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(Help Haitian quake victims here.)
There are those people who run up against facts they don't like and questions they can't answer and seal those things off in their minds with yellow police-type tape that reads "God did it, move along." They put that tape around questions like, 'where did these weird fossils come from' and 'why is there inequality in the world,' and they just don't think about them.
I don't have anything against believing in a god, or the supernatural, I'd still consider myself to fall into that category. But if there is a deity, I doubt such a being is served by having their followers cripple their minds on purpose. If we weren't meant to use our brains to figure sh*t out, why give us such outlandishly big ones with so much problem-solving capacity? Which brings me to Pat Robertson.
Despite there being very straightforward reasons for the tragedy in Haiti, such as plate tectonics and poor infrastructure and deforestation, Pat Robertson had to come up with the objectively pro-slavery, racist explanation that God did it to punish Haitians for a pact with the Devil.
Others have covered in great detail how vicious, evil and historically inaccurate a thing this was to say, or how it was a deeply un-Christian pander to an audience who wants to believe that the magic of the faith you're selling will turn away all suffering. Though I'd like to stick with how stupid it was.
Pat Robertson doesn't approve of turning to science, or government, or regulations like building codes as a way to solve human problems and decrease the pain of our existence. He has one answer to everything: pray and then send him money. This makes stupid godsdamn nonsense come out of his bigoted, ignorant mouth, because it's just not true that this is the right answer to every question, and the untruth makes people morons:
... Racism, bigotry and xenophobia are immoral, of course, but they are also, just as fundamentally, untrue. They are unreal. They provide a theory and a framework for living in the world that cannot be reconciled with the reality of this world. The person who chooses to accept that unreal framework is thus constantly forced to choose between unreality and reality, between the theory and the facts. To hold onto the unreal framework, they must continuously reject reality. And every time they do that, they get a little bit dumber. ...
Anyway, when I was a child I spent most Sunday mornings getting up early, putting on uncomfortable clothes and passing a few hours with people who didn't like to read, but would if God said they had to. Now I can spend Sundays resting and contemplating stuff.
What I would like to contemplate today is whether there are places in my mind walled off with yellow tape that are making me dumber, because a person is never entirely out of danger of becoming Pat Robertson stupid. In fact, the more you forget that danger, the closer it seems to get. So there.
(Help Haitian quake victims here.)
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