Pat Robertson Says the Christian Thing to do is, “Destroy Your Friend’s Buddha Statue”

Categorized | Loon Pastors

Tags | anti-Buddhist, Buddha, Christian Religious Verdict, Christianity, Evangelical, Idols, Islam, Islamophobia, Muslims, Pat Robertson, Statues, What if they were Muslim

Pat Robertson Says the Christian Thing to do is, “Destroy Your Friend’s Buddha Statue”

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Emperor

Everyone knows the Taliban are just the Afghan version of the Pat Robertson’s of the world, right? Pat Robertson was asked on air by a concerned Christian named “Jenny” about a moral quandary she had relating to her roommate’s “Buddha statue.”

Jenny: My friend who is a Christian has a Buddha statue next to her Christian ones. Is this ok?

Pat Robertson, who always speaks Biblically gave a pretty unequivocal answer, “Destroy it.”

Pat Robertson: No its not. Take it away and break it. Break it! Destroy it.

So the message is Christian statues are OK but not Buddhist ones, oh and don’t respect the property of other peoples!

Pat Robertson: Destroy Your Friends Buddha Statue

(WhatIfTheyWereMuslim.com)

Here at WITWM, we frown upon all acts of religious desecration. When the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in March of 2001 it was not only unIslamic but immoral on many levels. Now Pat Robertson is calling for similar measures, can one imagine if a Muslim Imam had said something similar? As of now there is barely a peep about this. (h/t Critical Dragon)

corey

@ummer
IbnAbuTalib

Why isn’t LoonWatch banning this idiot bigot Ummer?
Ummer

I totally agree with Pat Robertson here… but he should have also said “destroy the christian idols as well”.

As for those who loved the Afghan buddhas, I’m sure they hated the idea of funds for poor starving Afghans. Some people believe statues need food…

I was so happy to learn that the Easter Islanders toppled many Easter Island heads, they understood the devastation of their forefathers love for statues.

As for the claim of destroying statues being unislamic, actually it’s very islamic. I wouldn’t be surprised if Buddha himself would advocate destroying all these statues to which he never advocated for.

The difference here is that back in 2001 there were the drums of war sounding. Today still we have the UN backed left wing that wants to go after gun owners, libertarians, returning veterans and all that is whitey. This is not hypocrisy, but encroaching divide of America.

I’m very concerned about the high number of atheists on this site. They come here claiming to believe that they’re going to help muslims when in fact you’ll find them to be the most ardent enemies of islam and instead will be behind polytheists first!

The aggression of these polytheist supporters is so evident even here that they would bash humans and love statues. That sure is a sickness in my opinion. And not only that, they would defend their statues and burn the books!

No the historical statues are worthless! Polytheists have no evidence for their believes, so rather than provide proof… they bury things in the ground so that someone in the future will believe them!

Why give respect to something destroyed lives and economies!?

Though the Christian thing to do would be to first destroy your own buddha. The muslim thing was that in Afghanistan, because they were their own buddhas.
Mohammed-Kamrul

@ HalalPork

The Saudi’s didn’t create toilet at the site where Prophet Muhammad was born. That’s an absolute lie. Saudi’s built a library there and the toilets are at the site where Abu Lahab used to live. Get your facts correct mate, I’ve been to Makkah and seen it myself.
Pamela

Pat Robertson needs to take his medicine, telling people to destroy other peoples property is just one step away from telling others to attack people for being different.
Black Infidel

There is video footage of Pat Robertson supporting Dominionism back in the 80′s or 90′s. In the 2000′s when asked is he a dominionist he pretend he never heard of it.

It’s still debatable if Buddhism is a religion or philosophy or both. Buddhism is atheistic, since there is no God(s), Goddess(es) or other deities.

Buddhism doesn’t attach itself to statues, idols etc.. Buddha statues and be looked at as paying homage to Siddhattha Gotama.
dan20

What if he were Muslim?

There are people that post on LoonWatch who openly support the Taliban, and their opinions are heralded as seeking justice. These are the same people who wouldn’t hesitate to support the destruction of Egypt’s ancient heritage, for one, since Salafis salivate at the thought of cleansing Egypt of idols. I shouldn’t have to bring up how these same puritanical jackasses also had no problem destroying 12th century Buddha statues in Maldives, but according to many here, ANY criticism of Muslim puritans like the Taliban or al-Qaeda is considered Islamophobic, amirite?
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@Summer Seale

I actually never said that there were no anti theists out there that thought Pat Robertson represented the true Christianity. There are probably also bigoted people of other faiths that think that he represents the true Christianity as well. Maybe I wasn’t clear on exactly what I meant?
http://www.summerseale.com Summer Seale

@CriticalDragon1177

“Now just imagine how offensive it would be if someone came out said Pat Robertson represented the true Christianity?”

Maybe people here didn’t understand me clearly enough in my anti-theism, so I’ll save you the bother for looking for somebody else to say it:

Pat Robertson represents the true Christianity.

If you didn’t get that from anti-theists, you haven’t been reading us very much.
Reynardine

I had a roommate that disrespectful, long ago, and although age has rather mellowed me on most accounts, if I could rewind to my early twenties with what I know now, I’d smash that roommate’s arrogant, filching fingers (and no, I am not basing that judgement on any religious principle whatever).
Nur Alia

Funny…

The question that was asked indicated that the ‘friend’ had the Buddha statue ‘next to the Christian ones’.

A ‘Christian’ like Pat Robertson would ignore the commandment not to have a ‘graven image’ in the home to represent God, and would tell the person to destroy the image of the Buddha, who was a man, rather than the ‘icons’ that represent God because they were ‘Christian’.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@Garibaldi

Responding to Summer Seale you wrote,
————————————————————————-
Summer, the fact is there is a double standard at heart here. It’s not just Pat Robertson, there are many in the Christian fundamentalist movement who echo these sentiments. Even when the Taliban did what they did, there were those fundamentalist Christians who ironically said, “hurray!”
————————————————————————-

I don’t know of any, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find some.

You wrote,
————————————————————————-
While yes, “it is Pat Robertson” and “it is totally insane” we do not hear similar outcries regarding such horrendous pronouncements, even you revert to a weird, out of place if tepid defense of Robertson, “he’s not acting like Taliban in this instance.” We do not hear individuals say “its totally insane” that’s just “sheikh/mullah/ayatollah____.” We are constantly told that what the “Taliban” do is Islam, what so-and-so Muslim did or said is Islam and then the conclusion is Islam is UNIQUE in some way from other religions, ideologies, etc. in its “intolerance” of the Other.
————————————————————————-

Yeah, I agree, Pat Robertson is saying that you should destroy someone else’s property because it represents a god other than his own. He is being very intolerant and Taliban like. People need to understand that the Taliban’s extremism wasn’t simply because of Islam. The Taliban no more represents mainstream Muslims than Pat Robertson represents mainstream Christians. Now just imagine how offensive it would be if someone came out said Pat Robertson represented the true Christianity?

You wrote,
————————————————————————-
Yes, Robertson may not be targeting a “thousand year old” statue in this specific case, (though you amend that and say “he probably would”)…but the offense is as great. It is the desecration of a religious symbol of another faith! To use terminology you may be more comfortable with it is as close to a Christian fatwa or “religious verdict” as you’re going to get, and yet because it’s just old, cranky Pat we are to not “pay attention.” Well a certain million 700 Club viewers worldwide do, so maybe its about time we address these double standards and hypocrisies and stop the PC about it being “b*itchy” to point out.
————————————————————————-

Couldn’t agree more. We should also stress that he’s calling for someone to destroy another person’s private property, for their “own good” so to speak.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@Mindy1

You wrote,
————————————————————————-
Who takes this man seriously?? Why follow such a hateful nut???
————————————————————————-

Too many people unfortunately. A lot of people watch his 700 Club.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@Emperor

I was thinking of the Taliban and those Bamiyan Buddhas Statues. We can just imagine how Spencer would treat him if he were a Muslim and he said something like this, yet I think that Spencer has appeared on the 700 Club, Robertson is a supporter of Spencer.
http://www.summerseale.com Summer Seale

I can’t but agree with you both on the Robertson thing so I’ll leave it at that.
http://www.loonwatch.com Emperor

Considering your points Summer, and not wanting anymore confusion, I’ve edited the “What if” portion of the article to reflect more accurately what I intended.

As far as the Taliban being the Afghan version of the Pat Robertson’s of the world, that is a tongue-in-cheek statement. Maybe no one caught it, but its funny how these people are always described as “American Taliban” etc. I see it as an attempt to normalize Islam as the example of fanaticism since the Taliban are always conflated with Islam. This also occurs elsewhere in discourse with words such as jihad and fatwa being used as the prime examples of extremism and fanaticism even though there are examples and points of reference much closer to home in the West and the US specifically. But, meh, maybe we can just blame this too on globalizaiton.
Garibaldi

@Summer,

I agree that there is a difference in degree of proportionality between destroying a world heritage artifact and a more generic one, no doubt, both however are WRONG that’s what we are saying. Also, no one is calling for worldwide outrage a la what occurred over the Bamiyan statues, to bring this point up seems to be a bit of a diversion and overly pedantic.

