Korean Job Discussion Forums

[daskalos]

What I especially love about Christian demogogues lapsing into prognostication is that their very own bible gives them an ironclad metric by which to judge whether a prophet speaks for God or the forces of darkness. (And profit -- I'm sorry, I mean prophet -- is surely what Pat is aiming for here.)

The test, stated somewhere in the books of Kings or Judges, is simple: if a prophet ever says God told him something and the prophecy doesn't come true, that prophet is a false one.

And Pat doesn't claim anything like 100 percent accuracy. Oh, his claims outstrip his actual record, to be sure, but even a fundamentalist Christian's loose grip on reality can't fudge all the facts. (E.g., he claims a near hit on last year's guess that storms and a tidal wave would hit the U.S., because, actually, storms did hit. But the metric doesn't make allowances for near hits.)

In keeping with the Hebrew part of the bible whence comes this metric, we could use the word chutzpah to describe Pat's foray into prophethood. But it's not chutzpah, it's knowing his audience. The one's familiar with the metric will conveniently forget it or excuse it away. The ones not familiar with it will point to the storms we had last year and attribute the voice of God to him. And the profits will keep achieving their mark, which is what Pat and his ilk are all about.

You don't believe me? Take away the tax exempt status of churches and see how fast the Pat Robertsons, et al, fade away. Religion wouldn't die -- religion is something most people demand, because the lightning is scary, and if praying to the skygod helps them to face their lives, fine -- but the hucksters selling snake oil would have a far less fertile playing field.

It's really too bad there is no literal Hell for Pat Robertson to burn in for all eternity.

[4 months left]

[seoulunitarian]

[jaganath69]

I don't think religion is a bad thing in itself. It inspires great works of passion, mercy, art and literature. What I do object to is when it attempts to insert itself into science and politics.

[Hollywoodaction]

I wouldn't say it's a particular religion that is f#kt per se, but rather it's followers.

[tomato]

[stevemcgarrett]

4 months left:

What a lame thread. You hold up a fringe fundamentalist like Robertson as indicative of the fold. Shake that red herring for all it's worth, dude, it's not going to convince the religious among us that we're the root of the problem.

And it is indeed a fringe element that has asserted itself even among Muslims, although I wouldn't equate Robertson with bin Laden.

You know what makes me want to puke? The smugness of atheists who think religion is the bane of our existence yet in all their quests for the best in secular humanism can find nothing that will make this world a far better place to live in. I'll take a wide-eyed cheerful Korean missionary over a close-eyed morose atheist any day.

Keep counting down.