So Phil Robertson Is Yammering Again

I'm not a fan.

I find Nolte's apologetics on Robertson's behalf here faulty, but that's not the real fault I find with the defense.

Rather, the fault I find is with the automatic springing to this guy's defense, like he's An Hero of Christendom, when first of all, he's just a Reality TV Goon, not a Philosopher King, and second of all, don't we always criticize The Left for springing to Defend Their Own without thought?

Here then the words which apparently must be defended to the full:

"I'll make a bet with you. Two guys break into an atheist's home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him. And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him. And they can look at him and say, 'Isn't it great that I don't have to worry about being judged? Isn't it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?'

Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if this [sic] was something wrong with this? But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.'

If it happened to them, they probably would say, 'Something about this just ain't right.'

What Robertson says here is his own belief and he's welcome to them. I don't really care all that much about his thick-witted, chauvanistic belief system which he seems to have confused with Christianity. (A chauvanistic belief system is one which primarily tells the believer that Everything He Thinks Is Right and Good, like many idolatrous fake philosophies on the left.)

It's not that what he says is sooo terrible, but if you say he's not doing some "fantasizing" here you're lying, either to me or yourself, because this is in perfect accord with the various "When you're being tortured in Hell, you'll know I was right and you were stupid" sort of Salvation Baiting which most Christians know enough to avoid, but which some occasionally lapse into when they're not looking.

I mean, this is such a childishly indulgent fantasy: "Well I can't wait until X happens and then God proves I was right all along..."

Intelligent, mature people do not speak this way. Oh, they think this way, to be sure: I'll cop to having these kind of childish indulgent fantasies -- "And then they'll all know I was right!" -- several times a month.

But adults try not to let them get on the outside of one's brain, because, honestly, these Vindication Fantasies are just embarrassing as shit for anyone but a nine-year-old.

And his ideation here is all wrong and ignorant. No, atheists do not believe, as he lays out, that there actually is a God, but we shall choose to actively disbelieve in him so as to avoid "being judged."

This is such a foolish notion of being godless that I doubt Robertson's thoughts on God can be much deeper. I don't know if one can really be a good atheist without having at least an appreciation for religion, and I don't think someone can really, truly believe in God, and have that Faith mean anything, unless he sort of understands the reasons for Doubt.

In Robertson's ignorant telling, everyone knows God exists, really -- there is no Doubt, you see -- but then some Wicked Children decide "We don't wanna be judged!" and so we spit in His face.

This is absurd. If anyone knew for a fact that there was a God abroad in the Heavens who intended to Condemn him to Hellish Torment for Eternity for the sin of not Believing in Him, then that person would of course believe in God.

In other words, if you Believe in God, then yes, you Believe in God.

People do not believe in God because they want to "sin without judgment." They don't believe in God because, get this, they just don't believe in God. The existence, or nonexistence, of God is the first and only step in this process; no one reasons backwards to it after deciding "I'd like to be judged by a Deity, so I believe in God" or "You know, I'd rather not be judged by a Deity, so I shall deny His existence."

This is crude, puerile crap. It is not really "offensive," except to the extent that all stupid, ignorant, crude and puerile things ought to vaguely offend anyone of taste and intellect and self-respect.

Again, I'm not really offended in the way the left says "I'm offended!" His words do not hurt me at all; nor his stupid, beefwitted ideas, or his crude conception of Christianity as a Fat Book Telling Me I'm Just Perfect. I don't want him fired, or disciplined, or boycotted.

But he is wrong, wrong and juvenile and puerile and self-indulgent, and I'll tell him that, including to his face, if he likes.

And I won't say "Everything Phil Robertson says is just perfect because 1, he's a Christian, 2, he's vaguely on my side, and 3, he's famous and on Television!"

I don't care that he's on TV. I don't care that he's famous.

I don't care that many people are going to inform me that Phil Robertson is higher on the Conservatively Correct Pecking Order, and that he is "important' whereas I am not.

Someone's "importance" has no bearing on whether what they say is true or not.

I don't care about any of that, or teams, or any of this tribalistic bullshit.

He said something stupid.

Someone should say it's stupid.

There, I just did.

posted by Ace at 06:38 PM

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