Point is “What if he were Muslim?,” there would be a lot more play considering the anti-Islam/Muslim atmosphere in the West, and Islamophobic talking-points about Islam’s unique inability to tolerate the other would be moistened by the usual hate hordes that descend on any story to do with Islam or Muslims, not to mention the Islamophobic looniverse that exists on the internets.
http://www.summerseale.com Summer Seale

As an atheist, I think that Christianity is full of stupid, brutal, and violent rhetoric.

You’ll *never* get any argument out of me on that point. =)

I just make the distinction with saying things and actually doing them. And I make the distinction with doing them against individuals and groups of people. And I also make the distinction with doing them against every day objects and priceless and unique items of historical significance which, I believe, belong to the history of humanity and not just to one religion or ethnicity.

I don’t know how to be more clear on my opposition to Pat Robertson and his ilk. I just don’t think it’s hypocritical for the world not to get up in arms about a small story like this as opposed to, say, his ordering somebody to burn a Koran that is 1200 years old. Now, if he actually did say that, and if you didn’t get massive appeals not to do such a thing, I would call that hypocritical. I doubt, however, that this would happen. We all saw what happened when that idiotic pastor tried to burn a store-bought Koran. You even had the President trying to intervene. Imagine if he had tried to burn an archaeological relic that was over a thousand years old. You don’t remember this? I mean, that’s a clear example right there of the world reacting to a stupid act of destruction. So, obviously, the world actually does give a damn.

Just because the world didn’t react to people saying “Hurray!” while that happened doesn’t mean that it wasn’t noticed. And just because the world isn’t reacting to this specific instance of Pat Robertson’s idiotic words doesn’t mean that the world isn’t watching and waiting until he actually does something stupid like try to personally destroy something in public.

I don’t think that the offense of targeting a store-bought Buddha is even close to being that of targeting a 2000 year old statue. I personally don’t give a damn if somebody actually burns a Bible, a Koran, a Gita, or an Edda – I think it’s stupid and destructive to do so, but I just shrug and move on. But if they’re going to take objects out of museums and start breaking them, turning our human history into dust, then I’m going to start getting upset.

LIke I said: It doesn’t have to be about religion. If somebody is going to burn the Mona Lisa, I will get just as upset as I did with the Buddhas. If somebody is going to try to burn a 1200 year old Koran, I will get just as upset as if they were going to bomb the Buddhas.

If somebody is just calling for another person to burn a store-bought Koran, or a Bible, or whatever other holy book there is, I’m not going to think it’s a great idea, but I’m not going to stop and protest. The only thing I am going to protest in this case is his lack of manners, his sheer hypocrisy, and his calling for property damage which is actually against the law.

Maybe I can be more nuanced about it than others can, but that’s where I stand. If you want me to start passing around petitions to the U.N. to stop somebody from breaking a relic that has lasted hundreds or thousands of years, I’m your girl. But if you’re going to want me to react in an incredibly upset tone at what Pat Robertson says in this *specific* video, then I’m not.

I don’t think that this is a hypocritical stance at all; I think that it is one with nuance.

Then again, I have to be completely honest: I call them “The American Taliban”, but they aren’t – yet. I know that some of them would like to be (that’s clear enough), but they don’t even come close to being something so grotesque as that. To be sure, there world is full of fundamentalists of all stripes, but very few of them actually end up acting out their twisted fantasies of purity. The Taliban are one such example, the Nazis are another, the Interahamwe “Genocidaires” were yet another group (with support from Catholic priests, might I add – see? I’m not against blaming them either). We did bomb Milosevic and, as we all know, Mladic is even in the dock *today* for that crime. Karadic was apprehended, and Milosevic died in prison only a few years after his own crimes. They were doing it for “The Lord Jesus” as well.

There’s a big difference between saying a thing and doing it. I put the Taliban up there with those maniacs, and I don’t put Robertson up there – yet. The reason is that for all his talk, he hasn’t actually gone out and put a bullet in people’s head for not obeying “The Lord Jesus”. If and when he actually starts mouthing that people should, and actively engages in creating that sort of atmosphere, I’ll put him in the exact same category and petition that he should be bloody well bombed.
Garibaldi

I don’t think anyone is calling for “worldwide outrage,” and I doubt that is what was meant by Emperor in the post when he wrote “where is the outrage.” There should be outrage, condemnation, etc. about this, though many people realize Robertson’s a crank, he’s got sway and followers worldwide.
Garibaldi

Summer, the fact is there is a double standard at heart here. It’s not just Pat Robertson, there are many in the Christian fundamentalist movement who echo these sentiments. Even when the Taliban did what they did, there were those fundamentalist Christians who ironically said, “hurray!”

