwanda, Congo and west Africa, isn’t it a little bit, um, wrong, to invest money in a major cause of said holocausts? Pat came under fire when it was observed that his planes, supposedly carrying refugees toward relief, were actually transporting his mining gear and profits! It was ruled that Pat had indeed diverted donations, but he saved his arse because the planes had a few relief supplies on them.
I don’t know about you, but I prefer my atheist and homo friends over greedy torture-mongers and genocidal maniacs, or preachers who cover their bloody tracks.
Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.
Mark D: Let Ed sell his plane and give the money to the Red Cross 
nomad: You’d love it, Custador. It looks and tastes just like it sounds. Nomnom. 
Matt: I find it very interesting that there are so many people out there with such sad lives as to sit... 
Tyrrlin: Wow… I’d like to buy apostrophes for most of those commenters. Apparently belief in a... 
Mathurine: I’m not so sure that they wouldn’t have. The father in the case is... 
JonJon: I agree. 
Siberia: That’s a question I always ask myself, though in other contexts, would I still be me if I’d... 
Mark Mukasa: I love the Paine pun. xD Awesome article. 
52 Comments
I love blog writing. The internet is a place where “we assume no one takes him seriously” can be followed by “Robertson is an extremely influential man” and nobody seems to mind.
That’s because in context there’s nothing wrong with either statement. “We” intelligent atheists who haven’t looked too deeply at Pat Robertson do instinctively assume that nobody takes him seriously – but just because we assume that to be the case, does not necessarily mean that it will be the case when we examine him more closely. His statements are rooted in the stone-age to the point of being quite laughable to a thinking person – but it’s too easy to assume that everybody has the same ability to think critically as we do, and the fact is that there are some extremely gullible people out there. There are also a lot of very bad people who want to use the influence that Robertson has over those gullible people for their own ends.
it’s too easy to assume that everybody has the same ability to think critically as we do, and the fact is that there are some extremely gullible people out there.
Anybody who believes you are “a thinking person” can attest to that.
Excuse me?! You’ve totally misunderstood a post and complained that it makes no semantic sense when it make perfectly *good* semantic sense, and when politely corrected you’ve come back and insulted MY intelligence?! You’re a phukking arsehole. Go phuck yourself.
No, I did not “totally misunderstand a post” nor did it make “perfectly *good* semantic sense”.
The article does NOT say that “We” means “intelligent atheists who haven’t looked too deeply at Pat Robertson”. It doesn’t say that at all. Not explicitly and not implicitly. You pulled that out of your ass. And that DOES reflect on your intelligence.
^ -1
You’re full of shit! Try to grasp that “we assume” does not mean the same thing as “this is fact”, follow Mark Greene’s advice and actually look in a dictionary, then stfu, you retard!
Also, how is the deffinition of “we” relevent to your original retarded point? It’s not at all, is it? You’re just trying to pick a fresh argument to cover up the fact that you’re such a retard that you can’t even cope with the deffinition of a simple English word like “assume”! Are you one of those children that got left behind by GWB? You sure as hell come accross as being that special, anyway!
I’m not sure what the source of your anger problem is, but please don’t take it out on the mentally challenged. Saying “stfu, you retard!” and “your original retarded point” doesn’t say nearly as much about people with special needs as it does about you.
Everybody here knows what the word “assume” means. It fundamentally doesn’t make sense to say “we assume the world is flat” and follow it with “but the world is round”. It’s a contradiction and it’s bad writing.
“It fundamentally doesn’t make sense to say “we assume the world is flat” and follow it with “but the world is round”. It’s a contradiction and it’s bad writing.”
Thank you very much for demopnstrating that you have no understanding whatsoever of the English language. Even the sentences you used to demonstrate something being incorrect are, in fact, completely semanticaly correct.
My article doesn’t say that “we” means “intelligent, thinking atheists” because it doesn’t have to. “We” or “one” or “many” would all be perfectly fine. “Assume” means “supposes” or “takes for granted” as in “we take for granted that…..” And yes, we do take for granted that Pat is a harmless buffoon, but meanwhile, he IS a very influential person with money and politicians on his side.
I’m still not jaded enough to lump all believers as “unintelligent” and nor shall I assume that all atheists are thinking people, especially after witnessing how some of you begin attacking each other and calling each other “retards” after differences of opinion or preference for use of language.
What I find most astonishing is how everyone has their knickers in a knot over minor differences in interpretation of a breezy overview that does not pretend to be a scholarly inquiry. Or, alternately, arguing over how much Dan Brown sucks. These things are more upsetting to the audience than Pat’s affiliation with warlords and his substantial investments in rape, torture and genocide? Shouldn’t we be disturbed when major leaders- religious or otherwise- support genocidal maniacs?
