Hey, whaddya know? Pat Robertson says we can ignore the Bible, and that humanity’s morality has evolved beyond it!
When he says so, anyway.
From Right Wing Watch:
When asked on the 700 Club today why some believe “America was founded as a Christian nation” even though it allowed slavery, Robertson said, “like it or not, if you read the Bible in the Old Testament, slavery was permitted.” But Robertson concluded that despite what the Bible says, “We have moved in our conception of the value of human beings until we realized slavery was terribly wrong.”
I assume Pat Robertson will now be taking back everything he’s said about homosexuality, women, the coming Armageddon, and whether Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for America’s abortion policy. He will soon be openly rejecting the very notion that morality should be based on an internally inconsistent, wildly inaccurate text written thousands of years ago, and will be embracing a humanist philosophy of basing morality on what most helps people and supports a flourishing society for all.
#holdingmybreath
Pat Robertson is 82 yrs old. He’s had a long time to think and to develop his moral compass. There is a slight but distinct possibility that he is simply a slow thinker and is only now coming to the awareness that human civilization has developed past the Old Testament.
I mean, I don’t know if, at this rate, he has enough time to actually manage any other pearls of wisdom but I, for one, applaud his recognition of (1) the evils of slavery and (2) the Bible’s short-comings on this subject.
Slavery was permitted in the New Testament, too, but he seems to be ignoring that. Whatever, it’s not like it’ll change anything. Isolated statements by Robertson that aren’t wholly terrible and inhuman are generally forgotten the next day. They don’t give his viewers the opportunity to feel morally superior to anybody.
So, Patty has essentially said that his god was WRONG. How entertaining. I wonder how his cultists will spin this.
Wow, God’s “absolute standard of morality” hard at work!
My first thought was that since he is supporting an untenable position, he will have to back-track a little when he is backed into a corner. Then I thought about William Lane Craig and his take on genocide. Nowadays everyone knows that genocide is an unspeakable moral evil but if God orders it, well then it’s ok ’cause well, he must have had his reasons.
I’ve been talking to people a lot about this kind of thing. If the bible says that slavery is okay, how is it that you are certain that it is not? Because you are applying your own sense of morality. That morality in *not* bible-based because it conflicts with the bible. And yet, it is *more* moral than the biblical position. So you don’t need the bible or religion or religious belief to be moral. In fact, many people are *less* moral due to their reliance on the authority of the bible, such as with parents justifying physical punishment of children with “spare the rod spoil the child”. Many people want to move away from corporal punishment but are shouted down by others who insist that beating your child is actually *proof* that you love him… The simple truth is that many Christians are more moral than the god they serve, but they are oblivious to it.
Perhaps Pat is aware that there are donations/love offerings/etc. to be had from descendants of slaves, and that he needs to butter up that demographic to make up for declines in the youth demographic…..
This has huge implications, but doesn’t tell an atheist anything she didn’t already know. The Bible is full of archaic rules that have no bearing on life today. Both the Old and New Testaments have this issue. They are steeped in slavery, misogyny, homophobia, murder, the list goes on and on. We have been told that the Bible is either written by, or divinely inspired by, God. Biblical literalists correctly point out that rejection of any part of the Bible (something they do all of the time, of course) is a rejection of faith itself and renders the religion false. God can’t be wrong, therefore we can’t disagree with him.
I say correctly above because they are correct that if the Bible is wrong their religion falls apart. Which it has. Pat Robertson realizes, like most humans, that the Bible is filled with proclamations that modern, moral people would call evil. But he doesn’t take the further steps. At the very least, he should realize that his opposition to homosexuality is similarly flawed and incorrect. A best case scenario would be him realizing that a flawed source cannot provide accurate information and cannot be trusted. This may be too far of a leap for him, though.
The question is raised: from where does Pat Robertson get his morality?
@ One Thousand Needles, #9:
Pshaw, he’s clearly one of those amoral moral relativists…
The irony is that those most guilty of moral relativism are those most vocal against it. You cannot take a biblically inerrant position without indulging in relativistic morals. Yes i know that is a contradiction but it is a reality, If you don’t want to accept a whole host of morally unacceptable positions, Christians know this, they just don’t acknowledge it.
The sad part is that it is absorbed by the majority by the tradition of a leader, that the pastor understands my beliefs better than I do, he wouldn’t say it was right if it didn’t match up with that inerrant bible. It’s sad that Protestants who started as those who felt they should interpret for themselves seems most inclined to let someone else do it for them.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Being a televangelist has made Robertson a very wealthy man. As a result, his morality is colored green and lives in a bank.
Slavery was okay in the Old Testament, but we hold human beings in higher value than that. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.
Wow, did he just concede the morality issue?!?!
He’s still alive?
Apparently the Bible is right except when it is wrong. This means one of the following:
1.) God didn’t write it.
2.) God’s an asshole.
3.) God is testing our faith by writing a holy book full of bullshit that justifies all manner of atrocity in order to give us free will and develop the sort of morals we would have developed without the Bible anyway.
Given the things that Pat Robertson has had to say about descendants of slaves in the past, I doubt he’s getting any donations from them anytime soon.
@RobCurry:
No, at least not what I would call “alive”. What you see is only the natural twitching and grunting of a corpse as the rigor mortis and body rot sets in.
What can I say. I small step away from the craziness. Hopefully it might be the first of many.
Sensemaker