ReligionDispatches.org

For many people who identify as Christians, I imagine Pat Robertson is like the crazy old Grandpa that sits in the den during family reunions making everyone around him uncomfortable with his delusional pronouncements that he shouts into an airspace filled with the smell of his own old-man farts. Everyone just wants him to shut the hell up, but no one has the guts to say it because they are afraid he'll try to beat them with his cane or write him out of the family will, so they just roll their eyes and try to imagine he's dead already.
Let's just play a game that assumes for a minute Grampa Robertson isn't two shuffles closer to the old folks home and engage his "true story". Per Wikipedia:

"Dutty Boukman was a houngan, or vodoun priest whose death was considered a catalyst to the slave uprising that marked the beginning of the Haïtian Revolution...Soon after the uprising began, French authorities captured Boukman and executed him by beheading. The French then publicly displayed Boukman's head in an attempt to dispel the aura of invincibility that Boukman had cultivated. However it remained strong, and their attempt failed."

Sooo... Haitians incur God's wrath vis a vis Earthquakes and devastation centuries after daring to have the gaul to lead a revolution on Imperialist France, which was enslaving their native population and exploiting their lands for profit. I suppose since we all know God is a capitalist, France, meanwhile -- in reminding the quaint brown people that Imperialists don't f*ck around by way of beheading the their main spiritual leader and shoving his head on a stake -- was rewarded centuries later by having its name permanently fixed in front of the word "fries" and also with the expanded popularity of the latte.... See More

I think it's clear that there's at least one person in the Western Hemisphere who hasn't seen Avatar.

I could swear I remember there being a story in the New Testament where the Apostles ask Jesus why a recent disaster had happened, and Jesus basically replied that "Bad things happen" denying the idea that the victims were any less pious than the Apostles or anyone else.

Can anyone confirm if that story exists and what the chapters/verses are if it does?

If it does, it seems very odd so many "Christians" always seek to find something to "blame the disaster on" when Jesus himself said there isn't necessarily a moral failure to blame.

I believe you're thinking of the Tower of Siloam in Luke ch 13 v 4.
Jesus tells the crowd that they're no better than eighteen people who were killed by a falling tower and urges them to turn from their own sins rather than pointing the finger at others.
In the same paragraph there's also the story of a bunch of worshippers killed by Pilate - Jesus says the same about them. They were no worse than anyone else in Jerusalem.

Also in John 9, starting with verse 1, the people asked Jesus "who sinned" to cause a man to be born blind. Jesus answered that no one did, and then he healed the blind man.

This passage (Luke 13:4) is very insightful, particularly since the Jewish faith at the time believed that bad things happening were a message from God. Just one more affirmation as to how remarkable Jesus the reformer, really was.

Robertson's claim of a Haitian "pact with the Devil" is as disgusting as his agreement with Jerry Falwell that we deserved 9/11 because of "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians [...] the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America."

Why are his loathsome remarks still on the air?

People who would like to actually help the Haitian earthquake victims (rather than worthlessly praying for them) can donate $10 to the Red Cross by texting "HAITI" to 90999.

Loony religious rants should be ridiculed, if they can't be properly ignored. Yes, millions of people listen to, believe, and think like Robertson. They aren't reading this and never will. And who among those likely to read this needs to be told: "In a disaster, help should not be predicated upon what a person's belief system is."?

You're probably right as far as the US goes but there are plenty of moderate Christians over here who think Tim la Haye wrote helpful books on marriage and James Dobson had some good ideas about children and discipline. Were it not for UTube and sites like this, we wouldn't know just how loony some of these guys are - or how dangerous.

I think there are two sides to this issue. Dobson has a book on how to deal with a strong willed child. I haven't read it, but I think I have seen some of the results. I am more concerned with how a child can deal with a strong willed evangelical.

The truly horrifying thing is that, among 'bible-based baby beating' proponents, Dobson is relatively moderate. You might check into the Fugates, for example. (In fact, apologies for the self-promotion, but you might Google "Prup Bible Based Baby Beating" for a good overview of just how horrible they can get.

