On The 700 Club today, Pat Robertson read a sad letter from a woman named Cathy. She had been sick and prayed for healing, and — miracle of miracles — the problem went away! But then the sickness came back.

She wanted to know, “Why would God heal you and then give the ailment back to you after you praised Him for healing you?”

It’s a damn good question. A tough one, too. You might think Robertson would give a standard response, like “God works in mysterious ways”… but that’s not what he did.

Instead, he blamed Cathy for allowing the disease to come back. If only she had trusted God a little more…

… Remember Jesus gave a teaching about a demon. He said, you know, after the demon is cast out of a person, he goes in the air and land, seeking someplace, and then he goes back to the house that he left. And he finds it swept and garnished, and he brings seven more worse than Himself. So disease, you know, has a certain life to it. Some diseases, they’re like animate creatures, and they want to go back to the house where they live. And you have to fill that void with something. And that’s what the teaching was: you have to be filled with the spirit of God. And that disease is gone. But you somehow welcome it back. It isn’t God putting it back. The disease wants to come back, and you receive it. So you have to begin to stand against these things. So that’s all I can say, yeah.

If I have Robertson’s logic correct, the disease went away and left a void in Cathy’s body. Cathy was supposed to fill it up (somehow) with Jesus. But she didn’t do that because, no matter her faith, she’s a dirty little heathen. So when the disease was looking for a place to stay, it found a home in the Jesusless void named Cathy. If only she had believed a little harder, she’d be healthy today.

That’s like a passage straight out of a Creationist epidemiology textbook…

All of this is nonsense. Some diseases come back for the simple reason that our bodies remain susceptible to them. Even certain vaccines require booster shots, right?

Or maybe I’m wrong and atheists better watch out. I heard we have God-shaped holes in our hearts. And if Dr. Pat Robertson is right, those holes are bound to get filled up with Devil Spit real soon.

(Thanks to Kyle for the link)

