Barack Obama and the 900 Foot Jesus

There's a quote in atheist circles that goes something like "Give me all the reasons that you don't believe in all the other gods, and you'll have the reasons I don't believe in yours." 

In other words, list all the reasons that you don't believe in Anahita, Anat, Anath, Andhrimnir, Andraste, Andvari, or Angrboda - to name just a few gods from the beginning of the alphabet - and you'll have a good list of why some people don't "believe" in the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

You've probably heard of TV evangelist and faith-healer Oral Roberts.  (Please hang with me.  I'm going somewhere with this.)  Here's Roberts' CNN obituary:

In 1977, (Oral) Roberts said he had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus, who told him to found the City of Faith Medical and Research Center. The biography said the center was aimed at "merging the healing power of medicine and prayer."
In 1986, Roberts announced that God would "call him home" unless he raised $8 million to send medical missionaries from the center -- an announcement that was widely publicized.

Are hospitals a good cause?  Yes. 

Do medical missionaries generally do good work and save lives?  Yes. 

Did you, or anyone else with good sense, donate money to Oral Roberts?  No. 

Why not?  Because most of us knew that a lot of the money would not be spent on the hospital.  We suspected that a 900-Foot Jesus didn't really appear to Oral Roberts in a vision, or tell him to send medical missionaries across the globe.  And finally, most of us prefer to give our charitable dollars to other causes. 

Several years ago, Barack Obama decided to radically change America's healthcare system.  He was going to give free (or at least affordable) healthcare to low-income Americans.  He had a plan.  And people on the political left seemed SHOCKED that this compassionate action was opposed by conservatives and libertarians. 

Given a choice, I'd give my dollars to the Oral Roberts City of Faith Medical and Research Center before giving it to Obama and the government (assuming there wasn't a 3rd option of burning the money).  I don't think that the government acts responsibly.  I believe that government spends a massive amount of money on itself.  I think Obama uses tax money to buy votes and keep his faction in power.  Plus, the Oral Roberts City of Faith doesn't operate drones or have an army going all over the place pissing off Arabs. 

Give me all the reasons you didn't donate to Oral Roberts, and you'll have the reasons that I oppose ObamaCare. 

Give me all the reasons that you wouldn't let Bernie Madoff do your investing in stocks, bonds, and commodities, and I'll give you the reasons that I get downright giggly when some Congressman starts blathering about "investing" in education, infrastructure, or the future. 

Carefully list all the reasons that you don't want Mexico or Brazil raising huge armies and navies and going around the world, making the planet safe for democracy.  You'll have the reasons that many libertarians don't want America doing that either. 

And on and on.....

Government isn't society.  Society can accomplish wonderful, wonderful things without government intervening.    Here's some Frederic Bastiat:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

           We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

With that said, here's some MC 900 Ft Jesus.  Enjoy. 



 

The Pain, The Pain

Televangelist Oral Roberts once told his followers that unless they gave him 4.5 million dollars, the Lord was going to "call him home". He got away with it.


Barack Obama once told his followers that unless they gave him 700 Billion dollars in "stimulus", they were going to suffer an economic disaster. I bet he gets away with it. (The massive spending on the right side of this chart is supposedly a cure for the bad things on the left. LOL.)

BTW, Obama's top economic experts, Peter Orszag, Jared Bernstein, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, and Austan Goolsbee have ALL resigned. They came in, ripped off the Treasury, and got the hell out. There are some stains that they don't want on their resumes.

And yet there are still true believers who can't see it. No matter how likeable Oral Roberts and Barack Obama are, there really is such a thing as a con game. Admitting that you've been taken really does hurt.

Oral Roberts - Physician, Heal Thyself

Oral Roberts, the famed Oklahoma faith-healer, has finally bought the six-foot pine condo.

Here's one of my earliest memories of this fabled con artist, from one of my first blog posts:

My first exposure to these clowns was through my grandmother. She had been crippled by a severe stroke, and lived with us most of the time. I can remember her watching this charlatan's TV programs, and watching Roberts "heal" shills from the audience. "I just wish I had that kind of faith," she would say, after Roberts would shriek that her illness was still with her because of her unbelief.

I think my intense opposition to scams, ripoffs, and con artists, regardless of their party affiliation, comes from watching Oral Roberts with my grandmother.

If you want to see a present day healing, you could do worse than this video. You'll get the general idea after the first minute, the baby Nyquil wears off at the 6:45 mark, and the Superiority Dance starts around 7:15.

At the 8:03 mark, the kid demonstrates that she might still be inhabited by Beelzebub. Or KISS bassist Gene Simmons.

At the 8:20 mark, the child is restored, and spends the rest of the video begging to be adopted by a nice elderly widow in Somalia.



That's all I've got on Oral Roberts. I absolutely detest that pious fraud and what he put my grandmother through.
Lock me in a room with Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, and a gun with only two bullets?
I'd probably shoot Oral Roberts twice.

