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James Dobson Says Sandy Hook is God’s Judgment on America
more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson
I looked yesterday at the deplorable response of the Religious Right to the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. There is an old truism that in a disaster, each will respond according to his measure, and we have seen that truism born out: While Dick’s Sporting Goods suspends (at least temporarily) sales of what are known as ‘modern sporting rifles’, NRA-owned Republicans in Congress hide, and the Religious Right says God will go on killing our children until we turn our public schools into churches and use them to train future generations to be an aberrant species of Christian.
Yesterday, we heard from Bryan Fischer and Mike Huckabee, two of the most despicable men on earth, certainly. But not far behind comes Focus on the Family and Family Research Council founder James Dobson, who spoke up yesterday on his radio program, Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, telling listeners that the Sandy Hook school massacre was the result of God punishing us for turning our backs on him.
Our country really does seem in complete disarray. I’m not talking politically, I’m not talking about the result of the November sixth election; I am saying that something has gone wrong in America and that we have turned our back on God.
I mean millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant to me and we have killed fifty-four million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition. Believe me, that is going to have consequences too.
And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that’s what’s going on.
In truth, if you want to look for evidence of moral rot, you have only to look as far as the Religious RIght, with their pseudo-Christianity based on idolatry of wealth. They have turned their back on Jesus by embracing the rich rather than condemning them, as the man from Galilee did time and again. They have thrown Jesus’ message of love under the bus and embraced a cherry-picked reading of Old Testament fire and brimstone and put it in Jesus’ place. As a religion, it is neither Judaism nor Christianity but some monstrous offspring of their hate and bigotry.
People like James Dobson, Bryan Fischer, and Mike Huckabee, are the purveyors of this false, anti-Jesus gospel.
Dobson’s message was not a new one. It was no different than his message last week, when he said,
Once again the nation is being led down the path to destruction and once again by and large God’s people are looking the other way. I don’t have to tell anyone in this room tonight how far that path to destruction we’ve already traveled. You see the evidence in families that are fractured and marriages that are broken; in young people that lose their way and often their lives in a maze of alcohol and drugs; in a culture that can no longer distinguish between lust and love; that is willing to tolerate the vilest perversion as an “alternative, acceptable lifestyle” while pestilence stalks the land; in public schools that have become facilitators for fornication and procurers for the abortionist knife; in a nation that has lost the moral will to distinguish between that which is right and that which is wrong: we know all too well how far down that road to destruction we have already gone.
Speaking of the vilest perversions…it is almost as though Dobson were gazing into a mirror. The truly frightening thing is that sick individuals like Dobson have the certainty of a medieval inquisitor, convinced of his own righteousness and the holiness of his cause even as he commits untold evil on those who trust his connection to the divine.
Dobson is not an ordained minister. He is just another bigot with rancid opinions forming the ideological framework of his warped worldview. As such, he is little different from the Religious Right’s rank and file, though ambitious enough to be selling the Kook-Aid rather than drinking it. It is hardly a wonder that he does much of this peddling for Fox News, when he is not recording his radio program.
Joe Scarborough can question long-held beliefs after the fact, determining that “It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas” and we can admire him for actually trying to justify his ideology based not on preconceptions but on the facts on the ground. But you won’t see this kind of soul-searching coming from the Religious Right. Look at SNL alumnus Victoria Jackson, who outdid her own wing-nuttery the other day by taking to Facebook to say,
‘My friend Jim Riley posted: “Wasn’t the Connecticut killer just doing what abortionists do every day? It’s a wonder we don’t have more 20 year old “dads” doing what women and doctors have been an accomplice to for years in America. When you forget the TEN COMMANDMENTS, people, THIS is what you get.”‘
As religious fanatics have always done, they will insist they are selling the word of God and therefore embody his will. As Socrates said, (Apology 38a),”The unexamined life is not worth living.” But if God has spoken, what is there to examine, someone like Dobson might answer.
Reasonable people know that certainty is not necessarily a good thing. As Voltaire said, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.” Bertrand Russell went so far as to call it an “intellectual vice.”
And that is what the Religious Right is: a vice, though to use the word ‘intellectual’ might be presumptuous. Friedrich Nietzsche was certainly right when he said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”
If you doubt that for an instant, taking some time to listen to James Dobson and Bryan Fischer and Mike Huckabee, and like Joe Scarborough, you may find yourself following Socrates’ advice, and actually examining what you thought you knew.
