Do you think Pat Robertson really knows who will win the US election? Who?

"He told me some things about the election, but I'm not going to say, because some old man on "60 Minutes" would make fun of me, so I'm not going to tell you who the winner's going to be."

huh? anyone else confused?

Yeah, photo.

Care to elaborate, sabrown100?

Pat Robertson claims that God told him who will win the US presidential election - but he won't tell anyone who it is.

He sounds just like the guy who said that God told him to make instruments used for punishing children.

You know, here's the thing about Pat Robertson. So many critics of Christianity like to point at him and say "See? See? He's what's wrong with Christianity. He's why organized religion stinks. See?" But I don't buy into that line at thinking at all. There's one fatal flaw with that attack in my mind.

I don't believe Robertson is even really a Christian. He strikes me as the classic false prophet. One who sees there's obscene amounts of money in making people think he shares his religious beliefs and spouting them for his own gain. I think the fundamentalists who look up to him are sincere but to Pat they are just useful idiots. His base of operations is just the other side of town from me over by Indian River. So stories of his dealings are in the paper on a regular basis. He's had so many shady deals the last several years he strikes me more as Michael Milkin crossed with David Koresh than any credible voice for the religious community.

Seems to me the easy solution to this would be for Pat to write the name on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, slap the appropriate security seals on it so no one can tamper with it, and then give it to the accountants at Price Waterhouse or whoever keeps the Oscar envelopes safe, and then open it the day after the election.

Considering that both party's nominations are essentially a toss-up at this point, if he got it right it'd either be one hell of a guess or maybe an indication that he does have a private line to Himself.

Actually, anyone with more than three brain cells would make fun of him. What a doddering old fool; he'd be entertaining if he weren't hateful, and if people didn't listen to him.

You know, that's another thing I don't really believe about Pat Robertson. The breed of religion he cashes in on may be hateful. I can certainly understand that feeling. But as I said, I think his religiosity is all an act. He's a con man plain and simple. Any hateful statement he makes is just to appeal to the fools whose money he is trying to separate from them. I sincerely doubt there's any more hate in his heart than in this drinking glass sitting on my computer desk at the moment.

Some televangelists may not believe the tripe that they spout, but Robertson is not one of those. He's actually opened up a fundamentalist Christian university, partly with his money, to create automatons that believe the same things he preaches, with the express intent of changing the world with this army of young adults. If it were just money he were after, he wouldn't have done that. A university is not a for-profit organization, though mine is doing a really good impression of one.

He also ran for president in 1988 (but got beaten in the Republican primary), which proves that he actually does have an interest in changing social policies. I don't think he was running for the money, since campaigns are so expensive and I think he must have known he didn't have a shot.

Pat Robertson is special. And by special, I mean insane. This is the same idiot who said the 9-11 attacks was god punishing us for our evil ways... or was that Jerry Falwell? anyway, they both spew(ed) the same propaganda and right wing oral diarrhea.

In short, Robertson is just as likely to know who will win the election as anyone else.

I think that was Jerry Falwell, who said it was the fault of feminists and secular humanists and the ACLU and gay people and probably others; I can't remember. As a feminist and a secular humanist, I found this pretty funny.

You think I'm unaware of this? Remember where I am. I'm in Virginia Beach just the other side of town from Regent. I've seen and heard reports on Pat the rest of the country may not have gotten. We share all the latest Pat news with my sister's branch of the family in Maine and they've gotten very little if any of it.

And I'm well aware of 88 Presidential campiagn. I was in a private Christian school and was still in enough of a fog to actually support the notion then. I'm embarrassed to admit I actually tried to get my parents to put one of his campiagn stickers on the car. Think they were for Dukakis though. There is a long Democrat tradition in my family. I'm far from a babe in the woods where Robertson is concerned. But that doesn't mean I believe he believes a word. He's just a con man who hopes if he does enough he can be our equivalent of the Pope. It's the status and riches he craves. Anything else is a blind.

Why do you think this? How does he act any differently than a sincere man would act? If he only wants money, why did he open a university? And why does he want to affect public policy? Overturning Roe v. Wade and outlawing gay marriage would not make Pat Robertson any richer. Assassinating Hugo Chavez would not make him any more powerful. If he wants to have power, why doesn't he say things that are politically palatable? A real political opportunist doesn't repeatedly make remarks that cause the world to write him off as unstable.

There are many elements that lead me to this perspective. It's the arrogance of pronouncements like the one that sparked this thread. It's his manner when he's on TV. His speech pattern always appears to be under tight control. Like he's trying to balance talking smoothly with self-editing on the fly. You mention the Chavez thing? But when it's a useful African dictator like Charles Taylor, he brings the man into town and gives him the royal treatment. Squiring him about town like a prom date and using his connections to get Taylor speaking engagements at like-minded places like The Rock Church. It's just dictators who don't meet his needs like Chavez he has issue with. He speaks of salvation and prayer and such while he's hawking hand creams from the Holy Land and using men like Taylor to get diamond mines.

You ask about Regent. No mystery there to me. He needs foot soldiers to keep his shady dealings away from the nation at large. What better way to get them than to open a college and train them himself? Then unleash them on the local community to become our law and opinion makers so he can control what gets out of Virginia Beach about him. Did you know his current project is trying to buy the communications company that owns The Virginian Pilot? The local paper of record. The story is he wants to buy the Pilot to provide internships for his minions. I'll just bet he does. What better way to control what's known about his various scams than controlling a key media outlet like the Pilot?

He wants to be our pope. He wants to run our nanny state so he can wield wealth, power and influence men don't usually know. He wants to be able to dictate to us the way friends like Taylor do to their people. Look at how Dark Age and medieval popes ruled. I think that's where he got the idea. He saw how they used religion to justify their heavy-handed authoritarianism and the idea appealed to him. After all, who would oppose him if he did it for their own spiritual good?

...and on we go to The Debate Room *pushes buttons*

Um. There's no way to prove or disprove this... so why are we debating it...? Maybe he heard from God, maybe he's lying to try and get support in illicit ways, or maybe he's just nuts. But since we can't determine either way what's going to happen, I vote that we wait until after the election, ok?

:locked