A lot of this is just the beer talking. But if I didn't make my point....I really, really, really didn't like that man.

God forced Richard Roberts' Resignation

All I wanted to do before work this morning was sit in Starbucks and read the paper.

Star-Telegram.com: 11/29/2007 Roberts: God forced resignation

I don't ordinarily get worked up over the goings-on at 3rd tier Witch Doctor Finishing Schools, but there's a warm place in my heart for anyone connected to Oral Roberts.
My grandmother, Mamie, was disabled from a stroke, and lived with us part of the year.
When I was growing up, we only got one TV station.
One of those TV stations regularly carried the Oral Roberts TV "Ministry".
A regular feature of this "Ministry" was Oral berating people like Mamie who didn't have the faith to stand up and walk. I've hated that bastard ever since then.

TULSA, Okla.-- Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University Wednesday that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but that he did so because God insisted.

Richard, that's called getting out of town before the lynch mob arrives.... Mamie used to sit in her rocking chair while people like your Daddy screamed at her.

God told him on Thanksgiving that he should resign the next day, Roberts told students in the university's chapel.

That's when you realized God The Investigators had you, wasn't it?

"Every ounce of my flesh said no" to the idea, Roberts said, but he prayed over the decision with his wife and his father, Oral Roberts, and decided to step down.

For those who haven't followed it closely, Oral is having a few problems with the "Physician, Heal Thyself" thing in his old age. Oral's not doing well. Something about it reminds me of how Mamie used to sit there watching the TV, saying "I just wish I had that kind of faith...." when Oral would "heal" shills from the audience.

Roberts said he wanted to "strike out" against the people who were persecuting him, and considered countersuing, but "the Lord said, 'Don't do that,'" he said.

The Lord is correct, Richard....You're going to need to save every penny you've got for defense, not offense.

After submitting his resignation, he said that for the "first time in 60 days peace came into my heart."
Roberts spoke for only a few minutes and was applauded and cheered by students. He wiped away tears with a handkerchief and his hands.

Enjoy the peace in your heart while it lasts. They're still going to come after you with the long knives. Some of those students were applauding your departure, you Nimrod.

"This has nearly destroyed my family, and it's nearly destroyed ORU," Roberts said.

So close. So close. Maybe next time.

A lawsuit accuses Roberts of lavish spending at a time when the university faced more than $50 million in debt, including taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses and paying for a daughter to travel to the Bahamas aboard the university jet.
Roberts has previously said that God told him to deny the allegations. The week the lawsuit was filed, Richard Roberts said that God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion and taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses, and paying for a daughter to travel to The Bahamas aboard the university jet.

Ok, that's the last I'm going to write about these clowns. Mamie, wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying this.

There is no Oral Roberts, Jr. ....His name is Richard Roberts. But thanks for the links to my site

Someone, somewhere, has linked this site to the phrase "Oral Roberts, Jr." There is no such person. But people come in here and wander around anyway, and for that I am grateful.

It's hard to believe that anyone would name a child "Oral". The odds against consecutive generations making the same mistake are massive. Oral's son is named Richard. My previous posts on these two con-artists can be found here and here, should you need any background.

Senator Charles Grassley (Republican of Iowa) is conducting an investigation into Televangelist Ministries. 3 of his 6 targets are on the Board of Regents at Oral Roberts University.

Here's the latest on the sorta related mess at ORU....

TULSA, Okla. -- A former senior accountant for Oral Roberts University claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that he was ordered to help school President Richard Roberts and his wife "cook the books" by hiding financial wrongdoing from authorities and the public.

Most of the accusations of financial misdeeds are generic - plane trips for the kids, clothing purchases. But it's never the crime that gets us into trouble, it's the cover-up.

Two students also sued Wednesday in district court. Cornell Cross II and David Brown claim the wrongful termination of the three professors ruined the reputation of their degrees.

As Andrew Sullivan has commented elsewhere, it's not like a degree from Oral Roberts University has much of a reputation to begin with. Yale, Harvard, and The Devry School of Air Conditioning and Refrigerator repair all carry more clout....

Senator Charles Grassley Asks Ministries To Turn Over Financial Records Within One Month

The Lord has blessed....

Senate Panel Probes 6 Top Televangelists, Sen. Charles Grassley Asks Ministries To Turn Over Financial Records Within One Month - CBS News

CBS News has learned Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct. Letters were sent Monday to the ministries demanding that financial statements and records be turned over to the committee by December 6th.

According to Grassley's office, the Iowa Republican is trying to determine whether or not these ministries are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles. The six ministries identified as being under investigation by the committee are led by: Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn.

Three of the six - Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar - also sit on the Board of Regents for the Oral Roberts University.

