Pat Robertson: Sikh Temple Massacre Happened Because ‘Atheists Hate God’

Wow.  Just wow.  

You can’t hate something that doesn’t exist.

In what god do sikhs believe? I don’t think its the abarahamic one so Pat Robertson might be an atheist of that god. Is he angry about the sikh god?

In Robertson’s case, he simultaneously disbelieves in and hates logic.

Robertson son needs to be reminded, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

”
and they take it out on innocent people who are worshiping God.”
I find that very ironic since he probably believes those people went to hell for worshiping the wrong god.

Newsflash Pat:  Many white supremacists are Christians.

The Religious Right Bigot world is like a game of chess. There are black pieces and white pieces, black squares and white squares. There are no pieces of various shades of gray, nor are their squares of various shades of gray. Also, the game has only one sort of outcome: one side wins, and one side loses.

And woe betide anyone who tries to put a rainbow-coloured piece on the board.

I guess our practice of slaughtering and eating cows shows that we hate the Hindu gods. 

Hmm.. I dunno. I think Pat Roberson DOES hate logic. Actively.

You’d think he’d wait until more was known about the gunman before he selected which cliche’ to trot out.

I’m waiting to hear what that Islamaphobic Michelle Bachmann has to say.  I’m sure she doesn’t have an ounce of guilt about the shooting. 

Wait… you mean the gays aren’t responsible?

Which would reveal how poorly informed she is. Sikhism has diddlysquat to do with Islam.

It’s amazing, isn’t it?  Now that he’s blaming atheists, he can conveniently align himself with the other religions against us.  But he’ll drop the alignment when he needs to make a point against them.

 Yes, and I really think he chose to call the Sikh temple a “house of worship” so he could purposely confuse his viewers into thinking they are some kind of Christians. 

 I can’t help but think it’s more awkward when many news outlets are reporting this shooting as if it were a case of mistaken identity and perhaps it is, but that’s not the point. I thought this embarrassment was cleared up yesterday, but I just heard that “now, more than ever,” it’s important to know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims. Why? For humanity’s sake, I agree, it’s nice to not be so fucking ignorant, but if you meant to shoot up a mosque instead of a sikh temple, I think you have other problems and the priority is not shoot either of them or anyone else, not before you know the difference and not after.

Euphemistically speaking?

I suspect the reason for this shooting was hatred of Islam.  And this guy were really an atheist, he’d have known the difference between Sikhs and Moslems. 

Anything to keep the base riled up. Jesus will forgive them.

What time? Whatever time this guy needed it to be to prove his point.

Figure out the time he made the statement and there’s your answer. 

 http://www.theonion.com/articles/michele-bachmann-thankful-no-americans-died-in-sik,29071/

 “Pat Robertson: Sikh Temple Massacre Happened Because ‘Atheists Hate God’”

Pat Robertson: Suck My Dick.

He’ll never die. You need a heart for that to happen.

“And atheists don’t hate god …”

That doesn’t make any sense to me.

Did you mean:
(a) “And atheists don’t hate God …”
or
(b) “And atheists don’t hate any gods …”

I’m assuming you mean (a).

” Just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean you hate it.”

True, but why so defensive?  The God as described in the Bible is a character worth hating, particularly given the PR campaign people are waging for him.

Some atheists say you can’t hate what doesn’t exist, conveniently forgetting that God does exist, as both a character in a widely-circulated book, and as a concept in people’s minds, and in both contexts God is assumed to have free will (informed by omniscience and enabled by omnipotence) and is said to have massacred nearly all life on the planet at least once.  He has a number of negative personality traits in addition.  Hate is well within the range of reasonable responses to such a character.

also a brain

More likely it happened because creating an environment of “religious tolerance”  created an environment of  “religious legitimacy” for hundreds of flavors of religion. 

It is unfair this avenue for social treason was not clearly and fully excluded when the 1st Amendment was drafted. It is time to correct that flaw left by our founding fathers and end constraints imposed by myth and superstition.

 No… the gays are only responsible for natural disasters, like earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes.  Don’t you get the 700 Club Newsletter???

I can’t think of a person I’d want to suck my dick less than Pat Robertson.

Like chess, but without the logic…

[grammar police mode]
… except that it probably should be “any more”. “Atheists don’t hate god anymore” reads like atheists used to hate god, but don’t anymore.
 

I’m going to throw a party when that sick old man dies. Not because he’s dead but because the world will be just a little bit better without him.

It’s like with homosexuality — the big Chick Fil A thing going on where people say Chick Fil A HATES gays when they just don’t believe in it. They don’t believe (based on their interpretation of the Bible or whatever) that homosexual acts are okay but I don’t see how on earth that automatically translates into HATING someone. I hate smoking but I don’t hate smokERS. I would love to stop people from smoking due to my views but that doesn’t mean I am doing it out of wanting to hurt smokers. I think the religious folks perceive being gay as a threat to them. Gotta look at it logically, not emotionally. 

 So wait, Christians in general are responsible for when a Christian says or does something stupid? So atheists are somehow responsible when one of their kind does or says something stupid and they have to intervene somehow? How does that make sense?

Gay people exist – and some people actively want them to have no rights or pay money to an organization which harms them or kills them. That is HATE.

