God Speaks Through Tiny Miracles, and the Faithful...Listen

[GOPFighter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35881-2005Apr7.html

People lined up for miles to mourn the loss of Pope John Paul II, sending thousands of prayers, hoping he is up there. Some say he is a saint or should be a saint. Surely in heaven, but they are praying for him anyway, because he needs prayers until there is certainty he has arrived.

To prove he is indeed up there, people have gone in search of good, of hope, searching for an ease in the suffering.

Searching for miracles. Not big miracles like the parting of the Red Sea, the turning of water into wine, the feeding of a multitude with five loaves and two fishes.

But inexplicable coincidences, like when you need $29 and you look in that old coat and pull out three $10 bills. Like when you hear the news about the pope's passing and you and your husband both start crying at exactly the same time. Or like when a woman goes to bed at night in despair and wakes up in the morning to face a new day -- and a bright sun slips through her blinds

==============================
This is the kind of illogical crap that just pisses me off!

#1 This was the POPE! He needs prayers until there is a certainty he has arrived? I hate to say it folks, but if there is doubt that your most revered spiritual leader, the leader that has hijacked our news for over a week, is going to make it into heaven, you might want to rethink your religion.

#2 You need $29 and you reach into your pocket and find three $10 bills and you consider this a MIRACLE? I don't get it, when this happens to a believer it's a miracle, but when it happens to an atheist it's a what? Or when you go to bed in despair and wake up to face a new day and the sun is shining....THIS is a miracle?

These are not miracles, knuckleheads. These are just...inexplicable coincidences! These things happen to atheists too. It's part of life. Life gives us good and bad, sometimes it's very good and sometimes the very good comes at fortuitous moments.

It's pretty pathetic when the believers have to set the bar so low to feel like miracles happen in their life. If god had restored Terri Schiavo to full health on Easter morning...now THAT would be a miracle. But we know there is no god, and I suspect that deep down inside many of the "believers" suspect it too.

[Synnical]

1. I can't read this - the man is DEAD n/t

[onager]

2. Hurl! I couldn't finish it either

:puke:

One of the biggest piles of maundering, sheep-brained goop I've ever attempted to read...no easy achievement, considering events of the past month.

Quite a comedown for an allegedly omnipotent, omniscient, awesome Ruler Of The Universe! From causing worldwide floods, nuking Sodom and Gomorrah, and whipping up pillars of fire to guide a bunch of dumbasses on a 40-year trip thru a fairly small desert...

...to THIS bullshit? Ten dollar bills, knees that don't give out, THE FUCKING SUNRISE?

Maybe there was some point in history, before those desert goatherders invented their god, that the sun DIDN'T come up in the morning?

Sheesh. I need another drink.

[pauliedangerously]

3. I didn't even bother to read it...

Your synopsis was quite enough. You know, I've never thanked God for a damned thing. I've never asked God for a damned thing either.

Your last statement caught my eye. As I was re-trimming my garage today, I thought about "believers" quite a bit. I don't think they really believe that stuff. It's a game. They all lie to each other and use the word "god" to validate whatever bullshit they feel like spewing forth.

"Well, I was talking to GOD yesterday, and HE told me that the number seven wasn't always a prime number. In fact, a long time ago, before HE created the universe, it was an even number. Now I can't really explain it, you see, the devil is in the details, but you can be sure it's true because GOD told me so and GOD knows everything."

God is for the dimwitted and the fearful. Let it be a source of amusement. Have fun with it.

Do people ever ask God to get them laid? Hey, GOD, I have a strong urge to fornicate...could you hook me up? Can we get the forgiveness out of the way first so I can enjoy the orgasm?

[onager]

5. No problem! God used to hook people up all the time...

But like all the other miracles, he doesn't do that any more. Sorry, we're about 5000 years too late for any god-blessed canoodling.

He sure had a funny way of setting up dates, though. I guess it could be pretty rough on the surrounding neighborhoods...

Numbers 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

[Discord]

4. F'in nimrods.

I didn't step in dogshit today.... ITS A MIRACLE!!!!


:shrug:

[progressoid]

6. I was looking for a 1/8" drill bit. When I was cleaning the garage

today....guess what I found.

A 1/8" DRILL BIT!!

It's a fucking miracle!

[Taxloss]

7. That story reminds me of the Alanis Morrisette song "Ironic"

Just as little in her song was actually ironic, little in that story is a miracle. The entire thing is sentimental theist shit.

[fshrink]

8. Propaganda.

Only existing competition for happiness is Prozac. Religion is cheaper.

[FM Arouet666]

9. How can you deny miracles?

Miracles are obvious, they exist, and appear to mankind every single day. The sound of god during a rain storm, the flooding of the river when we haven't given an offering, the darkening of the sun with a dark circle, how can you explain these things? Miracles.

Oh, wait, it is the 21st century, we have science, rational skepticism, things can be explained in the natural world. Sorry, had a brief lack of oxygen to the brain.:+

Seems that the fundies want to revive not only religious fervor, but a world as ignorant as that which sparked their religion in the first place. Religion makes sense as a world view when you live in a time without science, lacking any other means to explain natural phenomena. People hold on it, rationalizing the inconsistencies, for one reason. Science does not offer a rosy view of death, and religion does. Seems pretty selfish........