I guess that must mean religious beating works. If you beat your kids, they they will join the religion and beat their kids and pass it on to the next generation. Religion evolves like any other species. Whatever continues to propogate will be successful in the long run.

And here I thought only us Pagans caused world disasters, not "Voodoo-ists" (or whatever loonies call followers of Santeria)... As for Haiti, last I had heard they were mostly devout Christians...

We get it, Pat... only Pagans, gays, abortion rights activists and Haitian Christians cause natural disasters...

He and his ilk are an embarrassment to any free thinking, compassionate Christian, and to open minded people everywhere...

Although I understand the frustration and sympathize with it, all the Christian bashing in the world isn't going to solve the real problem of religious indoctrination. The religious brain is hardwired a certain way (the degree depends on the temperament of it's owner). If you belittle them you strengthen the indoctrination because they then believe they are 'suffering for Christ' and/or 'being persecuted for their faith'.

At the same time if you don't criticize their thinking, they'll believe you are on their side and try to convert you. For an Evangelical Christian especially, it's all about converting people.

The problem lies with interpretation of all Christian authority, the Bible; there is no consistent method for interpreting. A Roman Catholic Christian believes the sacrament of communion actually becomes 'the body and blood of Christ'. A born-again Christian however, knows that when Jesus spoke of 'eating his body and drinking his blood', he was speaking in figurative terms, as in eating manna (spiritual knowledge) and drinking wine (spirit).

An Evangelical Christian believes in the literal 'mark of the beast of Revelation', while at the same time acknowledging the 'scarlet beast of Revelation' is a figurative term for a global government. How can one part of the writings be literal and another part figurative, and who chooses which is which!

Until there's a consistent method for interpreting, Pat Robertson will remain fully convinved he is God's elite and his followers with him. At this point it's really a no win situation.

I respectfully disagree with your premise that understanding is the only "ingredient" missing from this equation. Understanding, in many ways, is why these men (and some women) feel free to vomit their hateful words at every whim.

I was raised evangelical-- before it was called that. In fact, my mother preferred to call herself an "Independent Bible Believing Baptist" when asked what her religion was. She never said, "Oh, me, I'm a Christian".

I learned to break that programming by learning to think for myself. This was encouraged in the church, that I "might read and know for myself what the Bible said to me, and how I was to live by it". I left the church at 17 and never looked back; however years of church and private school taught me to recognise the religion when I see it, and how to talk to them in their own "language"

As long as understanding, open mindedness and tolerance are abused by persons such as this then "understanding" will be synonymous with "acceptance".

I cannot accept what he says as true. It is mean, cruel and (frankly) quite a nasty evil thing to say. Therefore, I will call him to account, I will question him, demand a "why" and "with what authority?" I will support those groups and companies who refuse to accept this behaviour; and I will avoid those who do.

Understanding isn't about "who is persecuting whom". It's about loving people, regardless... Jesus did that, didn't he? So what's their excuse?

Religion evolves like all other life on earth. That which can propagate to the next generation and in larger numbers will survive, and might eventually dominate. Jesus was teaching something more like a humanistic philosophy. His methods could never compete with the more traditional forms of religion that have evolved over time by being able to out-influence the others. Jesus never really stood a chance in the long run. All that is left is a name.

How does Jesus's teaching qualify as a "humanistic philosophy"?

Why do you say that his methods failed to compete with other religions? Christianity spread throughout the Roman empire within decades of Jesus's death and resurrection, to the extent that the Romans started to get anxious and violent about it.

Jesus was about an approach to life, love others, treat them well, help them. It was not about a system of judging people according to how deeply they profess belief. Christianity is just a religion, and it works like other religions. It teaches belief in the name of Jesus, and belief in the scriptures. The scriptures are not there so that people will believe them. They are stories that you might find can help you see something about how to live. It doesn't matter if you believe them. God is not going to judge you by whether you have the proper system of beliefs.