James Dobson says America has turned its back on God and Sandy Hook is God’s response: the murder of our children in retaliation. Who needs a God like that? And who needs James Dobson?
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lesley knight
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:18 am
Shame on the people that voted for this poor excuse for a human.
Victoria Lamb, MSHA
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Lesley, James Dobson is not an elected official. He is a self-appointed spokesman for Christianity, something, I (as a Christian) wish he would reconsider. He has done God’s church more harm than good with his vile pronouncements and given non-Christians a very twisted idea of Christianity, itself.
Gretchen Robinson
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
by some synchronicity PBS is showing a program called First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty. “Religious Freedom as a human right.” Dobson’s maundering is an insult to our Constitution and founders. He and Huckabee should tarred and feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail for their mischaracterization of what Christianity stand for (and I’m an agnostic).
Reynardine
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:23 am
I have to wonder if that deranged youngster thought he was doing the work of the Lard.
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
“the Lard”?
What kind of lard? I like Emeril think “pork fat rules”. Lol
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
But yeah, it’s always a pretty good bet that some kind of supernatural entity is whispering something in their ear on some level, when these things happen.
Beverly
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:31 am
I just have to say that when you write these stories you just give these idiots a voice.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:38 am
No Beverly, I just keep it from being a one-sided conversation.
Victoria Lamb, MSHA
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Beverly, they will find a way to insert themselves into the conversation one way or another. At least this way dissenting opinions may balance their rhetoric.
Anne
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:40 am
I love the way these charlatans presume to speak for God with their warped view of Christianity that cherry-picks for passages which support their greed, reverence for the wealthy, contempt for the poor, misogyny, racism, and other forms of intolerance for us “others.” Their religious fanaticism blinds them to actual solutions, a big part of which would be acknowledging the enormously destructive influences of the gun culture, the gratuitous violence in certain forms of entertainment, and the lack of common sense in certain gun laws or among some gun owners. Their image of a perfect world is one in which they impose their retrograde beliefs on a passive populace.
AC
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Also, as has been pointed out, what a cruel God.
Elizabeth 44
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Certainly not the loving, father God, Jesus of Nazareth described.
Mary
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:46 am
it really is time for all these fake christians to stfu. they have a of these babies blood on their hands. they have spent years spewing ugly slime against anyone who does not believe the same as they do. they are not christians they are domestic terrorist.
Reynardine
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:55 am
Good message: please take off the caps lock.
Lily Lorber
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:06 am
DOBSON must be just another way to spell L-O-S-E-R ! Sadly he is not the only SICK, DEPRAVED and UNHOLY FALSE PROPHET and opportunist seeking to capitalize on this tragic event.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, attorney and daugher of TAX EVADER, Hate Group Sponsor, Rev Phelps is AN UNAMERICAN GUTTER-SNIPE !! Shirley said, this past weekend: “Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.”
As homely, ugly and evil Shirley thumps her Bible, encouraging lightning strikes. . . . She fails to disclose to the American Public that she is a common tramp with an arrest record. For what ? For instructing her son to TRAMPLE THE AMERICAN FLAG in public.
Who or what could be more disgusting and shameless ? ? ! ! ! !
Ms. Phelps, please DO NOT come to Connecticut. You are UNFIT for decent society.
____Phelps-Roper was arrested on June 5, 2007, on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Police alleged that she allowed her son to trample an American flag while protesting the funeral of a soldier in Bellevue, Nebraska, which is a misdemeanor in the state.[12] Phelps-Roper announced her intent to challenge the constitutionality of the Nebraska statute. The charges against her were subsequently dropped when she agreed to dismiss pending lawsuits filed against Sarpy County in state and federal court.
robyn ryan
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Abusing a flag in the hopes of making money is nowhere near as appalling as people who dismiss the slaughter of children as the collateral damage of a bizarre cult of death.
Or as debased as the people who defend them.
Benny Belloes
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:50 am
Food for thought when people listen to people like James Dobson, Bryan Fisher and Mike Huckabee because nothing they say is based on God but on the fear that they want to project in to peoples lives. These three and there are others are despicable in most people’s eyes and one can only hope in God’s eyes.
The fault of Job and his friends lies in trying to explain the nature of God with only the limited information available to human knowledge, as God himself notes when he roars from the whirlwind, Job 38:2 Who is this that darkness counsel / by words without / knowledge?”
