Pat Robertson, how I loathe him

In his neverending quest to keep God, his own countenance, and idiocy on the front pages, Pat Robertson weighed in with this gem of pastorly wisdom: "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city." Oh, and it goes on: "God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever," Mr Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."

I suppose the burden is now on me to come up with some pithy, yet politically relevant response to this, but you know what? Fuck that. The man is a grasping, shameless, nutjob. A dumbass of the highest order, the Reverend Dumbass, if you will. I grew up right in the buckle of the bible belt, and to those folks for whom wacky, smiling, genteel religious freaks are just the stuff of molasses-paced southern fiction -- funny, like Raising Arizona -- please take a moment to count your lucky, lucky stars. For a staggering number of people, this man's words carry very real weight. I wish I could dissect this a bit, but frankly I've spent too much of my life trying to figure out the allure, swinging from blind anger to casual dismissal and back again, never coming any closer to some sort of comfortable understanding. The old people, that I get. The sick people, alright, fear of death or pain can take anyone to some very scary places, the 700 Club among them. But there are millions of healthy, thinking people in the world who not only craft reality to "prove" the existence of an interventionist god, but see this man (who like Jim Bakker before him, actually makes Jerry Falwell look like a statesman) as the interpreter and, if you listen to him carefully, often the determiner, of that intervention. That so few of his "parishioners" see this as contradicting...ummmm...the bible is worth pointing out, but only just. This selective blindness is so pervasive, cemented so deeply into the increasingly fundamentalist world of suburban and exurban Christianity, that it feels somewhat silly to even mention it anymore.

SO people of Dover, Cease your Trembling! Rejoice! For upon you has fallen the wrath of one lonely, pathetic man from Virginia Beach, VA and his legions of followers. But as for disaster striking, and your dear community being forsaken by God, well, keep investing in holy public health and anointed emergency services and you'll be worlds ahead of most of the communities in Robertson's godfearing South.