Jesus was about an approach to life, love others, treat them well, help them.

Jesus did not come to earth simply to tell us to love each other. Such a message would have been redundant, since God had repeatedly told his people in the Law of Moses to "love your neighbor", in so many words. In fact, Jesus went out of his way to emphasize that his teaching was the exact same as the Torah. But Jesus did not come primarily to teach, even by example. He understood that the people's problem was not that they didn't know how to love others, but that they didn't have the power to do so. Instead of simply telling them for the 100th time to "love their neighbor", Jesus came to do something about the root of the problem.

Jesus saw his execution and resurrection as central to his mission. He predicted his death several times, calling it necessary and moving towards it of his own free will. When his death finally came, Jesus was not executed for reminding people of what they already knew; he was executed for blasphemy. He was executed because he claimed to be God, and claimed to offer direct access to God through himself (thus circumventing the power of the religious authorities, and upsetting them). That's why he told his followers that they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. That's why, whenever someone came to him for healing, he praised them for their faith in him. Nothing excited Jesus like faith, and nothing disappointed him like a lack of faith. Jesus wanted people to trust him, to follow him to his death and resurrection, and to gain access to God through him. Only then would they be able to love others.

So no, Jesus's message was not primarily "love others" but rather "I am God; have faith in me, ingest me, come to the Father through me, die with me, rise with me! Only then will you have the power to love as I love." Jim, Jesus was the polar opposite of a humanist because he knew that humans could do nothing on their own.

I agree that God does not judge by belief, if belief simply means intellectual assent. But God does judge us by our faith, because trusting in him is a prerequisite for loving him, and for truly loving others as well.

Bill, that sounds overly complicated. Jesus was born when he was born because that was when he was born. He was born where he was born by the luck of the draw. He dealt with the people of the area where he lived, who are much like the people of the world today. Americans might be a little different because we might be more like the people of Rome. Jesus' life was recorded in many gospels that were written in the several decades after he died. They were selected and rejected and collected by the church over the course of a few centuries. The story evolved along with the church, and in fact a primary purpose of the story was to meet the needs of the church. Don't try to read more into this than is actually there.

On the contrary, when you take the gospels and strip away everything that contradicts your preconceived notions about Jesus, you're not talking about Jesus anymore, but rather a figment of your own imagination. You're not looking at what is actually there; you're looking at what you want to be there. And you don't want to find a dying and rising God who will change your life; you want to find an ordinary guy who preached exactly what you already believe.

A point of fact: you claim that there were many gospels written in the decades after Jesus's death and that some were selected and others rejected from the final canon. This is misleading. The only gospels that scholars and historians have reliably dated to the 1st century AD are the four canonical gospels. Other gospels like the those of Thomas, Mary, Judas, Philip, Truth, etc. were written no earlier than the 3rd century, 200 years or more after the events they describe. Many gospels do not even claim to be eyewitness accounts of Jesus's teaching and ministry. These two criteria: early authorship and Apostolic (eyewitness) authority, single out Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the only trustworthy sources on Jesus. They were not simply selected because they happened to support some theological agenda of the church.

A more interesting question is: why was there even a church in the first place? The century before and after Jesus was rife with charismatic individuals who opposed the political order and attracted groups of followers. These failed Messiahs would be imprisoned or executed, and their movement would fizzle out as their followers dispersed and fled, for fear of a similar fate. The same thing should have happened to Jesus's followers. He opposed the authorities and hinted at his Messianic identity, attracting large crowds of followers. Then he was executed, and his Messianic movement should have fizzled out like all the others. In fact, in the days after Jesus's death, the gospels report that his disciples were in hiding, probably out of fear of being similarly executed.

However, history (even secular sources) tells us that these same disciples went on to spread the message of their failed Messiah throughout Palestine and the larger Roman world. Especially interesting is that they established a vibrant church in Jerusalem by preaching boldly in the backyard of the same authorities they had earlier feared. Indeed, all the disciples except John paid for their boldness with martyrdom. Against all odds of history, the cult of yet another failed Messiah exploded into a major religion overnight (Nero was persecuting Christians on the other side of the known world just 30 years later). In the disciples' own explanation, this phenomenon was entirely the result of Jesus appearing to them - in bodily form: eating, talking, walking, and touching his wounds - 3 days after his execution.