Let’s have heated discussions about our own complicity in the Congo/Rwanda/west African holocausts and how our buying patterns and our governments contribute to rape, mutilation, equatorial forest destruction, the kidnapping of Pygmies, the killing of gorillas and hippopotamuses, child soldiers, slavery, torture, amputations, and mining diseases. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness fits in here quite nicely. Maybe us “thinking people” can stand united against religious and political support of atrocity, instead of getting lost over inconsequential semantics.
Apologies, Lorette. My response to being insulted by a person who doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about is generally to get angry. I did not intend to hijack a thread, however.
Define via a dictionary the word”assume”, then read your statement again. Then read it again. If my point hasn’t sunk in by then, you will never get it.
^ +1
“his conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Masons were nowhere near as riveting as Dan Brown’s.”
Cutting!
“his conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Masons were even more badly written and boring than Dan Brown’s.”
Fixed that for ya.
I picked up that novel and could not read beyond one chapter. Dan Borwn’s writing is like fingernails grating on a chalkboard
We have a generation of superstar authors who can’t actually write prose worth a damn. J K Rowling, Stephanie Mayers and Dan Brown are just the tip of the iceberg.
You are clearly looking for the wrong kind of fiction if you think these authors can’t write. If you want well-written prose, I recommend you check out literature that was actually written with that in mind. Dan Brown is not preventing you from reading Joseph Conrad. If you want a good suspense novel, I see no reason The Da Vinci Code isn’t a great example.
And I think in general the most popular authors are going to be the ones that write books that appeal to the widest audiences, and these generally aren’t written above maybe an eighth or ninth grade level. Think of how popular Agatha Christie was!
If you want a good suspense novel, I see no reason The Da Vinci Code isn’t a great example.
*gag* No, I’m sorry, but Dan Brown is literature’s natural enemy. The “Da Vinci Code” contained every cliche ever used in suspense fiction to cover up for the fact that it had absolutely nothing else. The characterization was non-existent, the plotting was shoddy and implausible, and the writing was barely above high-school level.
People liked it for the same reason they liked such works as Bridges of Madison County: by including cliches and nothing but cliches, the work becomes the literary equivalent of a Krispy Kreme doughnut. It pushes all the buttons, and keeps pushing them.
Unfair. I like Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but do not like Dan Brown’s books.
“No, I’m sorry, but Dan Brown is literature’s natural enemy. The “Da Vinci Code” contained every cliche ever used in suspense fiction to cover up for the fact that it had absolutely nothing else.”
Yeh but at least they made a good film out of it … ;-)
I took a writer’s intensive that began with lecture called “How not to write like Dan Brown.” It was a fantastic course.
Brown’s writing has *zero* redeeming qualities. I can only venture to guess that the primary reason he got so much press was due to the flood of media coverage about Christians overreacting to his brand of fiction.
Then again, Christians have been taking fiction too seriously for millennia, so why stop now?
Oh, and feel free to be awesome and point out my typos. :P
Michael, I will try to remain calm for this one. It’s been a rough day, and people in general are really starting to piss me off, however I’m going to try very hard not to take that out on you. I apologise in advance if I fail.
Dan Brown is a shockingly bad author. His work contains no original ideas, characters or scenarios whatsoever. It is utterly predictable, and totally boring. I strongly suggest the works of Iain Banks if you want to read really suspensful fiction written really well.
Stephanie Mayer… Where do I start? The writing is so bad that it’s actually laughable. If she could write above a secondary school level it would be a good start. But she can’t. Her characters are two dimensional. There is no depth to them. The Twilight series is just porn for adolescent girls. I’d leave it alone as harmless if it wasn’t for her Mormon influence – she actually makes it seem like a much older man stalking you and creeping into your room at night is a normal part of adolescent life for a girl. Creepy.
J K Rowling…. Oh, where to start on JK Rowling…. I’ll give you an example from the Harry Potter sporking community:
“THE PUNCTUATION!
‘It rose, seemingly endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort’s shoulders: its neck the thickness of a man’s thigh; its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. Voldemort stroked the creature absently with long thin fingers, still looking at Lucius Malfoy.’
Won’t someone care for the punctuation? Anyone? Bueller? And having fingers that can look at people is just CREEPY.”
Not enough? Okay, here’s another:
” ‘It was stupid, pointless, irritating beyond belief that he still had four days left of being unable to perform magic…but he had to admit to himself that this jagged cut in his finger would have defeated him.’
So you’re whining about not being able to use magic to fix a cut that you don’t know how to heal by magic. Yeeeah. That’s all kinds of special, Harry.”