Good enough. For more on info on the unrelated scandal going down at Oral Roberts University, click here. Yes, I'm still irritated because Oral Roberts didn't heal my grandmother.
But can you imagine an Oral Roberts University Board of Regents meeting with that ghastly crew?
Has anyone ever had the nerve to call in sick?
Not with all those Alpha-Male Faith Healers taking your illness as an affront to their powers. Oral, Richard, Benny, Kenny, and Creflo would drop everything, fly to your bedside, lay hands all over you, and not cease praying till you were 100% healed.

Otherwise, people would talk.

Here's where it gets interesting, and not for the reasons you might think. There's a Dallas-based watchdog group that has been funneling information to the investigators for years:

The letters sent Monday were the culmination of a long investigation fueled in part by complaints from Ole Anthony, a crusader against religious fraud who operates the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, which describes itself as a watchdog monitoring religious media, fraud and abuse. "We've been working with them for two years," Anthony told CBS News. "We have furnished them with enough information to fill a small Volkswagen."

Ole Anthony is also publisher of a satirical religous magazine called "The Wittenburg Door". This magazine was hilarious 25 years ago, but has lost something in the interval.

Here's some more info about Ole Anthony, linked here from a Dallas Observer article of about a year ago. I happened to read it shortly after it was published, and maybe that's why I don't think "The Wittenburg Door" is very funny any longer:

....allegations that Trinity is a cult began as early as the late '70s and have surfaced numerous times since, often by members' families, sometimes by the media. In 1989, Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News wrote, "there are times when even to its members the foundation looks like a cult of personality."

More than a dozen former Trinity members interviewed by the Dallas Observer agree that Trinity bears many cult-like traits:
• Zealous commitment to a domineering leader not accountable to any authority.
• Discouragement or punishment of dissent and doubt.
• Use of mind-altering techniques such as denunciation sessions--the infamous hot seats.
• Dictation by leadership of how followers should act, sometimes in great detail.
• Breakdown of personal boundaries, such as denying members permission to marry.
• Encouraging a sense of elitism or special status for the group.
• Fostering an "us vs. them" mentality.

There's more. I think Ole Anthony is simply trying to tear down his more succesful role models:
ABC had accused (Robert) Tilton of manufacturing tears; people were noticing Anthony had the same skill. "I think Ole is a classic sociopath," Larry Ferguson says. "I don't think he knows what real emotions are."

But the biggest issue was the far-fetched stories. Anthony always had a new tale: In addition to being a spy, he'd been a helicopter pilot and crashed when he had a backpacking and survival company in Montana, and he was also in Vietnam setting up nuclear test stations and in Colombia trading coca leaves for intelligence and on and on.

The next question: Who is going to investigate the investigators?

Update from November 25, 2007.....You can click here for an update on The Oral Roberts University investigation.

Oral R.U. Without Dick ?

Oral Roberts University may lose Dick "Richard" Roberts, the current university president.
A THREE-RING CIRCUS
Three instructors have been fired, there are allegations that current ORU first lady Lindsey Roberts likes 'em young, that money has been misplaced, and that documents have been shredded. The University comptroller has been fired. In a faith-healing gone bad, three blind men were made lame.

Oral Roberts, the university's founder, started his career with small tent revivals and faith healings. This grew to a multi-media empire, including radio, TV programs, and Oral Roberts University. Because of a unique fund-raising vision of a massive Christ, Roberts also inspired one of the great rapper names: MC 900ft Jesus

My first exposure to these clowns was through my grandmother. She had been crippled by a severe stroke, and lived with us most of the time. I can remember her watching this charlatan's TV programs, and watching Roberts "heal" shills from the audience. "I just wish I had that kind of faith," she would say, after Roberts would shriek that her illness was still with her because of her unbelief.

This is from the Associated Press article that ran in the Startlegram:
Oral Roberts, who lives in California, said last week that the allegations against his family had blindsided him, "but we have been through some tough experiences in building Oral Roberts University in the 1960s, and we have surprised them all and have built a university that we believe is for the glory of God."
The Roberts family ministry grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
The elder Roberts founded the school, known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, in 1963. He famously told viewers in 1987 that God told him to raise $8 million for the university or he would be "called home."

There is a "Scandal Vulnerability Assesment" document tied to the lawsuit brought by the three dismissed instructors. Scandal Vulnerability? As if there's a side to these goobers that's remotely ethical? How would you go about looking for an Oral/Richard Roberts scandal? They're Faith-Healers, for heaven's sake. You couldn't throw a stick at ORU without hitting a scandal. If I'm a Whited Sepulchre, these guys are Gleaming Charnel Houses.

In a recent statement, Richard Roberts told a congregation that "God told him to deny the allegations". Would he have not done so otherwise?

Addition on November 23, 2007.....Click here and here for updates on the Oral Roberts University mess and a related mess.

And for the final comment I intend to make on these clowns, click here to read about Richard Roberts' pitiful resignation. And a few more comments about Big Daddy Oral not having the faith necessary to get off his deathbed and walk.