Pat Robertson on natural disasters

Try replying to #Message 236 instead of #238.Your links were not links....there were no usable web addresses to read anything there.I would read your links if possible. I suggest you read mine.This message has been edited by AdminJar, 10-30-2005 08:58 PM

Hi sidelined. What criteria? That depends on what time frame is being discussed and I've made that clear here, I hope. Read my posts carefully and you'll see what criteria I've used.My friend, all you need do is reread my recent posts carefully and it's all there. This thread was created for the sole purpose of bashing Robertson, it appears. The problem is that someone has come on after the pack joined in on the bashing to defend the man who's not here to defend himself; someone who cares to set the record straight as to exactly what he said, why he said it and whether he's as nuts as everyone is unjustifiably making him out to be. Buzsaw is here bringing some just balance to this lop-sided board and right now, specifically to this thread, if you will.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

The kind statements are appreciated, profex. Yes, I'm a man of faith, but that faith is not blind. We Biblicalists need to use the evidence we have base our faith on and there's plenty of it. I'm attempting to show that to be the case here. The apostle Paul told young Timothy, "Prove all things," and I think he was using that word, prove in the broad sense of the term as, to substantiate.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Asgara, first, you will find short term variables which buck the trend and second, one of the links and quotes below explain that earthquakes alone are not representative of the overall disaster trend which includes earthquakes. Here are some links which can be accessed. My purpose in the other quote was to offer a sampling of the dozens of websites which deal with the overall increase in disasters over recent decades. MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos - 55k Earth News - Environmental Science Articles 051017_natural_disasters.html

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Is it my imagination, or have you just managed to refute your own argument? Your first line states Since you're only looking at figures since 1970 are you sure you're not basing your argument on ?

Your point is well taken, Trixie, but Asgara's variables were based on only one aspect of the total disaster types which was hurricanes. My statements are based on the totality of each and every kind of disaster. I believe if you create a graph of the past few decades you will see a significant overall increase. Consider also, that the closer you get to the end of this age/era of the world, there will, if the prophecies are correct, be even a more significant upspike in the graph as the time draws near.This evidence of the accuracy and present time significance in the end time prophecies are not only corroborated by the prophecies on the reemergence of the nation of Israel, but on What the bible says about wars and Armageddon at the time of the last days. They will be in the middle east and the nations will be drawn into the area. Ezekiel, chapters 37, 38 and 39, written way before Christ prophesy not only the scattering of Israel, but the rebirth of it in a latter time of unwalled villages, et al, focusing in on a confederacy of nations in the middle east which will assemble to invade the newborn nation, those nations being the very nations which are more or less confederated at his time in history, working to anhilate the nation. There has never been a confederacy of such nations before for this purpose. More is prophesied about this by other prophets, like Zachariah, especially chapter14. These things are also bolstered by other prophecies such as the NT Revelation 13 technology of speaking images viewed by the world, a global economy based on a number system, et al, all developed since about the time of the rebirth of Israel as a nation.With all this corroborating support, I believe Pat Robertson has it together in the remarks about natural disasters. I'm certainly not praying for disasters. Heck, my region could be next. I pray not, but we're all caught up in it. My stakes are in the resurrection of the just, justified by Jesus's sacrifice for those receiving him as savior. According to the prophecies, it's all going to work for the good, though, as a wonderful millenial age having a wonderful climate as was pre-flood is prophesied also. I have an hypothesis on how this will come, and the global warming as well as the other stuff will work to relatively suddenly change the global atmosphere so as to provide the perfect climate.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

buzsaw writes:

quote:

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ICR (Institute for Creation Research) says there has not been an increased incidence of earthquakes from 1900 to 2000, and I have to agree.

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As I've shown in one of the links, the earthquake stats don't cut the musterd for your argument. It's the overall disaster picture which you must consider. You can talk to yourself all by yourself till the cows come home in your own little corner here jar about the thousands and billions of years, if you doggedly insist on disregarding the forum guidelines, leading off topic, because the topic has clearly nothing to do with eons past. You should be ashamed, moderating others and suspending some for conduct no worse than this.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Yes, let's cry for the man with his own network and regularly villifies people who have 0 chance to defend themselves. No, you mean to not address the OP, and instead launch into many monologues regarding the correctness of prophecy, without allowing one chance to question the nature of the prophecies, prophecies in general, and the track record of this particular person's prophecies.It would seem at the very least that that last one would make a difference. But no, Pat Robertson's ability to accurately prophecize is NOT allowed to be discussed, only whether YOU are correct about prophecy which means that Pat must be.The one thing that has always disappointed me about you is that you don't even want to examine anything critically within your own system of beliefs. Repeatedly I have tried to engage you in discussions with the assumption that prophecy is possible. Certainly if true then it is still possible to have FALSE PROPHETS. Its right in the Bible Buz. So the question is how do you find them.Certainly FALSE PROPHETS can and will quote from the Bible, right? Or is there some megical force preventing this from happening.My questions to you have been as much on your topic as on the OP. IF the topic is Pat Robertson AND the nature of prophesy, then is he a false prophet and his prophesy suspect? We can assume prophesy is possible.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I figured I would tack this on to your post, Crashfrog! Literalism to chew on for a moment:In the opening statement of this thread, it was said:As a devout Christian myself, I am not sure if I agree with this statement.