Let’s also examine the fact that she creates a fictional universe and then sets rules which she proceeds to allow to be broken with impunity. There’s no continuity! Example: Harry blows up his aunt because he’s angry, and yet Dumbledore – THE MOST POWERFUL WIZARD IN THE WORLD! – gets his wand taken from him by a little blond boy at the end of book five and becomes totally unable to perform magic! Yeah! Right! Way to obey your own rules, JK!
In Mayer’s defense, she is a retard. Can’t say Brown or Rowling have that excuse, though.
Maybe just Rowling.
I’ve always thought that Rowling had the potential to be a decent author, but she became way too popular, way too quickly. Somewhere around the second book, she developed Portection from Editors. (Wait, isn’t this Elemenope’s job?)
And no wonder. Elemonope would spell “protection” right. Perhaps I should leave the trope linkage to professionals.
I’ve never read anything by Meyer, but I guess some people like her style.
As for J.K. Rowling . . . she writes children’s books, dude, lighten up. If people like to read Harry Potter, who are you to say she’s doing a bad job? Your complaints are incredibly selfish, to the point where you are claiming “I HATE her style, and if people like it, they are objectively wrong and don’t know literature.” You’re worse than Christians complaining about gay sex, goddamn.
As for Dan Brown, I’m clearly outnumbered here, but I personally liked reading the Da Vinci Code. And it’s not because I haven’t read my share of suspenseful literature (I have), it’s because I thought the setting was interesting. You might find that lame, but that’s why I read the book, and I feel like that’s probably why most people read it. And just because you find Iain Banks’ writing to be better doesn’t make Brown’s bad, just overrated. Obviously he is overrated. Can you get over it?
““I HATE her style, and if people like it, they are objectively wrong and don’t know literature.” You’re worse than Christians complaining about gay sex, goddamn.”
Epic way to put words in my mouth, dude! I said no such thing! I shall ask my friend Mel (whose first PhD is in English Literature) to post something on the forums about JK Rowling. It’s not about hating her style, it’s about hating her inability combined with her immunity from editors. Oh, and the fact that she never re-reads her own work after it’s published. Meanwhile, I’m going to stop hijacking Lorette’s thread.
“Skewering Pat Robertson, The Most Dangerous Man in America, in 700 words or less is no easy task. Where does one begin?”
How about: He’s a tool.
And if we need to expand on that we simply add: “He’s a ginormous douchebag who doesn’t have the sense the Imaginary Sky Friend gave a goat.”
I love the hiprocrisy between what he preaches and what he does. For example:
–Pat came under fire when it was observed that his planes, supposedly carrying refugees toward relief, were actually transporting his mining gear and profits!–
This is why I don’t donate blindly to ‘charities’ and especially why I don’t donate to religious groups.
Gringa, you have to remember that hypocrisy and preaching go hand in hand. Look at how many of these Fundie Evangelist get caught doing what that preach against, but then keep right on going
Well, as long as you say you’re sorry, it’s ok apparently.
Firstly, I don’t think there is a “leg press championship;” squat, deadlift, bench press, definitely. Secondly, that would make the world record 1333lbs. Thirdly, that would make me stronger than the world champion, and subsequently stronger than God’s magic shakes. (That’s superb logic, I know)
I just love the fact that he makes claims like this. Wonderful comedy. Hahaha!
[Google search of "leg press championship" comes up with several links to Pat's claim and others' joking about it.]
I’m with Nathan on this. I can leg-press (on an inclined press) about 300kg, or about 660 Lbs. I find it hard to believe that a dedicated weight lifter couldn’t push four or five times that weight at least.
i agree also. i don’t do leg presses, but i’m sure i could do a fair amount of weight given that my legs are capable of carrying my fat ass around all day.
not that an old man like Pat could do a quarter of that weight, magic shake or not. what is he, like 80? his legs would shatter if he tried to lift 2000 lbs.
The most important point all you tards are missing about leg presses is: how far you press the weight. I was in a gym where this moron loaded up over 1000 pounds, proceeded to drop it less than 2 inches and press it back up and then declared it a successful lift. NOT! In competition power lifting, squatting, you need to bend your knees to less than a 90 degree angle(your thighs must break the parallel plane to the floor), and when I leg press, my heels touch my butt. That is a whole world of difference from pressing a 2″ distance. If I’m only pressing 2″ I can easily double the weight I press. So to everyone who claims a stated weight in a lift, it isn’t an acceptable legitimate lift unless you do it in competition, that way we all know what we’re talking about, specifically a 90 degree or smaller bend of the joint.