Other interesting facts of history: i)in the Jewish authorities' polemical attacks on early Christians, the emptiness of Jesus's tomb and the disappearance of his body are taken for granted. ii) Saul, the zealous persecutor of early Christians, became Paul, the Apostle of Christ, after claiming to have seen and talked with the resurrected Jesus. iii) James, the begrudging brother of Jesus who wanted nothing to do with Jesus's ministry, became one of the leaders of the Jerusalem church after claiming to have seen his brother risen from the dead, in the flesh.

Whether you believe in the resurrection or not (and if not, I challenge you to offer a consistent explanation of all of the above), Jesus was anything but ordinary in the effect he had on people, and his mission cannot be understood in ordinary terms, as you would like. His life doesn't fit into an overly simplistic paradigm; he shatters everybody's ideas about who he should be. For my own part, he has surprised me many times over.

I would be suspect of accounts of Jesus' appearances after he was dead. About 100 years ago, I don't remember exactly when, there was a large number of people in France giving first person accounts of seeing the Virgin Mary on the sun, and some risked going blind watching her. I think if you were to study that case, and the Jesus case, you woud find stronger first person evidence of the Mary case.

In today's world of internet communications and scientific advances, I don't think you can convince the non-believers that faith in the name of Jesus is the path to life after death. Can you convince those who have even more faith than you and believe even stronger than you do that their social conservative issues have turned to disaster in the 21st century and made a mockery of their God and their Jesus?

I think religion in today's world is in a state of change, partly because of the power of the internet. Perhaps these discussions can help lead us to a better place.

Even if one completely rejects the supernatural, it is still very interesting that a man who was nailed to a board with a sarcastic placard above his head, who never apparently held a sword or even rode a horse, now commands the faith of so many millions.

Follow the money. It is not Jesus who profits from all this faith.

It's ok to be skeptical of the accounts; you don't have to believe them, but you do have to explain them. The explanation implied by your comparison to the French Virgin-in-the-Sun is that the overwhelming desire of Jesus's followers caused them to hallucinate his resurrection. But the disciples didn't say "If you stand in this spot and look waaaaay off into the distance and kinda squint, you can see Jesus! He's alive!" They claimed that he actually talked to them, stood among him, let them touch his hands and side, etc. Go ask a psychiatrist about hallucinations. He/she will tell you that mass hallucinations are not a documented psychological phenomenon, and that hallucinations only appeal to one of the five senses. That people could convince each other to mistake a sunspot for the Virgin Mary is believable, but for the disciples to experience a mass hallucination appealing to three of the five senses at once (sight, sound, and touch), it would have to be considered a miracle, on the same level of plausibility as the resurrection itself but with less evidence behind it.

What about the empty tomb? Maybe the disciples stole the body and lied about the resurrection. But would all 11 of them (not to mention hundreds of others who claimed to see Jesus resurrected) suffer imprisonment, beatings, and often painful deaths, with no tangible benefit, for a deliberate lie that they knew to be false? Why would Saul/Paul and James suddenly believe their lies/hallucinations?

I agree that the church and the social conservative movement have some things to answer for, especially to the extent that they/we have tarnished the reputations of God and Jesus. Some of them exchanged faith in God for faith in the political process. Faith is only as strong as its object, so while it may appear that their faith is strong, it is actually weak. I pray that the church will throw off this folly.

You have said before that you can judge a religion by whether or not it accepts and deals with the facts of science. You criticize Christians who take a cavalier and dismissive attitude towards the findings of evolutionary science. I'm asking you to be consistent: deal honestly with the facts of history. Give a serious, critical look at the historical reality surrounding Jesus's death and his followers' subsequent actions, and find a theory that explains all the evidence.