Where does it mention geological upheavel in the Bible?

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As for study of the Bible as it pertains to prophecy, one of the classic starting points is the words of Jesus Himself, in Matthew 24:

NIV writes:

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Matt 24:3-29-- As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

a time of war...as it has always been..

Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

a Nation is an ethnic group...Serbians versus Croatians,for example..a kingdom is a political group...the United States versus Iraq, for example.

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Note that Jesus does not mention an increase in famines and earthquakes...only that they are as they have always been!

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"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.

all ethnic groups will hate Christians? Hmmmm..why would this be?

At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

can anyone think of any false prophets in todays media?

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Its not as if God is causing the chaos...it is as if the chaos is occurring anyway...

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"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel-let the reader understand- then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now-and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect-if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

Much of this prophecy appears to me to be for the nation of Israel,but it can be argued different ways..

"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

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Dispensationalists believe that much of the prophecy in the Gospels was addressed to the Jewish people....God interrupted that plan with the foreknown mission to convert the Gentile peoples through a highly educated Pharisee named Saul.

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When Saul got knocked off his high horse and became Paul the Apostle, Christianity changed its stripes a bit.

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If we look through the Epistles to find any relevant prophecies pertaining to the church, we find them in Thessalonians.

NIV writes:

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1 Thess 5:16-22-- Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

Good advice, it seems. Don't be all religious...just be in communion with the Spirit within you and hold steady.....then,

NIV writes:

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2 Thess 2:1-12-- Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

A possible reference to the Anti-Christ

Don't you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

A possible reference to the Church before the Rapture

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

If this were to be taken literally, it would mean that there is an absolute Truth and there is an absolute Lie. Those who are deluded are deluded because they do not love the truth. Does anyone have any idea what this truth is that they are referring to here in Thessalonians?

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This message has been edited by Phat, 10-31-2005 05:17 AM

but do you even read what you write? So you agree that Hurricane statistics don't support your assertion. So let me get this straight. The hurricane statistics don't support your wild assertions, the earthquake statistics don't support your wild assertions, you want to limit things to YOUR timeline. Do you have anything to backup your statements or is this yet another hide the goalposts and declare Buz the winner. LOLThen you fall back into the classic posture of the Fundie/Evangelist when the facts go against them. You start whining and crying and demanding that those who expose the foolishness of your message be silenced. That is the danger of blasphemous Fundies and Evangelicals like Pat Robertson. They are intolerant, they wish to impose their warped woldview on all others, and to silence any voice of reason that speaks out against oppression.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, we don't wonder why Faith left, and that is central to the purpose of this thread.Faith left because she was shown time after time, thread after thread, message after message, to be wrong. Hopefully she is using this time to rethink her positions and to reassess her conclusions and faith.Pat Robertson is only symptomatic of a great evil sweeping the US. He is but one, the list goes on and on, Falwell, Swaggart, Dobson, Haggard, Roberts, Scott, Hinn, Phelps. For too long they have been allowed to spew their messages of hate and intolerance. Now, voices are being raised, speaking out against their message; Christian voices as well as those from other faiths and no faith at all. We are demanding that people like Pat Robertson support their assertions, provide fact and not just intolerance.And that's why folk like Faith run. When faced with absolute proof that their statements are nonsense, that they are being willfully ignorant, they run.Truth will win out over ignorance and intolerance.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So buz, you are saying that the last 100 years is short term? But I thought you told jar that these types of things have been increasing in "recent decades." You can't have it both ways buz, either we look at the last 10 decades or we call that short term and we go further back.OK, we have shown that hurricanes and earthquakes are not increasing. How about the tsunamis you listed?http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/tsustats.pdfhhmm, again no increase.Oh, buz? Please take note that these links I have been giving you are from official sites such as NOAA and USGS.But having read your articles, here is the first link off the MSNBC
Earth News - Environmental Science ArticlesSo far buz, all you have produced is a word for word news report of a livescience report from the Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) in Brussels, Belgium.I have the info from the CRED database and will look at their figures later, but now I have to leave for work.

How can you say this given history? Truth and ignorance shuffle back and forth as interests over time. We could conceivably lose everything we have gained as our knowledge base in a very short period of time, if enough people simply don't want to believe.And intolerance pretty much stays the same, merely switching from one hated group to another, with no rationale for any of it. There are very few periods of actual tolerance.I fear the ignorant intolerant liberals, about as much as I fear the ignorant intolerant conservatives. They may tolerate a few more things that I like, and allow a bit more knowledge, but are often more strict when it comes to things they dislike and believe their own opinions and mores have an objective reality more credible than those that get such things from a book.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I can only hope.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So, I guess the libertarians are intolerant of everybody? I hate people like that!