JUDGES WORSE THAN TERRORISTS

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, went on TV Sunday morning, George Stephanopolous's show, and made the claim that judges were "worse than a few guys with beards who flew planes into buildings". According to him, judges are "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more s ...[text shortened]... ominent Christian in America today.
Uh, any Christian out there want to defend his position?

I could'nt imagine a defense to many of his positions. Reminds me of Kirksey's deliver me Jesus quotes thread, wow did I fill up pages with Pat's comments. Thanks for the reminder.

Wiping a tear from my eye
Nyxie

Originally posted by Nyxie
I could'nt imagine a defense to many of his positions. Reminds me of Kirksey's deliver me Jesus quotes thread, wow did I fill up pages with Pat's comments. Thanks for the reminder.

Wiping a tear from my eye
Nyxie

Yes, it brought back memories of that thread. However, I recoil at the idea that Pat Robertson is the most prominent Christian in America. If you have no faith community and get your religon between Oprah and whatever soap opera is on and if you cannot think for yourself, then I can see how he might be the most prominent Christian for you.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, went on TV Sunday morning, George Stephanopolous's show, and made the claim that judges were "worse than a few guys with beards who flew planes into buildings". According to him, judges are "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more s ...[text shortened]... ominent Christian in America today.
Uh, any Christian out there want to defend his position?

Nope. No-one considers Pat Robertson to be perfect. If he blows something out of proportion, what does that have anything to do with anything. Do I bring up all the stupid things non-Christians have said?

Originally posted by Coletti
Nope. No-one considers Pat Robertson to be perfect. If he blows something out of proportion, what does that have anything to do with anything. Do I bring up all the stupid things non-Christians have said?

Aren't you kinda going a little easy on Pat? Nobody is saying that you think he is perfect. The point is this is the man that a great many xtians in America look up. He's up there with Billy Graham as the most famous evangelical xtian in America, and Pat is far more powerful. He has the ear of the White House and the majority party in Congress, and he has a TV channel that broadcast all over the county (CBN).

He is basically the leader of the radical religious right in America. So we shouldn't pass off what he says in front of millions as equivalent to what Joe Blow on the street mutters on a bad day.

Besides this wasn't just a slip of the tongue. The guy one rich, powerful nutcase.

Consider:
"I read your book," Robertson said. "When you get through, you say, 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom [the US State Dept.], I think that's the answer,' and you say, 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?" Robertson said.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/09/robertson.state/

Originally posted by telerion
Aren't you kinda going a little easy on Pat? Nobody is saying that you think he is perfect. The point is this is the man that a great many xtians in America look up. He's up there with Billy Graham as the most famous evangelical xtian in America, and Pat is far more powerful. He has the ear of the White House and the majority party in Congress, and he ...[text shortened]... t as bad as you say?" Robertson said.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/09/robertson.state/

Politics. Pat's not a religious leader, he's a TV personality. He may have some influence but his following is no where near what Billy Graham. I think his influence is superficial. He's got less pull on the right than Ralph Nader has with the loony left tree huggers.

Conservatives are not one homogeneous group that are going to get upset when radical liberals target one person. That because Conservatives are not some well organized group conspiring against the left. Conservative is simply the of position of most Americans - even the ones who vote democratic are mostly conservative.

And although there is some commonality among Conservatives Christians, we are decentralized. There must be 10 or 20 "leaders" who are well known only in my small denomination, people with influence and respect. And there are hundreds of denominations, all with their own influential leaders.

So you can target Pat. It won't make much difference - the religious and Conservatives (not necessarily the same thing) are everywhere! Bwahh hah hah! 😀

Originally posted by Coletti
Politics. Pat's not a religious leader, he's a TV personality. He may have some influence but his following is no where near what Billy Graham. I think his influence is superficial. He's got less pull on the right than Ralph Nader ha ...[text shortened]... (not necessarily the same thing) are everywhere! Bwahh hah hah! 😀

the religious and Conservatives (not necessarily the same thing)

So why do you waste a whole post blathering as if they were?
Let's not muddle things up with Conservative (which is an incredibly broad term (social? economic? authoritarian? theocratic?)). Let's focus in on what were are really talking about: Right-wing xtian fundamentalist whackos. We're talking Ariel Sharon loving, Terri Schiavo mourning, Left-Behind worshipping, American histroy rewriting, six-day creationism spouting, Antichrist fearing, Jesus will almost certainly come my lifetime extremists.

That's about 20% of the US right there.

Pat Robertson has far more power in the US than anyone from the Calvanists. Quite frankly the evangelicals and pseudo-Pentecostals outnumber you traditionalists big time. While they may not be monolithic (They quibble violently over this or that nuance in the scripture), they basically vote as if they were. Bush, Karl Rove, and the rest of the GOP know this. If you can get 'em out to the polls, there's about a 95% chance they are voting for the elephant. That's why they court the evangelicals and leave Calvanists out in the cold.

Originally posted by telerion
[b]the religious and Conservatives (not necessarily the same thing)

So why do you waste a whole post blathering as if they were?
Let's not muddle things up with Conservative (which is an incredibly broad term (social? economic? au ...[text shortened]... rt the evangelicals and leave Calvanists out in the cold.



