Now that 2014 is coming to an end, it’s time to take a quick look back to see how many predictions made by the right wing’s most infamous false prophet, Pat Robertson, actually came true.
Every year about this time, right wing nut job Pat Robertson (host of the 700 Club) goes up into the mountains alone, supposedly to communicate with God. And every year, after he comes down from the mountain, Robertson goes on live television to tell his viewers what God supposedly told him is going to happen in the year to come.
And every year, rain or shine or sleet or snow, Robertson’s ‘prophetic visions’ fail to come true.
Here’s a video of Robertson, making his predictions for 2014, courtesy of Right Wing Watch Blog:
Watching Robertson make his 2014 predictions was a lot like watching a ‘psychic mind-reader’ hard at work scamming an audience out of their wallets and wristwatches. Much of what he ‘predicted’ last year was so generic that it can’t be debunked or called out.
In case you couldn’t stomach watching the video, before Robertson started telling us what God supposedly told him that he was going to do in 2014, he says “Check it out when the year’s over, was I right or was I wrong?”
OK.
1. The world is going to be chaos.
As generic as this ‘prophecy’ was, it can still be debunked simply by asking whether 2014 was characterized by extreme chaos, or chaos that was somehow different from the chaos of most years?
While 2014 brought some challenges and crisis, compared to say, 2008, the year the US economy went into free fall, creating a global financial crisis, there was relatively little chaos.
I love how he mentions that ‘this year we’re not going to have a unified world,’ as if that’s something we do have every other year.
2. ‘There’s going to be some kind of credit crisis, and I think China is going to lead the way.’
That did not happen.
Rather than going up to a mountain to commune with God, Robertson more than likely consulted some economic forecasts, like this one from Bloomberg.
3. ‘The Iranians will have a nuclear device before the end of the year.’
No, this did not happen.
4. ‘Republicans will win control of the Congress, but they will not have a veto proof majority.’
Wow, he got one right. So did every other media outlet in America. Maybe they all have a direct line to God?
5. The president is going to be discredited and withdraw to Hawaii.
Believe it or not, the president’s approval did not plummet this year, in spite of constant media reporting that it did.
As reported by Addicting Info’s Wendy Gittleson in November:
‘According to the cumulative ratings posted daily at Real Clear Politics, which averages together an array of national polls to come up with Obama’s composite job approval rating, the president’s approval on January 1, 2014 stood at 42.6 percent. The president’s approval rating on October 30, was 42 percent. So over the course of ten months, and based on more than one hundred poll results in 2014, Obama’s approval rating declined less than one point.’
And that part about Obama withdrawing to Hawaii? The president has done anything but withdraw. Here are seven things he’s accomplished since the 2014 midterm election, as reported by Addicting Info’s Ryan Densen in December.
Far from going into retreat, President Obama has taken the offensive. He’s more than ready to go head to head with republicans, come what may.
Robertson and his right wing followers may be wishing that Obama would just go away, but that hasn’t happened and it is clearly not going to happen.
6. ‘It’ll be the greatest year in the history of the church.’
Robertson goes on about how ordinary people are going to work miracles and there will be healings and ‘it will be unbelievable, all around the world.’ He adds that “Islam is going to be in retreat.”
Again, Robertson’s prediction turned out pure falsehood. Membership in both the protestant and Catholic churches continued to shrink to new lows in 2014, while Islam remains the fastest growing religion, in terms of new converts, in the world.
Robertson’s 2014 prophecy fails were bad, but not as bad as previous years. In 2007, for example, he predicted a massive terrorist attack on the US that would decimate cities and kill millions. While he claimed that a major economic crash was going to happen in 2012, (didn’t happen) he also completely failed to predict the major economic crash that did happen under conservative idol, George W. Bush.
In 2006 Robertson predicted that hurricanes would ravage the coasts of the United States. Exactly zero hurricanes touched the coasts of the nation that year. The same year he also predicted that the Iraq war would come to a successful conclusion, and troops would leave the country by the end of 2007.
Then there was the time God told him to run for president. The time God told him that Jay Rockefeller was going to be elected president. The time when he claimed God told him Russia was going to invade the Middle East to seize their oil. And the time he predicted that World War III would start in the coming year (1981).
What Pat Robertson does is despicable. He’s nothing but a lying shyster, delivering right wing talking points to a vulnerable population of older viewers, which he then claims are ‘God’s word.’
Deuteronomy 18:20 says:
“But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.”
How many times do Robertson’s false prophecies need to fail, before people wise up and figure out this guy is not communicating with or for God, just a bunch of right wing con-artists like himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment