Lets have Pit nominees for the so-called ‘Christian’ leaders that spew their own brand of ‘interpretations’ and ‘the one true word of Gawd’, preying on the gullible rubes that rabidly follow these psycho dipshits and their brand of crazy.
Creeps like Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggert are some obvious choices, but let’s have some others.
First nomimee: Ray Comfort
This pee wee Kiwi transplant has ex-childstar Kirk Cameron as his faithful sidekick, flogging his ‘Way of the Master’ series of programs. His ‘Living Waters’ ministries produces tasteless tracts, as well as a crapton of books he has authored. He also has a blog titled ‘Atheist Central’ where he posts almost daily - yet moderates responses (read: censors) that correct his constant mistakes.
Most notably, he claimed a banana proves Gawd Exists and it’s the Atheists’ Nightmare ™. He has since said it was only a parody and issued a so-called apology. Check out Youtube for lots of laughs.
His usual schtick is sidewalk evangelism, confronting people and asking “Have you ever told a lie?!” then he starts babbling off how we’re all sinners and destined for Hell unless we accept Jesus and to read the bible - and buy the crap he peddles.
“Self-righteous” perhaps, but how are Ray Comfort & Pat Robertson hypocrites? A hypocrite is someone who professes one thing & live another. Thus, Bakker & Swaggert & Haggard certainly qualified. Falwell & maybe even Phelps, not so much. ‘Hypocrite’ does not mean someone with extreme views or who you just dislike.
Well, he did call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez only to beg the pardon of Charles Taylor (Not sure if soliciting donations on the 700 Club only to use them for diamond mining in Liberia is hypocritical or just dishonest, though.)
Assuming you had the time and energy, it would probably be quite easy to find clips and quotes of Robertson mentioning all the commandments and pair them up with his calls for murder and instances of theft, bearing false witness, etc. But I suppose, in the case of Christianity, there is always the ‘No man is made perfect’ loophole. Forgiveness, atonement, blah blah blah.
Using a wooden literalism, those words can be used against JC Himself. He wasn’t reluctant to pray & speechify about God publically- and that is not what He was warning against.
Pat Robertson uses his position as an Evangelist to make himself rich. That’s pretty much in opposition to Christ’s teachings. Pat Robertson takes from the poor and gives to himself, rather than the other way around.
If there is a devil, he will appear on earth in the exact guise of Pat Robertson. If he had won his bid for the POTUS I would have started to question my disbelief the stories in the bible - the ones in Revelations in particular. Not only does he take from the poor and give to himself, he does it by spreading fear and hatred. He seems to loves nothing more than to feed the “us vs. them” aspect of Christianity.
Rick Warren, because he’s so close to being a non-douche evangelist preacher. All he has to do is recognize that gays are going to get married sooner or later no matter what he says, and keep his mouth shut about Terri Schiavo and abortion, and he’s there.
Pat Robertson is a hypocrite because he has made millions from “faith healing” and then, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, took that money and bought the best secular medicine available. He’s scum, and when he finally dies the world will be a tangibly better, safer place.
But his crap still lives on, and is often emulated.
They are prime examples of the “Do as I say, not as I do” school of charlatans.
As an example of those professing to follow the 10 commandments, they totally fail.
They constantly lie about others, often refusing to answer direct questions - mostly by avoiding answering by changing the subject / babbling a wall of words that still doesn’t address the question in order to frustrate the asker into giving up or leaving/ or the too common accusing the questioner of some imagined wrong-doing and still not answering.
Read some of their writings and watch them in action, if you can stomach it.
Honestly, I don’t see much difference between dogmatic christers who reject rationalism and the sort of dogmatic materialists we see around here like Jackmanii, FinnAgain, Miller, et al. who reject revelation. My experience has been that people who are dogmatic in their approach to materialism are usually fundamentalist christers who became angry at God and switched their beliefs but not the underlying blinkered fanaticism.