Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's why I find it amusing when fundamentalists get their panties in a bunch about fortune telling, tarot cards and the like: what's the difference between that and Pat Robertson's fake predictions? I especially like this part:
Last year, Robertson predicted that a terrorist act, possibly involving a nuclear weapon, would result in mass killing in the United States. Noting that it hadn't come to pass, Robertson said, "All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us."
And this is exactly why supernatural actions cannot be a part of science: they can't be tested because no matter what happens, you can always find a rationalization for why it didn't happen. The supernatural entity changed its mind. The "negative energy" of disbelief interfered with the psychic's ability to foretell the signs on the cards. No matter what happens, it is consistent with the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is consistent with any outcome or any set of data, it is quite literally meaningless.
Comments
Unfortunately, God appeared to me in a dream and foretold that there will actually be people that believe Pat Robertson's predictions and send him money.
In other news, the son is predicted to rise in the East, sometime tomorrow. In the morning.
Posted by: J-Dog | January 8, 2008 10:33 AM
If psychic ability were actually demonstrated to exist through the high standards of science, then there would be nothing wrong with positing -- and even testing -- that someone's "negative energy" interfered with the results. You'd be able to show that there was such a thing as negative energy, and figure out how and when it worked.
Ditto for God and prayer. But as it stands, the only thing that's demonstrable is the believer's commitment to spin negative results into positive results, so that the theory itself is unfalsifiable and they're still a good boy who trusts it's all real.
Why aren't predictions from God ever specific and really remarkable? Even if terrorists had dropped an atomic bomb on the US, that's not exactly unforseeible. Heck, my dad predicted it just the other day.
Posted by: Sastra | January 8, 2008 10:51 AM
Well, that's the thing about claiming God told you things, isn't it? Makes it really, really easy to weasel out of it and evade responsibility when those things don't happen.
No, Pat, it wasn't that people prayed and God changed her mind. It was that you were wrong. Be nice if you would just man up and admit that.
Posted by: Elaine | January 8, 2008 11:04 AM
If he's talking to God, couldn't he have asked Him why the bomb didn't drop on us? Or is it a one-sided conversation?
Posted by: jan | January 8, 2008 11:14 AM
I predict that Pat Robertson will not be stoned as a false prophet.
Posted by: Jim Anderson | January 8, 2008 11:19 AM
Exactly, which is why I think it is really unfair to excuse belief in the supernatural by saying "and this is exactly why supernatural actions cannot be a part of science." Totally untrue. If the results had been positive, sure as shit no one would be talking about how the supernatural is "outside the domain of science." It's only after the experiments fail to deliver the expected results that the believers change their tunes. That sort of weak rationalizing certainly should not be advanced as a respectable position.
Posted by: H. Humbert | January 8, 2008 11:24 AM
Well, duh. It's because God talks to Pat, but tarot cards are from the devil. So even if you're right with the cards, it's the devil leading you on. See, he'll be right over and over, and then give you some huge prediction that will be wrong and damn you to hell forever bwahahahahah. While God will be wrong to test your faith, or because you made him change his mind.
Can't you see that?
Posted by: The Ridger | January 8, 2008 11:51 AM
Maybe Pat's daily breakfast of protein-packed, age-defying pancakes are taking the edge off his ability to tell the future.
Or maybe when Pat claims to be speaking to God he's just talking to himself.
Posted by: CHV | January 8, 2008 12:00 PM
It's amazing what a dick these people believe the God they worship to be. "Well, okay. I suppose since you asked nice enough I won't kill a million people with a nuclear explosion, expose millions more to radiation, destroying a whole city and likely crippling the economy. But only because you asked nicely and hard enough!"
Also, I have some zebra repellent to sell them. Of course it works! Do you see any zebras around??!
Posted by: SteveyD | January 8, 2008 12:02 PM
J-Dog: Your typo "son" instead of "sun" reminded me of a quote I read from a Flat Earther. He said if you can't believe in the rising of SUN how can you believe the rising of the SON? Can't argue with that...
Posted by: wrpd | January 8, 2008 1:54 PM
To quote Lewis Black, "I have thoughts."
At what stage, and in what manner, did God stop in to save us from hot, glowy, plasma-themed death?
The disgruntled and impoverished Russian scientist who was going to sell the required U-235 stumbled into a God-placed hunk of pure gold? Thus he completely forgot about his black market dealings as he and his family move to Hollywood.
There is a very pissed off terrorist cell in downtown New York right now trying to figure out why every 9 volt they stick in their detonator instantly drops to zero charge? For seven straight months.
Perhaps there is just a vacant lot where the terrorist had been meeting? One night there was a blue flash, a waft of ozone, and the planet was suddenly shy one brownstone, seven terrorists and one thermonuclear device.
I just hate to think that God actually switched a couple neurons around in their noodles. That would be a violation of free will and certainly would be inconsistent with Christian theology. That could never happen.
Posted by: Sean | January 8, 2008 4:59 PM
This god fellow sounds like a real "generous" guy. All you have to do is get millions of people in the bible belt to kiss his ass daily and he'll lift a finger to prevent mass murder.
Posted by: Matthew | January 8, 2008 6:56 PM
"All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us."
I don't understand this sentence. First of all, why did Robertson include the word "somehow"? Is praying to the Christian god (obviously, by "people of God," Robertson means "Christians") some sort of arduous, physically demanding task, an activity that people are unlikely to undertake or be successful in completing because of the strain and effort involved? The word makes no sense in the context of the sentence that it is in.
As for the sentence itself, is Robertson saying that because Christians prayed for a U.S. terrorist attack not to happen, God somehow changed the minds of terrorists planning such an attack? It sure seems like it. I thought Christians like Robertson believed in the concept of free will, that their God cannot prevent people from doing evil acts (or anything else, for that matter). If they are ready to chuck that concept, then I have questions like the following: What about all the people who prayed, pre-9/11, for God to prevent something like those awful attacks from happening? Why didn't God "spare us" then?
Posted by: daniel rotter | January 8, 2008 9:38 PM
No, Christians like Robertson believe in the concept of free will for Americans.
There are probably some other Christians out there who are a bit more magnanimous on who they allow to have free will, but I dunno.
Posted by: Skemono | January 8, 2008 10:34 PM
That's Rev. Magnanimous to you;-)
Thanks, Pat, for another black eye to God.
Posted by: Rev. AJB | January 8, 2008 11:32 PM
Pat Robertson does not engage in fortune telling, Pat Robertson engages in prophesy. Then again, back in the day prophesy was what we now call punditry. Just as accurate, but better composed.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | January 9, 2008 1:14 AM
Look at his predictions for this year:
"Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010."
He is taking the low-risk approach this time: I dont need god whispering in my ear to predict those. Most economists agree there will be some type of recession now, they are just arguing over how severe it will be - and a year of violence is just obvious, with the US still engaged in Afganistan and Iraq, a possible confrontation with Iran, political unread in Pakistan and instability in Kenya.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | January 9, 2008 4:02 AM
In the name of freedom of religion, let them both go on. They should be equally able to part the stupid and gullible from their money.
Posted by: Donna | January 9, 2008 8:55 AM
This is downright spooky. At the start of last year, I predicted that Pat Robertson would say something that made him look like a colossal idiot. I'd go in for Randi's $1 million prize if he wasn't winding it down.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | January 9, 2008 2:46 PM