God doesn’t exist, not something you can look at or show me. Your analogy is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time. That you think this is an adequate rationalization for Pat Robertson’s assertions and people supporting Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A while you’re at it is AMAZINGLY, STUPENDOUSLY dumb dumb dumb! Can you read what you wrote and believe it?

 
“His evidence is that his brain thought it up and his mouth said it.  That’s all the evidence he has ever needed for his BS.”

That is a great explanation for a lot of BS in the world, actually. It goes beyond borders and beliefs. There’s always someone who thinks something up and then insists it’s real because their brain told them so.

 So atheists hate CHRISTIANS, not “God.”
I don’t believe that it is impossible to hate something that doesn’t exist. See my examples above. It is entirely possible because humans have the capacity for thought and imagination. It begs the question, “What is real? What is reality?” If God is something you can not see and therefore is not real, then anything we can’t see is not real. If God is something you can not touch and therefore is not real, then anything we can’t touch is not real. Are feelings real? Are memories real? Are thoughts themselves real? We can not prove it, we have to take it at its word. God as some kind of entity may be real, or just the idea of God may be real. God as a deity is up to those who decide it to be so — the concept of deity is a human idea. “It” has not confirmed or rejected the human labels or ideas — does that mean “It” doesn’t exist or that it could exist but not in a way we understand? When Christians say atheists “hate God” they mean it as THEY see God. It is almost apples and oranges. because a Christian sees an apple and an atheist sees an orange doesn’t mean that one can not hate an apple (or an orange.) It’s a mind game, it’s perception only. You can hate things that don’t exist but once thought of, the thing has been made into *something.* Cogito ergo sum. (That is my interpretation and belief, btw. Your mileage may vary.)

When an atheist says something stupid, you’ll generally see a huge critical outcry on the blogosphere. Xtians criticising their own? Not so much.
Point in case- the Elevatorgate kerfluffle inspired alot of misogynist commentary, and you’ll still see criticism of the more egregiously ignorant positions now, how many months later?

There’s a small population of Asatru white supremacists, mostly in prison. Certainly less than 1% I’d say.

Are you kidding?!  Bachmann has produced no credible evidence whatsoever that the Muslim Brotherhood, much less Abedin’s family, are involved in any sort of anti-American plot.  The Muslim Brotherhood has never attacked the US, and hell, they even released a statement that Bachmann’s accusations are flat-out nuts.  And anyone who wouldn’t think the aides of the Secretary of State aren’t vetted prior to being appointed is an idiot.

It’s not a “reasonable question” when the question is being asked soley because of someone’s religion and ethnicity.

He’d be too feeble to pull it off, so it’s an empty insult.

Other than the possibility of getting pulled over, those obstacles exist for people doing the speed limit too. Speeding is reckless, irresponsible and sometimes costly, but it does typically get you where you’re going faster.

Really? Everyone dies??  You don’t say.  I think the comment was intended to be funny.  I thought so.

Isn’t it time Pat Robertson joined his maker?  I mean really—he is such a waste of space.  Since he ( I expect) knows his god personally, he really wouldn’t be dead, just changing from this earthly form to what I guess he thinks would be better.  Be gone, thou useless being.   You do NOT represent any Christian I have met recently.  

Are all Christians “responsible” for what Robertson said? No. Not directly. And I never said they were. I thought I was clear as to what I actually was saying, but since you’ve found some other meaning in my words, I see the need to spell it out more clearly and more simply:

Robertson would not have said such a thing at all, if he did not think a lot of other Christians would agree with him (and thus send in donations). He would previously not have blamed the Haiti earthquake on a curse on that country. He would not have said any of the numerous outrageous things he’s said in the past. And why? He would have had no reason to do so; other Christians would not have supported him, afterward.

As for what Christians ought to do about the guy, given his continual habit of outrageous comments of this kind … I can tell you that, if I were myself a Christian, I’d long ago have tired of hearing a putative spokesman for my religion saying such things all the time. They may not have directly caused him to say these things, but their inaction in the wake of his by-now-well-known habit of saying them, speaks volumes.

If you want to excuse yourself of the duty of dealing with a supposed spokesman for your religion, that’s your choice. But you made it. And you must therefore accept the consequences and ramifications of that choice. Look, I get that Christians want to just walk away from the guy and act as if he doesn’t exist. But that’s not rational. He does exist, he does (claim to) speak for their religion, so that means Christians must deal with it.

Re: “Unfortunately, Pat Robertson’s flavor is often what non-Christians and even casual Christians think of because right-wing fundamentalists have largely co-opted the term.”

Robertson and his ilk can have successfully co-opted the term “Christian,” only if other Christians consented to them doing so.

Re: “There are many Christians who abhor Robertson, Phelps and their ilk and speak out vociferously against their rantings, but this never seems to get covered by the media so you don’t hear about it.”

I would think that, after decades of hearing his spew, those Christians whom you claim “speak out vociferously against [his] rantings,” would by now have managed the feat of finally shutting him up. That he’s still on the air and still reeling out his bilious remarks, means you just have more work to do.

As I said before, and as I will continue to repeat: It’s your religion. If you don’t respect it enough to police it and put the brakes on miscreants within it, then you can’t reasonably expect outside observers such as myself to respect it … or respect you for believing in it.

Robertson is your problem. Not mine. You can choose either to solve that problem, or you can do nothing and allow it to fester.