It is not really evidence from a modern scientific viewpoint. It is how it was recorded in later decades by people who wanted to believe. To me the Mary in the sun deal is not interesting from a mass hallucination point of view. It is interesting because these people wanted to believe in their religion. If there was anything miraculous going on, they wanted to be a part of it.

We are misunderstanding each other. You wrote "It is how it was recorded in later decades by people who wanted to believe." What you are thinking of as "evidence" is "the descriptions of events recorded in the gospels". No. I'm not asking you to accept the written testimony of the Apostles, and I'm not asking you to agree with what they believed. The "evidence" I would like to admit to the discussion is the following: i) the fact that the early followers of Jesus claimed they saw him resurrected and ii) the fact that the strength of their belief caused them to do and endure extraordinary things. The existence of this belief seems like an undeniable historical reality, whether the belief itself is true or not... can we agree on this? Various historians of the period record the zealous faith of the early Christians, as well as the fact that they claimed something highly unusual about their leader's death. From there, I ask you the question "where did such a belief come from?".

This evidence is in exactly the same category as the evidence of the fossil record, or of DNA sequences that have been conserved from one organism to the next. They all represent data of history (whether human history or natural history) preserved in a corruptible medium (whether rock, chromosome, recopied text, or oral tradition). You can test the data to see how corrupted they have become and throw them away if they are faulty, but if the data are reliable, you have to explain them. If I said to you "certain organisms are so complex that they must have been intelligently designed", you would rightly accuse me of not dealing with the evidence of paleontology and genetics. But you're doing the same thing when you imply that the disciples' belief in the resurrection is simply wishful thinking run amok: your theory does not explain the evidence of history.

Your comparison between the early followers of Jesus and the Mary-in-the-sun people does not hold up. You wrote "It is interesting because these people wanted to believe in their religion." This is true of the sun-watchers, for they claimed to see something that confirmed the faith they already had in Mary. Their vision required no change in their religion, and probably little change in their lifestyle. A few people risked blindness... so what? It didn't require them to leave their families, suffer persecution, and die horrible deaths. It is easy to conclude that the vision was a figment of wishful thinking because to believe in it cost them nothing. By contrast, the belief in Jesus's resurrection put his followers in direct conflict with their religion (Judaism) and its authorities. Therefore, they were not predisposed by their religion to this particular belief. Furthermore, this belief and its consequences frequently exposed them to ostracism, persecution, and death. Therefore, it is not logical to conclude that belief in the resurrection resulted from some vague desire to be a part of something miraculous. This desire might explain why they joined Jesus's messianic movement while he was alive, but not why they continued it after he was dead. Like ID, it is not a rigorous, intellectually satisfying answer to the question.

It is the record as recorded decades after the fact. The texts from that period are being studied by various researchers who come to different conclusions, and a primary factor in determining what people see when they study that time period is whether or not they believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, and totally true.

"It is the record as recorded decades after the fact." You're still talking about the wrong thing. The interpretation of the facts of history was recorded decades after the fact and is subject to debate. The facts themselves are not.

Even the most critical, secular, unbelieving scholars recognize the extraordinary change in the disciples' attitude from fear to boldness after Jesus's death. These scholars have trouble explaining it, but they recognize the change in attitude as a fact.

These same critical, unbelieving scholars also study the polemical exchanges between the early Christians and Jews, and conclude that the Jewish authorities had no clue what happened to Jesus's body. Scholars offer many interpretations of this fact, but they all acknowledge the fact that the Jewish authorities could not produce a dead body to dispel the rising Christian movement.

These same scholars all admit that Saul/Paul became an important leader in the early church but started out hostile to Jesus's followers.

Scholars accept all these facts, regardless of whether they believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God or not. However, they all come up with different interpretations of these facts, based partly on the assumptions they bring to the table. Some assume that God exists and that the Bible is his Word; they cannot deny the resurrection because doing so would mean denying their worldview. The accepted facts listed above just happen to fit with their worldview. Others assume, a priori, that nature and human history form an unbroken chain of cause-and effect that simply cannot be altered by God or anyone else; these people cannot accept the resurrection, for doing so would violate their worldview. The above facts just happen to clash with their worldview.

The challenge is to come at the issue without assuming either the existence of God or the inviolability of cause-and-effect, look at the facts, and decide on an explanation. What is your own interpretation? You can side with those who say the resurrection was a mass hallucination, or those who say the disciples stole the body and lied about it, or those who say Jesus only fainted on the cross, or those who say that the resurrection was a legend that developed gradually over time, or those who say Jesus had an identical twin, or those who say Jesus was an alien, or those who say he rose from the dead and visited his disciples. But whichever one you choose, you have to show that it explains all the facts.

Don't just pawn it off on the diversity of opinions in the scholarly community. If such a controversy existed in the scientific community over evolution, would that stop you from digging through the evidence and forming an opinion on the matter?

I have a hard time accepting these things as the facts themselves. This is my problem in real life, not here on RD. Everyone in my family accepts these things as facts. Other people I know accept them or some don't care about them. If you accept the Bible as the word of God, then it is the proof of all these things. If you don't, then the record of these things are not facts, just the story that has evolved. If you don't and you care, then there is a great divide that opens up between you and those who want to believe, and those who want to believe have the support and power of the group.

I've also felt the dark side of Christianity. I meant that 'it's no use arguing with them' because at the end of it they will just believe they 'are being persecuted for righteousness sake'. We have to watch that we don't show the same kind of intolerance towards them as we decry is their problem, or we are a part of the problem!

Also, Baptist's among all the Christian sects tend to be the most dogmatic.

Religious institutions continue to exist because they are filling a void of some kind. Religion provides stability for many people who would otherwise flouder. For some it is their life-line. If you take it away, you must replace it with something better.

Duck, good points. I think you are right, we need to avoid intolerance towards intolerance. It can be hard, and if we are not good at that it still might be important to be critical. Religion fills a void, but that doesn't mean it is better than nothing. Sometimes religion under attack just wants some respect, but is the religion based on disrespect of the other? Perhaps the lifeline needs to be taken away merely with faith that someday someone else will find a way to replace it with something better.

Let's be clear about why Haitian religion has been associated with devil worship in American popular culture for 200+ years: because it is African. It is tragic that this continues today.

I can recommend two books about Haitian culture and religion "Mama Lola" and "Avengers of the New World: the story of the Haitian Revolution". I am sure there are more.

I think ridicule might be in order, since the media eats up these kinds of crazy statements. My comment on how his God might be French:
http://www.dogcanyon.org

Dutty Boukmon was a Jamaican former slave and voodoo priest in Haiti often credited with sparking the Haitian revolution there with a prayer. Pat Robertson has wrongly referenced it as a pack with the devil, it clearly was not. Given it's historical context, it is a prayer I would say even today. The prayer as attributed is below.

The Prayer of Dutty Boukmon

"The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light.The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our God who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man's god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, He orders us to revenge our wrongs. It's He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It's He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men's god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that sings in all our hearts."

Pat shows a racial bias in his historical twisting of such a prayer as a devil pact, and his teaching may have been very old school but indeed to the anti-colonialist theologian with some historical-critical knowledge, this is a very fine prayer indeed.

A Scholar at the University of London has written how Yoruba beliefs influenced Dutty Boukmon and the Haitian Revolution it is available online, let me sincerely apologize if my use of the commonly known word vooddo offended anyone, as that most certainly was not my intent, the translator of this prayer into English had used that term, and perhaps I have an old outdated text, but I retain the translators punctuation of the prayer and some language from the preface. Dutty Boukmon was of the Yoruba, although he has spent some time in Jamaica, it apparently was his African religious tradition so clearly expressed in his pray, that inspired a nation. It still inspires me. I am indebted to this article "Historicizing African Contributions to the Emancipation Movement: The Haitian
Revolution, 1791-1805," by
Olukoya Ogen, PhD, Leventis Fellow, Centre of African Studies, SOAS, University of London for further enlightening me to the fuller context of the prayer within Yoruba traditions. Thank you.

