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Before this thread gets locked, ignored or out of hand, let me give a bit of perspective on a little bit of history some of you may or may not know already. I am a little angry, actually VERY angry, at some of the asinine comments that have been made and are being made by even some of my very own Caribbean peoples. On Facebook and on local radio stations back home (St. Thomas Virgin Islands and St. Kitts), there are ignorant people talking about Haiti being judged because they are evil, they "tuned their backs on god," or that they practice voodoo. This they claim is why god is judging Haiti. If they knew better, they would just shut the hell up and save their god the embarrassment.
First of all, what is Pat Robertson talking about when he mentions "pact with the devil?" The handed down story comes from a disputed account of a pre-war ceremony that was held by the slaves who turned to their ancestral gods to aid them in their struggle for freedom against France. What many people are not aware of is that Haiti, pre-1805, was one of the richest and most beautiful places on earth. Did it get there because of "god's blessing" (if her current situation is judgment from god?) Of course not! Haiti became the "Pearl of the Caribbean" through the harshest slavery in the Caribbean during the slave-era. Were the slaves "blessed" in this or was it just the RICH white, French slave owners?
A free or escaped literate Jamaican who became known as "Boukman" (Book-man) arrived in Haiti during the era of slavery in Haiti. He immediately gained the attention of Haitian slaves and stirred ideas of liberation in their minds. This was coupled with the news of Revolution in France where white "slaves" rose up and overthrew their oppressive monarchy. Jacobin philosophy was all around Haiti. Boukman was eventually caught and executed but before he did, the Haitian slaves, now ready for revolt, participated in a ceremony of petition to their ancestral gods to aid them in their struggle. Clearly the "Christian" god of the French was not interested in their plight and seemed more interested in blessing the French.
Of course the slaves went on to trounce Napoleon's armies and win their freedom after a bloody war and here is what a lot of people are not aware of. In the subsequent outcome, France still threatened the new nation with a new invasion to reclaim their colony and deal with the newly freed laves even more harshly. To prevent this, the French came up with an extortion plan. They forced the new Haitian government to pay indemnity damages (in the billions today) claiming the slaves destroyed THEIR property. The new Haitian government succumbed and started paying in installments, essentially bankrupting the new nation at the start. Haiti had no powerful backing from other nations such as the U.S, England, Denmark or Spain for clearly obvious reasons so they were on their own against the powerful French Republic.
In 2004, Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded that France pay back the extorted money to the Haitian people and for his audacity, he was run out of town by "powers" behind the scenes not from within his country.
Lost to many is the fact that the United States doubled in size in the early 1800s because of the Haitian Revolution. How? Napoleon's military was taxed with all the wars he was engaged in. The Haitian Revolution was especially brutal because desperate men and women on that island nation were fighting with a passion unseen in the wars in Europe. The fight was to the death. So to get some quick money, France decided to sell (to the U.S) just about all of its territory on the North American continent, 828,000 square miles worth. That area included what is today Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans.
The newly formed U.S gained all of this land from France for a measly 15 million dollars (13 cents an acre) in 1803 because of Napoleon's desperation and still Napoleon lost the war in Haiti which is why he had to go with his extortion plan against the new Haitian government to keep the pressure of the French people off his back. Now in 1917, the U.S purchased 133 square miles of land from Denmark which became known as the U.S Virgin Islands. They paid 25 million for that 133 square miles which remains the most expensive piece of real estate the U.S has ever purchased to date.
Clearly, this pact with the devil benefited the United States and France and other countries as far away as South America. However remote, it has surely benefited Pat Robertson as well as generations of other Americans.
Could this be a judgment from God? maybe. It's possible, Do I know? No and neither does Robertson. In supporting our scriptural views we Christians love to throw around the judgment of Sodom thus assuming God's judgment. It is clear that God has already judged the nation of Haiti as He has judged every nation on earth. Haiti has unrest, crime, violence, voodoo, poverty, little to no infrastructure and the list goes on. All of that IS judgment from God.
So, you start a thread condemning Pat Robertson's conclusions that the earthquake is God's judgment.....and then post this? Maybe he's right??
I think it is fundamentalists who give fundamentalists a bad name...whether they be high profile, spouting their nonsense for all to hear or lowly, anonymous posters on message boards.
You obviously don't know my God, so i won't try to explain the workings of sin and its power to destroy lives.
godspeed,
freedom
I do know your sick god, I grew up in a very catholic region, where people always looked for some deeper meaning whenever something happened that they did not understand. But I freed myself from that crap. I don't even believe in sins, they are a human concept to condition society. Today we have laws etc. to do that.
Adversity can give a people a new start. America will and has come to their aid, and give the world and the Haitians the opportunity to amplify love and compassion, regardless of the cause.
This could end up being a blessing for those that survive and overcome this disaster.
Simon Bolivar, the man who would be responsible for liberating portions of South America from Spain actually escaped to Haiti in 1815 where the new Haitian government provided him with soldiers and other vital supplies to assist him in his war of liberation against Spain.
So as you can see, if it was not for the Haitian Revolution and their "pact with the devil," the United States may have been a nation that sat only to the east of the Appalachian and Ozark mountains and South America may still be an extended arm of Spain at least for a much longer period of time.
I do know your sick god, I grew up in a very catholic region, where people always looked for some deeper meaning whenever something happened that they did not understand. But I freed myself from that crap. I don't even believe in sins, they are a human concept to condition society. Today we have laws etc. to do that.
No you don't.
Why are you on forum for Christians?
Why are you defining all believers in terms of your Catholic experiences, and opinions?
If you were to forgo the social permission we give for people to act like GED recipients when the topic of religion is discussed, one could make a very good argument that his belief in an invisible Jewish zombie is far more unbelievable and offensive than Robertson Haitian Theory.
Isa 2:4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
godspeed,
freedom
God is not a God of nations, but of individuals only, and only as the individuals that compose the nations, can He be said to be a God of nations. He wants not the praise of men or of nations because of victory that they might acquire through bloodshed and cruelties ascribed to His help, but he wants the praise of men only because their souls may have been awakened to His Love, and have acquired victory over sin and evil.
Nations rise and fall and disappear from the face of the earth, but the individuals who compose these nations never die, even though the physical bodies die, and God is a God only of those things that never die, and He is interested in having the individual become victor over sin and the appetites of the flesh.
The way I see it this is a forum on Christianity, not for Christians.
Continue to disrespect and you'll see it isn't open to anti-Christians.
godspeed,
freedom
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