Robertson claims sweat lodge victims sought "enlightenment" in "new-age religion" instead of Bible and paid "severe price"

Little did they know it was actually the church punishing them and not God. I can see the slip up there. Funny thing is, hardcore religious people are almost everything that Jesus fought against in his life or at least as far as I know. Not all religious people but many. They are rich selfish snobs who think that christianity is the only way. And of course you throw racist or antisemitic or just prejudice in general in there, I dont even think Jesus would talk to the extremely Christian. Again, not everyone but far too many.

And Im sure jesus would love to hear about the church's laundry list of corruption - them siding with Nazi Germany or saying homosexuality is a crime or committing Christian-sanctioned mass murder in the name of God (Crusades) or child molestation and statuatory rape and then, trying to cover it up to protect them instead of trying to clean it up to protect against more possible victims. The church has actively supported killing in the past and state sponsored discrimination and inequality and this is not centuries ago. This is stuff going on today. The church also seems determined to fight scientific progress leading to intellectual regression after vehemently denying the existence of the earth revolving around the sun in the past and evolution and global warming today to name a few. Republican and religious politicians also practice nearly everything Jesus fought against - poverty over greed but they don't support social programs, tolerance over discrimination but they dont support homosexuals rights, peace over war but they are the first to go to war, forgiveness over calling out enemies but they call countries the axis of evil. Jesus had the best of intentions Im sure but they were lost in a mess of corruption and manipulation to the point that people can actually do something unconscionably immoral or evil today in the name of christianity.

E-mail: sinners@heaven.com

Not talking bad about the people who died doing and believing that crazy ritual, but Robinson should be sending out condolences and not taling bad about the incident, to only talk about war in a clip before.

Exactly. Thins from a guy who actually wants to accerlerate the process of 40 years of war and famine and all that other good stuff that awaits us unbelievers after all the good folks like Pat are magically swept up to heaven so they can look down at us.

Seriously- he might as well be saying "if these people had only been sitting on a wooden bench, rising and sitting, rising and sitting, and chanting along with everyone else in the building, until finally eating a piece of unleavened bread and taking a sip of wine from a communal cup before making the sign of the cross, everything would have been fine. Because that's what 'normal' people do."

You MUST make it clear who you are specifically addressing here.

I think Ms. Bunn makes it quite clear that the horrid conditions of the compound adversely threatened the wellbeing and life of the participants of this group. The attorney interviewed in this clip certainly cites the high temperature as a factor contributing to the suffering of the participants.

Robertson's diatribe at the end is more or less an argument of faith. I understand your concern that "the hand of God" would seem to absolve James Arthur Ray of personal responsibility for his atrocities. But if God is truly all knowing and all powerful, then everything seemingly good or seemingly bad, happens only because He implicitly or explicitly allows it to happen. Thus in this mini exercise in theodicy we must come to the conclusion that even bad things must serve a higher purpose in the end.

Robertson isn't trying to reduce the responsibility of Ray or the scientific cause of the people's physical deaths and injuries. Robertson is doing being human. He is trying to make sense of something senseless. We all do this to a certain extent. Whether you invoke a god or not will fundamentally alter your interpretation of these events.

But it is not too unreasonable to think that God was punishing these people's poor judgment. And even Richard Dawkins wouldn't argue against the fact that they paid a "severe price."