Pat Robertson is truly an agent of the devil, and yesterday he spoke their idea of truth. Now you have to understand that which to the devil and his minions as TRUTH, is in reality ALWAYS distorted and convoluted, simply because the ESSENCE of the devil is CONFUSION. Robertson's public declaration about the enslaved people of the French colony of Haiti "making a pact with the devil in exchange for their freedom" is expressing an "official" American sentiment dating back to the days following the original successful Haitian revolution which resulted in the expulsion of the French from their own colony and freedom for the African slaves.

The key to this 218 year attitude of white American hatred towards Haiti lies in the fact that in 1791 America's economic engine rested completely on the backs of black African slave labor. Prior to the Haitian revolt white American slave holders trembled at every whispered account of a brutal slave uprising in Jamaica or some other colony whether it was true or not. So in the post Civil War era, the United States began a lasting policy of sending the Marines into occupy Haiti on one bogus triumphed up excuse after another. These occupational periods were long and drawn out and effectively crippled and emasculated the possibility of any stable self governing environment to be maintained in Haiti. Eventually the Marines would withdraw leaving and unstable fractious situation in the country, which after a decade or so would collapse again into disorder and anarchy, requiring the marines to be dispatched into Haiti yet again.

Frederick Douglass served as American Ambassador to Haiti in the post Civil War era from 1889 to 1891 and resigned over sharp disagreements with President Benjamin Harrison over American interference and meddling in Haiti. Douglass gave a speech at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893, wherein he chronicled the activities of certain American citizens in Haiti actively sowing seeds of distrust and discord between the native Haitian residents for the main purpose of profiting the Americans.

This low tech form of espionage against Haiti by the United States over the centuries has left the once resource rich Haitian colony a barren dysfunctional nation. In many locations throughout Haiti people have been reduced to eating actual mud pies (pies made out of mud) in order to diminish the pains of starvation for them and their children, and this widespread practice was before the Tuesday's horrific earthquake.

A curious similarity exists between the black Haitians and the American Indian tribes which fought against white settlement of their western homelands. The attitude of the white American government has been one of exacting revenge through the implementation of unrelenting punishment achieved through a deliberate process of controlled and enforced benign neglect. For both the Haitians and the American Indians forced deprivation is the instrument and the policy and the administration thereof has passed silently from all epochs of subsequent American history with its pernicious intent undiminished and intact despite the passage of such a long interval of time.

I also wish to make something thoroughly clear. I am not inferring that there is some actual dark secret agency in the halls American government that has been planning and carrying on this form of low key genocide against the Haitian and Indian peoples over the centuries. However, the pernicious nature of racism is such that it can become so acceptable among the controlling population that it actually becomes ingrained in the warp and woof of the social fabric. Therefore, the perpetuation of racialism becomes the normal anticipated expected and hence desired form of "proper" behavior in white American society.

It is not the plan, just a lot of individuals all doing their part to make sure they profit. I think your point is becoming clearer because now it is not just racism against black Haitians and the American Indian tribes, but increasingly the rich class against all others. In the future the rich will have to expand that pool of the underclass if they want to continue to prosper at their desired level. Early in his presidency, Bush said his base is composed of the haves and the have mores. It was funny at the time.

Hello? Pat Robertson, please. ...Yeah, hi Pat. You know that Scripture that says "Judge not, or you too will be judged"? ...Um, yes, that IS in the Bible - Matthew 7:1. ...What?? Yes, Jesus DID say that. And yes, it DOES apply even to egotistical, holier-than-thou bigots such as yourself. Kthxbai.

What if tomorrow, a category 3 hurricane bears down upon Virginia Beach and flattens CBN? And what if some non-Christian religous leader says it was because of America's sin of Christian imperialism? How would you feel?

Now think what the victims in Haiti feel after you opened your big mouth!