New predictions by Pat Robertson are out! Shockingly, I find once again that Ohio is not destined to be hit by a hurricane (though if it is, I take full responsibility). Doesn’t God get sick of sending water-based storms to areas near water? You’re getting predicable! If you insist on plaguing the coasts, why not mix it up a bit and drop manna or toads or the like instead?
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In honor of the occasion, I decided to review the highlights of Robertson’s conversations with God from last January and consider how they played out during 2005:
“Well, the Lord has some very encouraging news for George Bush ... What I heard is that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff. ... He'll have Social Security reform passed. He'll have tax reform passed.”
First of all, his second term is going to be one of triumph? By the poll numbers, this is yet another indication of God’s trouble with integers, as noted earlier in this blog. Second, Bush’s Social Security reform passed? Right. Sure. Uh huh.
“… his spirit is going to be touching the hearts of many in the Muslim world and they will be turning to the gospel, to Jesus Christ. I think many of them already are, but this is going to be an acceleration that will really amaze the world. ...”
One Afghani man who was reputed to be a bit less than mentally stable doesn’t count. I’m still waiting to be amazed (this is often something I’m waiting for).
“'I [God] will remove judges from the Supreme Court quickly and their successors will refuse to sanction the attacks on religious faith.'"
Yes, Bush has now had the chance to choose two justices. O’Connor could have been described as liberal, though she was appointed to the supreme court by a conservative president. One point for God/Robertson with the trade of O’Connor for Alito. However, Rehnquist could have hardly been one of the oh-so-liberal judges that Pat Robertson asked his followers to pray for the removal of. Did God misaim his smiting?
Overall, I am afraid that I must give God/Robertson a rather poor grade in the prediction department. Perhaps they just should stick to the far less disprovable game of explaining the cause of things that have already occurred… or possibly just harassing Chavez some more. (See this article for all above quotes.)
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According to Robertson, natural disasters are often sent by God as punishment for various sins, generally committed by feminists, liberals, atheists, homosexuals, etc. However, after careful statistical analysis by the authors of the article I’ve quoted below, it appears God does not indeed hate homosexuals. If we go with Robertson's "correlation equals causation" hypothesis, God possibly hates “Baptists” and “Others”. But still not homosexuals.
“Before Pat and his Christian cronies get too carried away promulgating the idea that natural disasters are prompted by people who displease God, they should take a hard look at the data. Take tornadoes. Every state (except Alaska) has them--some only one or two a year, dozens in others. Gay people are in every state (even Alaska). According to Pat's hypothesis, there should be more gay people in states that have more tornadoes. But are there? Nope. In fact, there's no correlation at all between the number of gay folks (as estimated by the number of gay political organizations, support groups, bookstores, radio programs, and circuit parties) and the annual tornado count (r = .04, p = .78 for you statisticians). So much for the "God hates gays" theory."
“God seems almost neutral on the subject of sexual orientation. I say "almost" because if we look at the density of gay groups relative to the population as a whole, there is a small but statistically significant (p < .05) correlation with the occurrence of tornadoes. And it's a negative correlation (r = -.28). For those of you who haven't used statistics since 1973, that means that a high concentration of gay organizations actually protects against tornadoes. A state with the population of, say, Alabama could avert two tornadoes a year merely by doubling the number of gay organizations in the state. (Tough choice for Alabama's civil defense strategists.)”
“Although God may not care about sexual orientation, the same cannot be said for religious affiliation. If the underlying tenet of Pat's postulate is true--that God wipes out offensive folks via natural disasters--then perhaps we can find some evidence of who's on God's hit list. Jews are off the hook here: there's no correlation between numbers of Jews and frequency of tornadoes. Ditto for Catholics. But when it comes to Protestants, there's a highly significant correlation of .71. This means that fully half the state-to-state variation in tornado frequency can be accounted for by the presence of Protestants. And the chance that this association is merely coincidental is only one in 10,000.”
“Protestants, of course, come in many flavors--we were able to find statistics for Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and Other. Lutherans don't seem to be a problem--no correlation with tornadoes. There's a modest correlation (r = .52, p = .0001) between Methodists and tornadoes. But Baptists and Others share the prize: both groups show a definite correlation with tornado frequency (r = .68, p = .0001). This means that Texas could cut its average of 139 tornadoes per year in half by sending a few hundred thousand Baptists elsewhere (Alaska maybe?). “
All of this is quoted from Do Unnatural Acts Cause Natural Disasters? Go read the rest. It’s funny.