Job 38:18 God suggests that people should not discuss divine justice since God’s power is so great that humans cannot possibly justify his ways.
www.sparknotes.com/lit/ol...
Job 42:1-3, 6 Job answered Yahweh, saying, ‘I know you can do all things, and no plan of yours can be thwarted. I have spoken of things I do not understand. Therefore I despise myself and repent.
Victoria Lamb, MSHA
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Unfortunately, the folks in question do not have enough humility to repent.
Shiva (Moderator)
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:51 am
Well let’s look on the bright side. God didn’t destroy the earth by flood again, all he did was murder a bunch of little insignificant kids.
Focus on the family huh? I seriously doubt it. And quite frankly this don’t sound like no God that I ever want to belong to like a brain-dead slave
BTW thats sarcasm up there
Reynardine
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:58 am
But that *is* a focus on the family…through a rifle scope.
(Women and children first…to die)
Gretchen Robinson
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
dominate and control the children with Christian indoctrination before they have the mental capacity to know what is true and what isn’t is child abuse. I’m for religious freedom for children, too. Focus on the Family is a cult.
robyn ryan
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:54 am
Never worship a god you wouldn’t let your kid date.
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:57 am
If this is your God’s judgement; to facilitate the murder of innocent children and inflict untold grief and suffering upon the loved ones, then your God can go F*** HIMSELF!!!
This is done all in the name of some warning or lesson? This is supposed to get people to embrace God and love him? Sure, a cosmic tyrant stomping his feet and acting like a petulant two year old….yeah that’s gonna get people to sign right up.
This logic reminds me of the Twighlight Zone episode with Billy Mumy playing an all powerful child that did whatever he wanted (because he could), and the only reason the towns people obeyed him was out of sheer terror. This right up your God’s alley James.
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Oh and while I am no longer a believer James, your God is completely different than the God that my parents and family worshipped and prayed to in their church.
Joyce Wilson
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
If James Dobson suspects for one minute that this is a punishment for turning our backs on God then he does not know the same God that I know.
One thing that I do appreciate about Victoria Jackson is that all of her many hateful and stupid comments are in writing so I don’t have to hear to annoying voice.
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Unfortunately Joyce you would be wrong about that one. Victoria opens up her sewer of a yap quite often in regards to this stuff.
Virginia
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Sick response from sick minds always ready to promote their own agendas.
Disillusioned
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
So, the deranged person was a soldier of god sent by the religious right to do their bidding? Then they should be prosecuted for his crimes.
Shiva (Moderator)
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
And quite frankly I want God in court as a witness. Possibly as a co-conspirator because he sent these people to do his punishments
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
“Possibly”?
According to Dobson it was HIS judgement.
Shiva (Moderator)
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
well okay, I’m not really a lawyer. I just play one on TV
Johnee
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Ha. Yeah me to.Lol
BrownSugarC
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
What a sick, old man
Darrell Preacherman
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Preacher like him need to shut up and let God himself tell him what to say not think of it and say that God said it.Just Shut Up and God tell you before you say it.
Gretchen Robinson
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 10:01 pm
what utter arrogance and hubris, to think you speak the word of god and your god/s don’t speak to other. If there is a god, which I doubt (I’m an agnostic), he speaks to each person who listens. I’m a small ‘u’ universalist. No one monomaniac knows what god thinks.
SinghX
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 7:32 am
Oh but Gretchen, you are wrong when you say, and I quote, “No one monomaniac knows what god thinks.”
The pastor that lead Rick Perry’s Lovefest prayer rally last year is now coming out with the truth! Yes, self-proclaimed as one of the “new apostles of Christ” (I will have to write about this jolly little group of crazy) Pastor Benefiel (that rhymes with “pedophile”) is confirming his direct line of POWER with the sky-god…he’s a mover and a shaker and he’s a’makin’ things happen! Keep an eye on this good old boy; he’s going places!
“He [Benefiel] told Roth [guy with a TV show called "That's Supernatural!"] that his group went to Washington in 2011 to issue a Baal divorce decree [PDF], which he maintains frees places from control of the demonic god Baal, and that God responded with the August 23rd earthquake which was felt along the east coast. He said the earthquake’s damage to the Washington Monument, the Scottish Rite Temple and the National Cathedral is no coincidence but divine punishment for masonry. “God continues to amaze us all the time,” Benefiel said, “We just did what God says to do and he follows up with this great act.”
