Saturday, January 23 at 8 PM

Why so many people wish to worship a vengeful, mean-spirited God remains a mystery to me.

According to Reverend Pat Robertson, the earthquake in Haiti has not to do with the fact that the country lies on a huge fault line which scientists predicted was due for a major shift any time now, but rather, all to do with God punishing the Haitian's because they made a pact with the devil back in 1791 when Voodoo rituals were carried out before a slave rebellion against the French.

The day after the earthquake left Haiti obliterated - on his daily televised The 700 Club - Robertson observed that "Haitians long ago pledged to serve the devil if he would help them win their independence from France, and the devil said, "It's a deal." Robertson went on to explain, "Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other." The kind-hearted televangelist went on to explain that the Earthquake might be a "blessing in disguise" which might provide the catalyst for Haitians to get right with God.

Who in their right minds would want to get right with a god who would kill innocent people by the tens of thousands for the sins allegedly committed by their ancestors some 300 years prior.

(A guess: the same people who would worship a god that sent a flood to wipe out all of mankind, save one family on a magical ark.)

Of course that Haitian-hating god doesn't exist except in the sick, twisted minds of self righteous Christians like Robertson, whom, you may recall, did not allow that the flooding of New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina had anything to do with faulty levees, but rather that his famously vengeful god was teaching the good folks of New Orleans a lesson - that because of the city's drink-and-be-merry debauchery and something called Mardi Gras and their acceptance of homosexuality - Robertson's my-way-or-the-highway god destroyed the homes of the poorest in that city, and killed innocent children in order to warn them that they needed to abandon their evil ways. The poor and disentranced of the city were, indeed, turned away; not from evil ways about which they likely had very little say, but rather from the only homes they had ever known, and most ended up scattered across the country, while the city went right on being evil.

The only thing evil in these scenarios is Robertson and his ilk.

And it's no surprise that self righteous Kathy Lee Gifford of the Later Today Show felt the need to explain to her nationwide TV audience that while Pat Robertson may have spoken before he thought - "He's a good friend of mine, and I can assure you he has a good heart."

A good heart!  

Really?

How about a black heart?  A vicious heart, or at least a defective heart.

To make such comments at the time of such human tragedy...to do so at the very moment people in this country were (and still are) waiting to see if their family members are alive or dead, shows no evidence of a good heart what so ever. It shows evidence of a self-serving heart. A heart devoid of compassion. A heart not based in reality. A heart lost in a totally f'ed up religious zeal that is anything but the heart of what a true Christian is purported to embody. A heart that bares no relation what so ever to that of the very man/god Robertson insists he worships and follows as that entity is described in the Bible.

Thank god that unlike during Katrina when the Bush administration remained silent concerning Robertson's patently hurtful and heinous remarks concerning the victims of Katrina - or rather the victims of his god's wrath - we now have an administration which wasted no time responding to Robertson's equally ill-timed comments concerning the current devastation in Haiti.

Within hours of Robertson's airing his uniquely Christian take on the plight of the Haitian situation, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said of Robertson's remarks, "It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that can be so utterly stupid."

I applaud and appreciate Mr. Gibbs' remarks, but if Robertson's remarks were simply born out of stupidity alone, as Gibbs suggests, that would be one thing. If his remarks were simply a case of not thinking before speaking, as Gifford suggests, that would be a similar thing. But neither of those things hits the nail on the head. The fact of the matter is that Robertson knows precisely what he is saying when he says these "things," and he does so for effect. His remarks are a scare tactic, and nothing more. His remarks are a means by which to keep the sheep who watch the programming put forth by, and who donate to, his ministry, to believe that God will hurt you if you don't do right by Him, and doing right by God includes sending money to Pat Robertson as a down payment on your ticket into heaven. The subliminal message in what others like Kathy Lee wish to so casually pass off as an unthinking remark is that if you don't live in fear and worship of Robertson's god, then God will hurt you. And if you don't send money to Robertson so he can carry out God's work, you will likely loose favor with God, and then, well...just look at what He did to the Haitians...God help you!

Thus, I respectfully disagree with Kathy Lee Gifford that Pat Robertson has a "good heart."

I think Pat Robertson is a money-loving, egomaniacal, self-righteous, black-hearted, evil bastard without whom the world will be a far better place once the asshole dies and goes to that hell of which he is so fond of warning us.

Oh - and by the way - over on The New Jim Bakker Show (or as I like to call it - The Christian Home Shopping Club - THAT equally good hearted televangelist is really showing his compassion for the victims of Haiti. For everyone who buys $150 worth of product from Bakker, he'll send a little plastic sports bottle with a filter in it to Haiti in your name.

Now there's real Christianity in action for you!

Call me crazy, but what about this radical anti-Christian idea:

If you have a hundred and fifty dollars to spend buying stuff from Jim Bakker, why not send that hundred and fifty dollars to a charity directly involved in aiding the Haitians instead of to Jim Bakker who is going to send one little bottle that probably costs a buck fifty to make?

Oh silly me, if you send you money directly to organizations directly involved in aiding the Haitians, then poor Jim Bakker doesn't get to profit from their tragedy, and that's just not the tele-evangelical Christian way of doing things.

Oral Roberts just died.

One down and all the remaining televangelists to go.

As each of these self-serving Christian f*ckwads (you know who you are Jerry Falwell, Jon Hagee, Benny Hinn, Richard Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, etc) dies, our chances of becoming a people and a society that may one day truly exemplify the teachings of Christ -- be they mythical or not -- greatly increase.

I conclude this rant with my long-held assertion that the biggest obstacle to Christianity is Christians.

Especially self-proclaimed Christian leaders.