According to the Rev. Pat Robertson, that is. All you need to do is believe. Here's the item from today's news following the earthquake in Haiti:
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White House criticizes evangelist's Haiti remark
Thursday, January 14, 2010
(01-14) 14:26 PST Virginia Beach, Va. (AP) --
A White House spokesman on Thursday slammed evangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson's remark that Haiti has been cursed.
A devastating magnitude-7 earthquake hit there Tuesday.
"It never ceases to amaze me that in times of amazing human suffering somebody says something that can be so utterly stupid," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
The day after the earthquake, Robertson said Haiti has been "cursed" because of what he called a "pact with the devil" in its history. His spokesman said the comments were based on Voodoo rituals carried out before a slave rebellion against French colonists in 1791.
Spokesman Chris Roslan says Robertson never said the earthquake was God's wrath.
Earlier, senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that Robertson's statement left her speechless. She called it "a pretty stunning comment to make" and said it doesn't express the spirit of the American people or the president.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/14/national/a072527S21.DTL
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Here's the way I figure it. There is no natural, or even supernatural creature such as God, any more than there is a Sanny Claus, I hate to tell you. No God prevents natural or any other kind of disasters any more than he causes them. Long ago, that's what people believed, that he could and did, but if he didn't there must be something wrong with all of His victims.
Abraham had it out with God over maybe 5,000 years ago, going by the Jewish Calendar. There were a few people in the town of Sodom behaving like, well, sodomites, regarded as a sin against this boogieman of the sky, an awful, vengeful boogieman. To punish the wrongdoers, God wanted to wipe out the town.
"What're You, nuts?" asked Abraham? "You want to wipe out the innocent women, boys, and children in order to destroy the sinners? What kind of sense does that make?"
So God didn't wipe out Sodom, thank Abraham.
Abraham had more brains and a better sense of right and wrong than the boogieman in the sky.
What we have is the notion of God in our heads. He doesn't exist in trees, the sun, the ocean, the heavens, the totem poles, the images, the churches and temples, or anyplace except inside our heads, those of us who continue believe past the age of reason, let's say around age ten, plus or minus any number of years you care to count.
This God, the one in your head, is capable of encouraging you to do marvelous things, such as inspiring you to keep struggling for the sake of you and your family and loved ones when times are terrible, you're in a foxhole, or the boat is sinking and you're in the water going down for the proverbial third time. At moments like this, I'd bet that the person believing in God has a better chance of survival than the fellow who says, "Screw this, there ain't no hope, might as well just give up."
God in this sense, the idea planted in your skull that He, She, or It exists, offers hope, forgiveness, mercy, clemency, and other things in a spiritual or psychological dimension. Get enough others to believe similarly and pretty soon you have something called a religion. Why you would want to kill others who don't believe as you do is beyond me. All I know is that Christians and Muslims have been doing so longer than seems reasonable. Jews? I don't think they go in for this, any more than Buddhists but I can't say the same for the Hindus, given the sectarian massacres following Partition in 1948 when India first broke from Britain and then broke apart into warring states called Pakistan (Muslim) and India (Hindu). Buddhism isn't entirely exempt from blame considering that Japan during the war was some form of Shinto mixed with Buddhism and committed some of the worst atrocities imaginable.
On the radio today, NPR, a discussion about Jewish people and anti-Semitism. One of the commentators made the point that it was as foolish ("Nazi-like" was the expression) to attribute allegedly positive tendencies (as in "they're smart") to Jews as a group or people as it was negative (think Shylock). He then quoted comedian Jackie Mason as defining anti-Semitism as "disliking Jewish people any more than is absolutely necessary."
Ba-dum!
Hey, at least their forebears invented God. As in the Boogieman of the Sky that Abraham had the big run-in run-in with and came out ahead.
Perhaps we should be erecting temple to Abraham rather than B.O.S., but I wouldn't know. Maybe some day I'll run into either or both. My luck they won't be down there.
Meanwhile we can pray for comfort and aid for the people of Haiti. This doesn't hurt and may make you and others feel better, which I am all for.
Further meanwhile, Wells-Fargo Bank announced the donation of one-hundred thousand whole U.S. dollars to the aid effort. This is really generous, don't you think? A bank generating millions upon millions, granting huge bonuses to executives, donating $100,000 where the death toll is said to reach close to 50,000 people. That's two bucks apiece, not even enough for a decent burial.
I wouldn't have minded if WFB had donated the $100k quietly so that no one knew. But they announced it as though the bank should be given credit for trying. Trying what? To look good despite the financial meltdown caused by its fellow bankers? The president has announced a U.S. aid effort of $100 million. He's also announced that he intends to get back the billions in bailout money spent by taxpayers to rescue the financial industry from the brink of a self-created disaster.
I never much admired Karl Marx, having come of age during the McCarthy Era when anti-Communism and anti-Socialism were mandatory, but now that we've gone Communist and Socialist what with the federal taxpayer bailout of Wall Street AND Detroit (as in General Motors, bankrupt and enabled to stay in business by us, that is Uncle Sam) we might as well just admit it, he's beginning to look less like a boogie man himself and more like someone who smelled a rat when he came across one.
How much bonus money do the top ten executives of WFB make in bonus money for last year, I wonder? More than $100k? More than a million apiece?
These guys throw nickels around like manhole covers, as my dad used to say of wealthy skinflints.
Well its not a topic to be criticize. its a biggest earthquake of Haiti. evangelist's remark in Haiti seriously deserve for white house criticism. we should give help or distribute our sympathy with Haiti.
Posted by: Spy Shop | February 20, 2010 at 11:11 PM