Pat Robertson Tells Grieving Mother God Let Her 15 Year Old Son Die So He Wouldn’t Become an Atheist

‘Would He Have Started Drinking? Would He Have Gone Away From the Lord?’

Televangelist Pat RobertsonÂ on Thursday told a grieving mother whose teenaged son had died in January that God took him to prevent him from becoming an atheist or an alcoholic.Â

“Why does out Father allow us to go through this pain and torment?” a viewer identified as “Christina” wrote to Robertson, asking him to help her understand why her 15-year old son died.

Robertson had many choices in how to respond, but as Hemant Mehta writes atÂ Friendly Atheist, he chose poorly.

“These things happen,” Robertson told the mother, who, understandably says she is “confused and angry.”

“We live in a world of wickedness. And God does not necessarily spare us from these things. He will teach us once weâ€™re in the difficult situation, He will help us to overcome it. But not necessarily will He spare everybody from â€” youâ€™ll say, ‘Why does my Father allow this to happen?’ The loss of a child is a terrible grief. But, you know, the thing about that child at 15, maybe he was, you know, living for the Lord at 15. I donâ€™t know anything about him; Iâ€™m presuming he was,” Robertson prattles on.

“So what wouldâ€™ve happened maybe 10 years from now?” the octogenarian former Baptist minister continues. “Would he have started drinking? Would he have gone away from the Lord? What wouldâ€™ve happened? So God, who sees the end from the beginning, knows what would happen to that child, and because He loves the child and loves him, He wants to bring him to Heaven forever, and He wants to spare him some of the bad things that would happen down the road.”

What a terrible thing to tell a parent who has lost their child.

“So if I have this right,” Mehta says, “God loves us so much that he would killÂ us, putting our loved ones through never-ending emotional pain, just to prevent us from questioning His existence.”

“Those donâ€™t sound like the actions of a loving Lord,” Mehta observes. “Those sound like the threats of a brutal dictator.”

Indeed.

It was just one month ago that Robertson said the Las Vegas massacre, that left 58 people dead and 546 injured, happened because Americans have shownÂ a lack of respect for PresidentÂ Donald Trump, God, the national anthem, veterans, and the court system. This is the same Pat Robertson whoÂ blamed the 9/11 terror attacks on gay and lesbian people.