Televangelist, fraud, and all around POS Pat Robertson blames the earthquake in Haiti on a deal made with the devil to secure the success of the slave revolt 1791.

Feel free to pile on this nitwit.

I just don't have the energy…I get so frustrated by this type of blame for natural disasters, famine, illness – whatever. Can't it be that sometimes bad things just happen?

that terrible day when caitie was diagnosed her dad spelled me for a bit while i went to the smoking area to have a couple ciggies and try to remember how to breathe. all sorts of people were there, of course, and i was asked why i was. this one woman looked at me and said very matter of factly: 'well, you know she was never yours to begin with. she belongs to god and if he wants to he will take her back at any time.'

another woman who became a close friend while her daughter was dying told me later that i just looked at this person for the longest time as if i didn't speak english. then i stood up, lit another cigarette and told her 'i carried her, she grew inside me. she's effing mine. god can want her, but he can't effing have her. he can piss off.' and walked away. i really don't remember my reply. i was amazed that anyone would think her statement comforting to a mom who learned her 14 yr old had cancer. again not a hint of compassion. but my vulgarity shocked her, so i guess we were even… /mellow.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':mellow:' />

Invoking the name of God in the midst of grief. Why do people feel that will be of comfort when it is along the lines of "what God gives, God takes away?" You can't force that on someone who is in pain. It may or may not be a conclusion they arrive at on their own some day – but sheesh. I have to tell you – replies like that woman made are what has caused me to wander pretty far afield of God in spite of an upbringing of faith. If there is a God, I don't believe that She is the one without compassion. I believe the people are.

Today's blog:

God's Will?

by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor

Paranormal Underground Magazine

Blame the victim. We see it time and time again. Just yesterday, Pat Robertson blamed the Haitians for the recent earthquake that has killed nearly 100,000 people.

According to Robertson, Haiti made a “deal with the devil” in order to gain independence from France. That’s why the island nation is repeatedly slammed with natural disasters and enveloped in overwhelming poverty according to Robertson. That’s right. It’s their fault. God got them. Good for God.

Sounds like Robertson’s God is a downright vengeful dirt bag who is utterly lacking in compassion.

Comments like Robertson’s during times of tragedy always leave me with my jaw hanging open.

During times of tragedy, times of pain, times of deep personal grief, usually hearing, “It’s God’s will” or one of the zillions of variations of this statement is not a comfort. As a matter of fact, statements like that to a grieving person are downright insensitive. Whether it is hearing, “God killed your puppy,” “God made your team lose,” or “God just opened a can of whoop **** on your nation,” surely those statements can’t be helpful or comforting in moments of pain. Can they????

Even if there is a greater purpose and plan in everything that happens, certainly in the moments of deepest pain those who are grieving will receive little comfort from having God’s plan shoved down their throats. They may (or they may not) arrive at the belief that it was part of a greater plan on their own. But in the midst of their grief I do not believe it is anyone’s place to point that out.

When I was 16, one of my best friends was mowed down by a drunk driver on the first night of spring break. He was on the side of the road changing a tire. As a group of his friends, we were raw and we were grieving. Thank goodness we had Marti.

“God wanted Dan,” she told us with a perky (and some might say smugly superior) smile on her face. “He just became a Christian, so God took him.”

That statement felt like a gut punch, pure and simple. Well – and an untruth. I knew Dan pretty well, and he grew up Catholic. There was no “just became a Christian.” Whatever faith he had was private. There was no way that twit, Marti, would know.

What it felt like to us – his friends – was that Marti grabbed Dan’s death (a deeply personal tragedy to us) and tried to use it to support her own personal Christian agenda. This was when I first turned away from the church, which I felt had no answers. Notice I said I turned away from the church. Not God. At times in my life I have been a believer, and at other times an agnostic. Now my faith doesn’t quite fit in with any organized religion out there. But this isn’t about my faith – or lack thereof. This is about how faith is sometimes used.

In a very short period of time following Dan’s death, there were two other deaths of kids our age. It was like repeated gut blows. And each time, Marti and friends would come forward with some stunning statement similar to the one they’d made about Dan.

Does God really wield an axe that He uses at His will whenever He feels like it – smiting nations that have made fictional “deals with the devil”, punishing those who love differently with horrifying and incurable epidemics or sending martyrs to fly planes into buildings?

I don’t know. I’d like to think not. I have no idea if God has a will at all, and I can’t even prove that there is a God to have a will. And if I don’t know, how can Pat Robertson know? How can Marti know?

Here’s what I do know. In times of tragedy, if people are comforted by turning to God, then by all means, they should do so. If, on the other hand, they need to process their grief and pain in other ways, who are we to step in and shove God down their throats?

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You are standing there – raw and in pain – in the smoldering ashes of all that you knew and all that you loved. It’s gone, and it hurts. Which would you rather hear?

“Well it was God’s will, you know. Good luck with that.”

“I’m here for you. I love you. How can I help?”

I know which one I would rather hear. For that matter, I know which one I would rather say to someone in pain. Surely even God can allow for such compassion.