[/b]

I guess I don't fit the mold since I only agree with about 10% of your list. But I've always been in a minority of minorities.

BTW: where did you get the 20% figure. What do you mean by history rewriting?

I've never been a big fan Pat Robertson. I've more respect for Dr. James Dodson (and I consider him a theological lightweight). So any defense I give would only be half-hearted.

I do think his words were taking out of context - and what he meant was the social/political implications of the rulings from Federal judiciary - and the way "activist judges" play loose with language. If that's what he meant I understand his point.

I was just going to mention how James Dobson has begun to assume the mantel of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. You beat me to it! Used to be he was just controversial for telling kids it was ok to masturbate. Now he's getting into the nutso game.

Back to Pat:
Yes, his point is that the rulings of judges (basically the entire judiciary when you consider all the rulings he's against) in this country will cause an even more terrible event than 9/11. He's clearly saying that "activist judges are a greater threat to America then Al Qaeda." In fact, he went on to claim that this threat was even more serious to America than the Civil War or Nazi Germany!

No surprise though. He and Falwell have been blaming their political adversaries for 9/11 since two days after the event. The first time, it was abortion clinics, homosexuals, the ACLU, and feminists. Now we must include everyone in the judicial system save a couple right-wingers.

What do you mean by history rewriting?
By history rewriting I mean the evangelical revisionist movement over the last 20 years or so which attempts to distort American colonial history in order to repaint the founding of America as the founding of a "Christian nation," and to undermine the principles of broad (non-xtian) religious freedom and church/state seperation that were conceived in her infanthood.


BTW: where did you get the 20% figure.

Gallop Poll
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2005/01/27_godsofbusiness/galluppoll.shtml

3/4 of the way down the page. Actually 42% of American's identified themselves as "born-again" or "evangelical Christian." 50% of those surveyed claimed to be "Protestant" and 69% of Protestants claimed that religion was "very important" in their life. Assuming evangelicals basically all Protestants, even if only 69% of "born-againers feel that their religion is "very important" (it's probably much higher), that gives us 29%.

So I could have used 29%, but I figured, "Let's be right-wing evangelical about it and knock off about 1/3 of these since despite their claim to be born-again and their assurance that their faith is genuine, they are probably still not True Christians."

That gives me a very conservative figure of 20%.

If anyone does check out that Gallop poll (It's very interesting.), read the "immediately apparent" conclusions at the bottom of the page.

"6. Those with lower levels of educational attainment are more religious than those with more formal education."

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, went on TV Sunday morning, George Stephanopolous's show, and made the claim that judges were "worse than a few guys with beards who flew planes into buildings". According to him, judges are "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more s ...[text shortened]... ominent Christian in America today.
Uh, any Christian out there want to defend his position?

This is exactly the type of rhetoric that fires up Robertson's masses. He uses it to great effect. It's a weapon. And with his media machine he can feed his hungry hordes daily with this dangerous nonsense.

It's scary.

Then this type of talk seeps into *some* conservative columnists editorials and opinions. It feeds on itself. It gets picked up everywhere and repeated, which is exactly what Robertson wants.

I'm so sick of this "we're the victims" crap from the people like Robertson. His so called "ministry" probably sucks in more cash in a day than I'll make in a year. Probably 10 years?!

Originally posted by telerion
[b]the religious and Conservatives (not necessarily the same thing)

So why do you waste a whole post blathering as if they were?
Let's not muddle things up with Conservative (which is an incredibly broad term (social? economic? authoritarian? theocratic?)). Let's focus in on what were are really talking about: Right-wing xtian fundamentalist wha ...[text shortened]... lephant. That's why they court the evangelicals and leave Calvanists out in the cold.



[/b]

What you seem to be talking about are American right-wing Xian fundamentalist whackos. You might very well have right-wing Xian fundamentalists outside the US who do not like Ariel Sharon, who do not particularly care about American history etc.

Also, why is Terri Schiavo mourning a criteria for right-wing fundamentalism?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
What you seem to be talking about are American right-wing Xian fundamentalist whackos. You might very well have right-wing Xian fundamentalists outside the US who do not like Ariel Sharon, who do not particularly care about American history etc.

Also, why is Terri Schiavo mourning a criteria for right-wing fundamentalism?

Yes, American ones. Maybe the Terri Schiavo bit was inaccurate. As I remember it now, that turned out to be more of a devote Catholic thing. I think the evangelicals were pretty evenly split.

i don't live in america, and i've never heard of this pat guy. if you want an influential christain leader i'd say either rick warren or david wilkerson. both are well respected in the christain community, have exceptional faith, are good leaders, and i have a book by both of them on my shelf...

Originally posted by genius
i don't live in america, and i've never heard of this pat guy. if you want an influential christain leader i'd say either rick warren or david wilkerson. both are well respected in the christain community, have exceptional faith, are good leaders, and i have a book by both of them on my shelf...

Weirdly enough, the only non-Catholic influential leaders I'd heard of were Jimmy Swaggart and Billy Graham. The most influential Catholic, of course, would be the Pope. 🙂

EDIT: The only Catholic evangelist who IMO comes close to these guys is/was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.