While yes, “it is Pat Robertson” and “it is totally insane” we do not hear similar outcries regarding such horrendous pronouncements, even you revert to a weird, out of place if tepid defense of Robertson, “he’s not acting like Taliban in this instance.” We do not hear individuals say “its totally insane” that’s just “sheikh/mullah/ayatollah____.” We are constantly told that what the “Taliban” do is Islam, what so-and-so Muslim did or said is Islam and then the conclusion is Islam is UNIQUE in some way from other religions, ideologies, etc. in its “intolerance” of the Other.

Yes, Robertson may not be targeting a “thousand year old” statue in this specific case, (though you amend that and say “he probably would”)…but the offense is as great. It is the desecration of a religious symbol of another faith! To use terminology you may be more comfortable with it is as close to a Christian fatwa or “religious verdict” as you’re going to get, and yet because it’s just old, cranky Pat we are to not “pay attention.” Well a certain million 700 Club viewers worldwide do, so maybe its about time we address these double standards and hypocrisies and stop the PC about it being “b*itchy” to point out.
http://www.summerseale.com Summer Seale

@Halal Pork

Interesting name choice. =)

Yeah, I would never say it’s acceptable to destroy somebody’s things, religious or otherwise. I’m completely against the concept itself. I just don’t think it’s going to be made into a world wide case and uproar unless it happens to be some sort of cultural heritage icon – religious or otherwise.

I mean, it doesn’t even have to be religious. Imagine if a group of fanatics take over Paris and then threaten to burn the Mona Lisa because they’re against iconographic art. Trust me, you won’t have to have religious sentiments to get global outrage.

I’m just saying that in the case of the Buddhas in Bamiyan, it was more about the cultural heritage which was being destroyed than about the religious significance.

Either way, Pat Robertson is a douche to say that. But we all knew he was before he said that anyway. If his followers go around destroying stuff, though, I would want him held personally accountable. So if this person actually destroys that statue – cultural heritage or not, valuable or not – I would want him to face charges in court for ordering his followers to do that.
Halal Pork

If a Christian venerate the STATUE of BUDHA,that is certainly not acceptable.I have got one as an antique.I had Mohammad engraved with Gabriel overshadowing him.It was quite valuable piece to collect but I gave that away to some friend which I regret now.If somebody keeps a cow for milk but does not worship it then that should be acceptable.The Taliban should not have demolished those Items in Afghanistan.The Kabba is over 1400 years old and I would hate to see it demolished by unbelievers.It would also creat uproar among Muslims. Although, they are at liberty to do what ever they like.The Saudis demolished the house where Mohammad was born and built TOILETS there.
Summer Seale

It’s totally insane, but it’s Pat Robertson.

As far as I can tell, however, he’s not calling for somebody to break a statue that is thousands of years old and a cultural heritage. I know the principle is the same, but it isn’t to most people. The destruction of the statues of Buddha by the Taliban were not just reviled because it was a religious symbol being destroyed, but because it was a cultural and archaeological artifact which was being destroyed.

It’s the same as if you buy a Bible or Koran and decide to burn it. Will it get some people up in arms? Of course it will. But imagine, then, that you declare that you have a copy of a Gutenberg Bible, or a Koran written from 1200 years ago by hand and are going to publicly burn it.

Now, instead of just getting religious people upset, you’re going to get everyone upset. Even atheists like myself. And why? Because you’re not just burning a religious symbol, but a piece of humanity’s heritage which can never be replaced. That’s why it’s different.

Pat Robertson isn’t acting like the Taliban here in this specific instance because he’s not calling for a cultural heritage monument to be destroyed – although (AND I’M GOING TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THIS CLEARLY TO AVOID PROBLEMS LIKE LAST TIME):

I think that Pat Robertson *WOULD* order a cultural heritage icon to be destroyed if he could.

So, while he’s not *exactly* mirroring the Taliban in this *specific* instance, he’s still the kind of whackjob hateful nutter who falls into their camp on most issues, and it is entirely applicable to compare him as such. That’s why people such as myself call his kind “The American Taliban” (and we mean it).

Just don’t b*tch about the rest of the world not taking up arms about somebody’s non-cultural heritage icon being targeted by Pat Robertson because most of us have better things to do than pay attention to him most of the time.
TheBig-T

and yet they B*tch and moan about the Taliban destroying the Buddha statue

Hypocrisy at its finest
mindy1

Who takes this man seriously?? Why follow such a hateful nut???