...at least according to Pat Robertson. In what is claimed to have been a divine revelation, God has allegedly told Mr. Robertson of impending disaster in the USA in 2007. As per a report: Religious Broadcaster Pat Robertson Predicts Horrific Terrorist Attack on U.S. in 2007 at FoxNew.com @ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240841,00.html, Mr. Robertson reportedly claimed that God told him there would be a terrorist attack in 2007 that would "result in "mass killing" late in 2007". Apparently God also told Mr. Robertson that "major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack". Of course he does not divulge the type of attack, such as will it be nuclear, biological, chemical or conventional; you would think God would have told him that important little bit of information so we could prepare; but I guess not.
The Fox article goes onto give Mr. Robertson’s track record, I believe only in part, as to his past predictions of, relative to when the predictions were made, future world events. For example they say that in 2004 he predicted that George W. Bush would "easily" defeat Kerry in the elections. Bush won a close one as I recall, but he did win. The thing is that I predicted that one myself, so did lots of other people, and I did it to the best of my knowledge without divine intervention. Heck I had a 50/50 chance, actually even better than that since Kerry was such a loser even before the elections.
The article also points out that Robertson predicted, in 2005, that George W. Bush would appoint conservative judges to the courts. Wow, was that really a prediction for which God had to waste his precious time in divulging the info. I mean, doesn't Pat Robertson think that God has a better way of spending his time than divulging such absolute no brainers to him. Then again, maybe that was not a divine revelation, maybe that was just a prediction that Pat Robertson made on his own. In which case, I would ask: doesn't Pat Robertson have a better way to spend his time than to predict absolute no brainers?
Mr. Robertson is quoted, in essence, as telling us that sometimes he misses in his predictions but has a good track record nonetheless. This comes right after the article tells us that Mr. Robertson got it wrong on a prediction about Social Security, him saying the president's version would be voted in, yet it was defeated. The article ends up telling us that Robertson also predicted storms, maybe a Tsunami would hit the U.S. coast in 2006. No Tsunami, but we did have storms on both coasts as I recall, even heavy ones. We also probably had storms even in Hawaii. Can you imagine that, storms hit our coastlines, and this was a prediction made by Mr. Robertson, this time again based upon divine revelation. It is mind boggling (at least to me) that God is telling things like this to Mr. Robertson isn't it? I mean aren't there many more important things that God should be telling him to tell us.
Now I will not suggest anything about the nature of these alleged revelations to Mr. Robertson, nor will I suggest anything about Mr. Robertson's character. I will let you decide on those things for yourselves. Yet, I will ask that if you wanted to build a track record on predictions, in order to suck in a lot more people and make them believe that God really communicates with you on a regular basis, for whatever ultimate goal, what would you do? Would you make a large number of predictions that were virtually sure things, like about an upcoming election result which the polls indicated, as I recall, would be won by the guy he predicted would win? Or more certain still would you predict that a conservative president would nominate/appoint conservative federal judges? Or maybe you would predict, with even more certainty still, that storms would hit our coastlines? Note that when predictions were made on things less certain like the outcome of the vote on Social Security, and about a Tsunami hitting our coastline, the predictions were wrong, about the only uncertain one was the election result for the presidency, and there was a 50/50chance there - either George W. Bush or someone else.
How does Mr. Robertson get over those seeming inaccuracies in his predictions? He basically says he has a good track record anyway! Well, wait a minute, what is he implying, if anything? The implication I see, or at least the conclusion at which I could arrive is that either: God is fallible, or that maybe God is giving incorrect information to Mr. Robertson (as in lying), or that Mr. Robertson is mistaken in his understanding of God’s word, or that Mr. Robertson is just plain full of himself!
You know, the prediction about the terrorist attacks in 2007 may come true. Then I suppose Mr. Robertson will inflate his chest, and say something like: 'You see, God told me so. God talks to me. I am special.’ Then the money probably will roll into his coffers more and faster than before. The thing is though that many have been predicting such a terrorist attack in the near future, many saying it will come this year - even me. A big terrorist attack may or may not come this year. Chances are, if the terrorists remain in business, and we remain their enemies, then yes another attack will come sooner or later. It will probably be horrific. It will probably affect many, many people. It has all been predicted by others, based upon less than divine revelation - just read the news each day, or look at reports from government agencies, and see what experts in the field have to say, and then listen to the terrorists themselves - their short term goal is a big attack.
No, predicting such does not require divine revelation, not for me, not for you, and not for Mr. Robertson. One has to wonder why God is using his divine time making predictions about things that we already expect to happen. I guess it is God's secret, just a divine mystery of faith, or at least a secret of Mr. Robertson's.
All the best,
Glenn B
