Haiti's Curse

2009 is history, a year that provided unlimited excuses for not updating this blog. In February my father died at age 91. In April we had to euthanize our 12 year old golden retriever dog. After that it was house hunting after the rental we have lived in since 2004 was put on the market. I figured we were buying at the right time and at the end of July found a home in Rocklin that was perfect for us. In September we welcomed our next golden retriever puppy, a female named Tara. Now it’s time to get back to other things, like this blog.

I am hoping to do more book and movie reviews as well as comment on other things. As I write this, it has been almost a week since the earthquake in Haiti. On the day after the quake I mentioned to my wife that I wondered how long it would take for Pat Robertson to say something stupid about the situation. Based on his past track record with 911(caused by god’s wrath against feminists and the ACLU) and hurricane Katrina, (caused by god’s wrath against gay pride parades) it should be less than a week. Try 24 hours.

According to Pat, the Haitians are suffering because they have been under a curse. Here’s the quote: "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal [...] ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other."

Seems they made this pact with the devil at the start of their slave revolt in 1791. Some historians mention a voodoo ceremony presided over by one of the leaders of the revolt. So let me get this straight, Pat Robertson’s god says it would have been better for the Haitians to remain enslaved than to rely on an indigenous religious practice to rally the people to accomplish the only successful slave rebellion in modern history.

It is hard to believe that in 2010 educated people still believe in demons and curses or a theistic, supernatural all powerful god-person who controls the elements and tectonics to kill people he doesn’t like. And if a few righteous people get caught up in the divine carnage, I guess we just have to consider them expendable or martyrs. An all powerful god should be able to do better than that.

A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that Americans are changing religious affiliations at a rising rate. The survey also indicates that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. More than 16 percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country's fourth largest "religious group." ....While the unaffiliated have been growing, Protestantism has been declining, the survey found.

It is easy to understand why this is happening with people like Pat Robertson as the public face of protestant Christianity in America. The real curse for Haiti came in the form of the Europeans who practiced slavery and used the Bible to justify their atrocities.