:evilfrown:

[Bluebear]

10. "you and your husband both start crying at exactly the same time"

MM-hmm, big miracle! How else do you explain that???? People will be flocking to see the simultaneous weeping couple. :crazy:

[trotsky]

11. Remember the hits, ignore the misses.

It's human nature. We will recognize patterns, find meaning, and attribute causes no matter what.

As you say, these "miracles" happen to everyone - even atheists - and the only thing they prove is that life is cool at times, and it sucks at times. Period.

[Discord]

12. Like seeing Jesus in a french fry...

*boggle*

[Gelliebeans]

13. I think you are on to something trotsky

when I think of all the times I have searched through pockets for money (like laundry day) and of all those times I came up with money on maybe 2 occasions. People like to skew numbers and probability and give them a holy aura. sheesh

[EvolveOrConvolve]

14. Christians have perfect explanations for that

If a "miracle" occurs, god is rewarding his faithful christian soldiers. If something bad happens, it's just god testing the faith of his followers.

Convoluted logic like that is the reason we need to teach critical thinking skills at an early age.

[FiveGoodMen]

15. I surely agree about teaching critical thinking skills

but it's an up-hill battle.

My pet theory is that the main effect of early and constant "churching" is that it conditions people NOT to think.

Yes, I know that sounds like stating the obvious, but I mean conditioning in a Pavlovian sense: unconscious, automatic, and deeply emotional responses in which the subject feels a great sense of pride, comfort, and satisfaction derived from blindly following one particular authority figure's dictates and ignoring all the contradictory evidence.

I grew up in a moderately hard-core Baptist church and so I'm going from memory. The devil has many ways to fool/mislead people; he can confuse them with apparent facts that aren't really facts (they say) and lead someone toward losing their salvation. But the good and faithful servant of the lord is not "distracted" by these "temptations" and rather follows his faith -- which of course really means repeating whatever they tell you to say.

This starts at a very young and impressionable age, involves serious group-think, and sinks in well below the level of conscious thought.

As an adult, the same person may occasionally dabble at analyzing the pros and cons of an issue, but it's accompanied with a vague but nagging sense of wrongness (wrongness in the good v. evil sense). Then along comes a TV preacher or pResident with no respect for the establishment clause, and with great conviction, he bellows that gawd is angry over people's wandering away from the teachings of -- he'll say Christ, although the teachings attributed to Jesus are pretty much the opposite of what this charlatan is pushing -- and a choir behind him and a huge and enthusiastic congregation in front of him all agree. Our poor near-thinker retreats from that dangerous precipice of reason, returns to the arms of gawd's chosen (!*&%^*^), and thinks, "Whew! That was close! I feel better now."

It was the fact that my father also pushed critical thinking on me (he was an unusual fundamentalist) that allowed me to crawl out of that hole. But it took a long time.

So...if you can't keep them out of the churches, it's really hard to teach them all this "satanic" thinking during the week. Especially if their parents get wind of it.

---------

Here's a clue to what I'm talking about: real bible scholars will note that the fruit in the garden story wasn't really an apple. It was the "fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Adam and Eve thought for themselves just once and all future humanity was damned, and made to suffer illness and death, yada, yada, yada for having used their brains in this inappropriate way.

While they never came out and said it, the moral was that gawd put our brains in our heads as a test -- to see if we'd resist the temptation to use them. Just like he buried the fake dinosaur bones to see if we'd fall for that one.

Well-indoctrinated people are very resistant to reason. Most of my relatives never recovered.

[GOPFighter]

16. Tricky god

"While they never came out and said it, the moral was that gawd put our brains in our heads as a test -- to see if we'd resist the temptation to use them. Just like he buried the fake dinosaur bones to see if we'd fall for that one."

This triggered one of my biggest pet peeves: any god that goes around burying dinosaur bones and devising other such trickery is too insecure to be a god! If god is a real god, he doesn't have to trick his followers to see if they are devout or not, he already knows what's inside their head. He's God! Duh!

This whole "he put them on this earth to tempt and test his followers" is soooo stupid. I assume worshipers who fail this test will burn in hell or reap less rewards in heaven. God to Peter: "Mr. Smith here was a wonderful man, a great father, community leader, and once risked his life to save a little girl who fell into a flooded river, but he was faith in me was too weak to realize those dinosaur bones I buried were fakes, so assign him to the "streets are paved with schist" section, okay?"

[FiveGoodMen]

17. I've always said that I respect god more than

the people who believe in him.

Seriously, one of the big issues that led me away from the church was their low opinion of god's supposed character. They make him all-powerful, all-knowing, but about as emotionally mature as a maladjusted 12-year-old. Besides his temper tantrums, his extreme jealousy, his getting all hot and bother about the use of his name, the arbitrariness of some of his rules (he invented sex but hates people who enjoy it, etc.) and so on and so on ...

He comes to earth to set his children straight (no pun) after the old testament laws have failed to do the trick, and then ... he turns the whole thing into a cosmic game of Let's Make A Deal. He hides all real evidence of his existence, drops out of sight, and tells us to pick a door. If you pick the right door (i.e. adopt the right set of unprovable notions about who he is and what he wants) you go to eternal bliss, but guess wrong -- or never hear the 'good news' in the first place -- and it's torture forever.

Surely a real god would be more interested in teach his children what they needed to know than in making such a silly high-stakes game out of it!

[onager]

18. And the Lord said...

...and the Lord said,
I burn down your cities, how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say,
How blessed are we!
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me.
That's why I love mankind
You really need me!
That's why I love mankind.

Randy Newman, "God's Song"