Miracles! Angels!

[DavidDvorkin]

A baby survives a tornado, and it's a miracle and because angels were watching over him. Meanwhile, the tornado killed his young mother, and that doesn't enter into the smiling posts.

Grr.

[varkam]

1. It's retrofitting, and most Christians excel at it.

You count the hits and you ignore the misses. Baby survives a natural disaster? Miracle. Young mother dies in a horrifying fashion? Mysterious ways.

[TZ]

5. Did you ever notice though...

That when things like Hurricane Katrina hits poor,black, democratic areas, its always because God must be "mad at them". And they deserved it. So why isn't it with these midwestern nitwits, that the tornado hit them because God hates them? Hypocrites.

[Warpy]

2. One prayer in a lifetime of useless prayers gets "answered"

and the magical thinker believes in the awesome power of prayer. Hell, he believed in all the useless ones, too. He just thought he wasn't praying hard enough.

One baby survives a tornado that kills over 50 people, and believers ignore the streets ankle deep in rubble, body parts and blood and proclaim the awesome mercy of the lord of the universe.

It might be a rather cold world out here without a community of starry eyed believers to surround me and pretend to protect me from the vicissitudes of life, but I know better and I'm just too damned honest to give lip service and play the game.

I guess we'll all just have to cope.

[enki23]

3. what's even worse is the unthinking egotism of prayer

when the people, and families of people who survived the destruction give thanks to the ever-good, ever-merciful god without a moment's thought for the dead and the wounded, and everyone who cares about them. i see it on the news all the time. pure, unthinking egotism. i think it comes from their "personal relationship with jesus christ," at least to some extent. christianity is a very, very egotistical religion here in america. it's all about jesus and *me*. not so much jesus and *us*. (except, of course, when they want to alter your behavior.)

[Kolesar]

4. I think it is a defect in human wiring

We want mercy or protection and we think we deserve it if we toady to the Big One.

[funflower]

9. Spot on. The parents of college students who were "miraculously protected"

seem to have forgotten about the parents of the many who died elsewhere.

[Deep13]

6. Pope JP2 said when he was shot...

...one of the numerous "our Lady Of" incantations guided the bullet to prevent him from being killed. Why not guide the bullet to miss him altogether or why not guide the soul of the shooter not to shoot? The answer of course is that suffering is supoosed to make one holy. Frankly, I find this to be the single most detestable thing about Christanity. Well, that an the idea that God can keep tormenting someone after s/he has died forever.

[moggie]

7. You know what saved JP2's life?

Of course you do: doctors. Human skill and medical science, of the sort which probably wouldn't exist if his church still held as much power as it did back in the day. When he was shot, they rushed him to hospital, not church. If prayer isn't enough even for God's underboss, I guess they don't really have much faith in it.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. The religious rush to the ER

And then proclaim a miracle and call it God's love at work if the patient survives.