Baal…so, does that make him “The Gatekeeper”, as in “Ghost Busters”?? One or Two?
Oh please, don’t encourage me, I beg you all, don’t do it! O I can’t stand it…Please, don’t encourage me to start writing about green slim, yes, oozing all over the Capital from Baal’s escaping out the ass of one of the demonic idols…O mercy kind readers, please, I beg of you…once I start, I can’t pull my fingers away from the keyboard!
Ahhh-hahahahaaa!
Daniel Berry, NYC
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
what interests me most about people like Dobson and Huckabee is that they ignore the face that many European countries have totally removed religion from public discourse – countries in which mass shootings are totally foreign. Meanwhile, such countries enjoy a better standard of living than ours (and not on credit) better schools (and they’re free) and better health-care (and not for profit).
So what’s so goddam bad about removing the small-minded religionists’ shitty ideas from the public discourse? As far as I can tell doing so helps everybody except the greedy.
Dave Francis
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
My son has Autism and has drawn a knife on his Mother several times. It’s very sad that the opponents of gun control dribble out of the woodwork, like the political maggots they are demanding new gun laws when there is a traumatic incident as the one in Massachusetts. However there are limits to what help you can receive from the medical profession as my family has found out. THERE IS LITTLE INTERVENTION OR ASSISTANCE TO HALT THIS TERRIBLE NEUROLOGICAL BRAIN IMBALANCE. ONCE AGAIN IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY AND THE SILENCE FROM THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES WHO ARE BENEFITING FROM THIS ISSUE WITH BUCKETFUL OF DRUGS.OF COURSE THERE IS ANOTHER FACTOR THAT THE GUN ADVOCATES SAY LITTLE ABOUT, IN THAT THE DRUG COMPANIES MAY BEAR SOME RESPONSIBILITY IN THE INJECTIONS CONTAINING SMALL AMOUNTS OF MERCURY GIVEN TO BABIES AT TIME OF BIRTH. In addition an only small contribution is evident to the growing problem of Autism, which is reaching uncomfortable proportions? More money is needed for research relating to the Autism Spectrum Disorder, which thousands of families must deal with on a daily basis. There are no guns in my household and yet I do not blame gun owners, who possess them to protect their families from heinous criminals who will circumvent any new gun laws.
Shiva (Moderator)
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 9:41 pm
My god they gave babies mercury? Thats horrendous
djchefron
Dec. 18th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
In my Veterans group we meet and just talk and the subject of the shooting came up.Now this one vet who is a very good man said that if we had prayer in school these things would not happen.Now I am an atheist but thats neither here nor there.But it got me thinking that good people fall for the fundies message because they truly believe.People like dobson,hucleberry and the rest are nothing but grifters that prey on good people.The sad thing is the grifters don’t care because they are getting paid and the people who truly believe are nothing more than marks.So we can condemn ridicule all we want but their power comes from I don’t want to say gullible or weak minded but deep down I guess people have faith.The problem with that they wont see the evidence that they are marks.
SinghX
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 7:44 am
The con-artist/grifter has the “job” of giving people a short-cut as a way to ease their every little pain…
they provide a “service” called Certainty, Inc. It’s a mega-gazallion dollar global industry that’s been around forever. It’s probably the proverbial “oldest profession” in the world.
The con-artist allow those who are the most vulnerable an absolute that reality proves does not exist. All they have to do is providing an escape from reality; the wilder, the better! They prey on people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time…they tell them to drink their magic certainty potion, run away and there will be an everlasting hereafter which is far better than reality…
terry
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 12:27 am
as usual the christian right is neither
John Taylor
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 5:35 am
Is there any reason to claim that any of this is new? All natural and man-made disasters are god punishing us for something. These claims have been going on for decades. The content changes, but the message is always the same. The religious right has the same answer every time. Every hurricane, volcanic eruption, tsunami, every man-made horror is god’s punishment.
These people don’t believe in god. If they did, they’d crawl back under their rock and hope their god can’t find them.
Brian Loudermilch
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 9:31 am
What Incredible Sin did WE Commit to Deserve
Suffering the Likes of James Dobson ?
I will gladly Repent all of my Sins if James Dobson
will STFU for the rest of His Miserable Life.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we could ever be
that Lucky.