From the department of hyperbolic and nonsensical rhetoric: Pat Robertson on the 700 Club said that those who are criticizing Rick Santorum for saying that Satan is attacking America are going to turn the country into a “secular atheistic dictatorship.”
Feb 26 2012
Robertson: America’s ‘Secular Atheistic Dictatorship’
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ambassadorfromverdammt
February 26, 2012 at 9:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He says that as if its a bad thing.
Chiroptera
February 26, 2012 at 9:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, I have to admit:
when the Christian Right, in its role as “useful idiots,” help the pro-national security conservatives (who now seem to be Democrat as much as Republican) to finally establish the great American dictatorship, I hope the judiciary does retain enough power to at least keep it secular.
Michael Heath
February 26, 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not informed on the degree to which various groups believe in Satan. I was hoping that people believed in Satan to the degree Catholic women follow the edict to not practice birth control. The best I could come up with was a dated 2003 Gallup poll, which showed that Americans predominately believe in Satan. That includes 67% of Democrats and 52% of liberals. Add in the ‘not sures’ and it’s downright depressing.
Perhaps I didn’t sufficiently do my research, but I couldn’t find a poll which trends belief in Satan over time nor could I find a more recent survey. Pew Research Center doesn’t track this.
Phillip IV
February 26, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Of course he doesn’t mention “Satan” at all, which was the part of Santorum’s comments that caused all of those unbelieving stares. Instead, Robertson uses the classic evasive defense – reframe a negative reaction to specific faith statements as an attack on faith in general, and then defend faith in general, rather than the specific statement.
Naturally, that defense of faith in general is to be understood to leave out all non-Christian faiths and the more liberal 60% of Christian denominations.
And then he rounds it out with the “two-dominoes theory”, the dummy version of the domino theory that got America stuck in Vietnam: Once you “take God out of the public sphere” (whatever that specifically means – Bam! next moment: a dictatorship. Couldn’t go any other way.
D. C. Sessions
February 26, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Man, they are really welded to their persecution narrative aren’t they?
davidct
February 26, 2012 at 9:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t know about dictatorship but a secular atheistic country sounds great to me. I remember when Robertson was running for President. Once again he would fit right in.
dingojack
February 26, 2012 at 10:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
American lagely believe in Satan do they?
Source
Dingo
raven
February 26, 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael H., probably the latest poll is the Barna poll. Barna is an evangelical polling organization.
According to Barna it is roughly half that believe in satan for xians. 24% of the US population isn’t even xian.
A lot of xians think satan is a metaphor or symbol not a real life guy walking around.
Speaking of walking around. Some xians retconned satan to the talking snake in Genesis. Which doesn’t really work because genesis says it was just a snake in several places.
So god took the snakes legs away as revenge. However whenever you see pictues of satan, he looks like a person with horns, and a tail and all. And legs. Really, another example of incoherent xian beliefs that don’t make any sense.
demonhauntedworld
February 26, 2012 at 11:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Clearly we need to come up with a conservative meme generator where you pick a word from Column A:
-Muslim
-liberal
-socialist
-secular
-communist
and a word from Column B:
-atheistic
-Nazi
-fascist
-greenie
-dictatorship
and then go back to Column A for good measure.
peterh
February 26, 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Better that than anything Robertson might dream up.
raven
February 26, 2012 at 11:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pat Robertson has said a lot of crazy things over the years.
He once called the mainline Protestants agents of the Antichrist.
He was also once a faith healer and predicted the Happy Second Genocide when jesus shows up. Wrongly of course. If fundies would ever follow their magic book and stoned false prophets to death, Robertson would have disappeared under a pile of rocks long ago.
'Tis Himself, OM
February 26, 2012 at 12:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pat Robertson has become a parody of himself.
lordshipmayhem
February 26, 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Of course Satan is real. He plays hockey for HC Slovan Bratislava in Slovakia – used to play in the NHL. He has a lovely wife and two cute kids.
AFAIK, he isn’t interested in taking over the United States and installing any sort of dictatorship.
Phillip IV
February 26, 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lordshipmayhem @ #13:
Are you sure? I thought Mr. Satan was running a dojo and taking part in martial arts competitions.
dingojack
February 26, 2012 at 12:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought he lved at the north pole, and gave gifts to kiddies on Jesus’ Birthday and… Oh wait.
:) Dingo
——–
Thanks Ed.
'Tis Himself, OM
February 26, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You’re thinking of the Tooth Bunny or the Easter Fairy or someone like that with some heavy duty, industrial strength, weapons grade mojo. Or possibly not.
raven
February 26, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
xpost Pharyngula. OT but just barely. Right off my morning news feed. Pat Robertson has said the exact same thing in the exact same words.
His made up Catholicism isn’t recognizable to most Catholics. It is a mixture of ancient Dark Age Catholicism crossed with modern backwoods fundie Xianity with some rage and a lot of hate thrown in.
Fundie xians are pretty stupid. A recent news article found that many of them don’t realize he is actually a Catholic, a Fake Xian to many of them. Because mostly he is channeling fundie-ism.
marcus
February 26, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Awww Patty haz him a S.A.D.!
daved
February 26, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
— “Verbal” Kint in The Usual Suspects
raven
February 26, 2012 at 2:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“The greatest trick the priests ever pulled was convincing people an Invisible Sky Fairy known as god existed.”
Chiroptera
February 26, 2012 at 2:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
raven, #20:
It’s sky-cake!
Michael Heath
February 26, 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
raven writes:
Perhaps, but it’s recognizable to the Catholics at Fox News* who dominate their programing. And while the Bishops argue for some policy prescriptions contra Santorum’s own position, they do so weakly and don’t advocate voting for those politicians who support the contra positions. Instead those same Bishops use abortion and gay marriage as the litmus voting test, which keeps Santorum in the sweet spot with the Catholic hierarchy, including Pope Benedict.
Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Brett Baier, Brian Kilmeade, Neil Cavuto, and I’m sure many more who don’t have their own Wikipedia page.
democommie
February 27, 2012 at 6:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Great, Andy Rooney dies and the only curmudgeonly commentator we’re left with is the Ayatollah Robberscum.
He’s JUST LIKE Rooney, except for the his lack of wit, charm, intellect and sanity.
orlando engagement ring
April 11, 2012 at 12:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
orlando engagement ring…
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