http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2010/s10010104.htm

How is this historical fact? No one is really sure what happened at Bwa Kayiman. That book that the French doctor Antoine Dalmas wrote about it doesn’t mention it happening over there. Plus, in voodoo culture, they have their own set of gods, they don’t have the devil like they do in Christianity.

To Nick Brown:

Robertson is being “strung up” (o, the imagery!) for taking Haitian historical folklore and religious practices as something they’re not. An individual with Dr. Robertson’s background and education should have known better, and certainly should have exercised far better judgment (especially since he still hasn’t made right about his comments about the 9/11 attacks) when commenting upon this tragedy.

To wf922:

I’d hesitate to say any commentary here, particularly against Dr. Robertson’s comments, demonstrates a “hate for anything religious”. A distaste for the grotesque ignorance and arrogance of those comments, yes, but nothing really about religion in general.

To Tommy De Seno:

In future, please undertake a bit of historical and anthropological research before writing on cultures other than your own. I guarantee it’ll cut down on the number of factual errors, as well as save you a few tons of embarrassment when they’re pointed out to you. Just a bit of friendly advice.

B) Worth remembering i’d think, that Pat Robertson isn’t a journalist, or a reporter…so long as we’re oh so very concerned about ‘facts’. Robertson is a very successful entreprenuer with a diverse global empire, who long ago gave up the meager in comparison income stream from his televangalizing, being obviously more profitable to go hollywood than to sit around and count his viewers $10 ‘donations’. Plus retiring his Minister to the GOP title, also allowed him to peddle diet drinks and partner up with Warlords with a future in the Hague as side gigs. So he’s neither a journalist, nor an evangalist anymore according to tax codes anyway, he only plays both on the 700 Club.

C) But since he likes to fashion himself a journalist with a view, also worth remembering his track record of “reporting” on past tragedies of world wide interest: 9/11? “ACLU,Pagens,Abortionists,Feminists….and of course Gays, ‘helped cause it to happen’ Katrina? Punishment for Roe v. Wade of course…and he also offered the helpful antedote, that the then nominee Judge Roberts, should be thankful that the tragedy of Katrina, “has brought him some good”. If you need a map to follow that one, apparently..according to Robertson, this “fact”…that Katrina was God’s punishment for Roe v. Wade, was obviously (duh!!!!!) going to help Roberts sail thru his Senate confirmation hearings. I know.

D) The fact that he flunked out of horse trading school…should be all the evidence one needs to conclude the man is more full of crap than his tired nag’s stall was. The good horsemen of Kentucky smelled that guy coming before his jet touched down on the Bluegrass. Fools don’t last long in the backside of the track, but clearly they can have a very long fruitful and overly justified existence in the right wing.

Firstly, for someone claiming to have the historical high ground, this guy certainly is overlooking quite a few historical facts. Boukman was NOT the leader of the Haitian Revolution and his actions did not lead, directly, to Haitian independence. His slave revolt is regarded as one of the proximate causes of the Haitian Revolution; however, his own revolt was crushed and he was killed, which one would never know given the language used in this piece.

Secondly, the rebelion that ultimately succeeeded in overthrowing the French was led by François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, a devout Catholic, like most Haitians, rather than an adherent of voodoo.

Finally, like this piece, Robertson’s historical interpretaion is clearly one shaped by what he might want to believe rather than one based purely on the facts of the matter. I’m sure he does not want what happened to Haiti, but in searching for an explantation he has ignorantly latched onto a story that has often been taken wrongly based on a superficial understanding of Haitian history.

Appealing to Robertson’s god did the Haitians no good. If he exists at all then he opposed them gaining their freedom, so I guess the Haitians had little choice but to shop around for a better deal.

Robertson is only an apologist for a wicked make-believe god who is good for little else but making TV-preachers filthy rich.

So, the “pact” was a historical event that actually occurred, right? Do you have the Great Satan’s signature on some document somewhere? Were his lawyers and legal representatives present at this “pact” or did he agree to it in absentia? Furthermore, to what extent did the pact led by some voodoo priest legally or metaphysically bind the thousands and thousands of Christian slaves and their descendants who did not participate in it?

And let’s say that Pat Robertson was indeed only “reporting” on a historical fact (which would be remarkable for a man who is neither a reporter nor a journalist). What is the logical conclusion when a man of God, in making his first public comment on a horrendous disaster, says to his vast television audience that the country where people are suffering and are in need of help was complicit in a pact with the devil? If I held Pat Robertson in any regard, I’d say to myself “Well, then those Haitians really had it coming!” Pat Robertson doesn’t need to say that explicitly, we just have to follow his logic. Which is why a Dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has come out against these comments by Pat Robertson, along with pastors and priests from a variety of backgrounds.

The media (and most compassionate Christians) are appalled by what Pat Robertson said because if you lead people think that the victims are at fault for their own suffering, then you let otherwise generous people off the hook to care and contribute to the relief efforts. You give them a pass on helping the devastated population of Haiti because it is their own devil-pact-making fault that their island is cursed.

When Jesus’ disciples found a blind man and asked “Master, who sinned, this man or his parents?,” they were operating under the same assumption that Pat Robertson does: if something bad has happened, it must be because of sins, committed either by the present generation or the past generation. Jesus’ answer, as always, transcended this mode of thought. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He is blind that the works of God may be made manifest in him.”

Followers of Jesus believe that modern disasters and maladies occur to demonstrate God’s love and compassion through the relief and aid we can bring to those who suffer. This trope about the “Haitian pact with the devil” badly detracts from the more important and saliently Christian issue, namely bringing aid and relief to the suffering. Spending time debating whose sin caused what curse is about as useless a line of reasoning as you can get.