BTW, the guys who can legitimately leg press 2,000 pounds are super-heavyweight class monsters who have been lifting all their lives and enhancing their development with steroids. Pat Robertson loading up 2,000lbs and lowering it to 90 degress would snap his frail, obviously not a powerlifter, bag of bones into a bag of dust. The 2K on a leg press would crush him so badly that he would literally be crippled for life. Physical education is no different from an education in math, for example: you’re not going to be doing calculus unless you went thru all the other lesser maths that build its foundation. And in powerlifting it’s the same thing: you’re not going to be doing 2K pounds unless you did all the intermediate steps to get there. This takes years and this is visible in your muscular development. Judging from Pat’s flabby physique, the only things he lifts are burgers and beers.
I know what a leg press is, being a regular gym attendee and user of free weights – the fact that I pointed out my own lift was on an inclined leg press should have revealed that to anybody who knows how gym equipment works, because the point of an inclined press is to isolate your legs and prevent lifting with any other muscle group. I’m pretty sure that everybody else here knows the difference between pressing a weight and lifting it two inches, too.
Anybody who opens a sentence by declaring everybody else a ‘tard, though? Well, speaks more about them than it does about everybody else, really. Particularly when they follow it up with a bunch of cut-’n-paste from wikipedia and quite a lot of ignorance.
Agreed. When I read Dieter’s initial comment my jaw literally dropped open. “Tards”? Wow, what a douchebag. Ooops! Now I’ve done it. Damn.
I can usually push myself up from a chair. Does that count?
Only if you weigh at least 2000 lbs.
Uh…no.
I remember that when they used to show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” on tv it was always followed by the 700 Club. My dad would always be sure to turn the tv off right away when “Whose Line” ended. One day, I decided to watch 700 Club because my dad obviously hated it. I raged. I lost.
“Bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman is featured in videos wherein he leg presses 2300 pounds (1 043 kg). To compare, the world record for the squat is 1213 pounds (550.5 kg geared), according to Monster Muscle Online.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_press
There is a huge disparity between the weight used leg presses and squats. The reason for this is that in squats the weight rests on your shoulders and in leg presses you only press from the hips, thereby eliminating the weakest link in the equation, the back, completely. Leg presses are also done on a machine, whereas squats are generally done free standing.
Here’s what a leg press looks like……..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_press
Where did that picture of ol’ Pat come from? It doesn’t look like it was taken out of context, he’s clearly displeased about something.
Yep Daniel, you’re definitely a meanie and not an “all-around nice guy”. For it has been written:
120. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (I)
(1) Someone made fun of my faith.
(2) Therefore, God exists.
121. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (II)
(1) Jesus said that people would make fun of Christians.
(2) I am an idiot.
(3) People often point that out.
(4) Therefore, God exists.
122. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (III)
(1) You atheists are mean!
(2) Therefore, God exists.
-*Hundreds* of Proofs of God’s Existence
Just fyi, the article is by Lorette C. Luzajic, not Daniel Florien :)
A great little piece Lorette…
As I was growing up in High School (early 70’s), my family would vacation in Lincoln City Oregon. ( Back home, in Canada, we didn’t have access to this programming.) My parents would put on “The 700 Club” as a background to our time lying around in the hotel. I have this memory of Pat & his black side-kick (my Mother thought he was wonderful), praying over people, & prophesying over events and speaking out against ungodly developments in western society with a teary-eyed compassion that I thought looked pretty genuine. Among with all the radio preachers & church folk that inhabited our lives in those days he seemed a little “out there” at times but my parents looked to him as a “Man of God”. It was inconceivable to think that anyone making such bold claims of Godly inspiration could be anything but the real article; after all, surely God would strike him down if he wasn’t…
As he became more extreme over the years, even my parents found him too extreme to take too seriously; but, I can see that a steady diet of the Pat Robertson vitriol & delusional thinking could easily pull people into his world view without much resistance. I haven’t watched any of this stuff for years but I would venture to say that if you don’t think too much about it & stay plugged in, you become one of his “flock”. He comes across as a grandfatherly patriarch looking out for the principles of the Kingdom. Sure he’s a bit of a curmudgeon in his old age but he fits the mold. Like Elisha cursing the mocking urchins & invoking a bear attack, God is on his side & might makes right; even if only in the mini-dynasties of TV corporations like CBN or benign little dictatorships like Liberia or Congo.
Critical thinking is dangerous. Beware! – Writing pieces like this is as bad as calling Elisha old Bald-head. God might just sic a she-bear on you, so maybe instead, you should be writing those cheques and staying tuned for God’s next pronouncements – courtesy of Prophet Pat & Co.
-evan
I was wondering if anyone remembered any of the prophecies he has made that fell and were completely wrong? The only one I can remember off hand is his prediction that a major city would have a major disaster and it would probably be nuclear. I think this was suppose to happen in 2008.