If Jesus got credit for what was thought to be a miracle in the mine

then why was the communication screw-up attributed to the rescuers?

The idiots praising Jesus for the miracle then turned their rath on somebody else when divine intervention didn't turn out to be such a good thing. What's with that? Maybe god is being wrathful, so why blame the people who are just pawns in god's plan? :eyes:


Then we have Abrahmoff invoking god in the courtroom in Florida. I actually think this is a good thing. The sooner people make the connection between religiosity, if not religion, and fraud the better. Bernie Ebbers of Worldcom tried something similar when his greedy ass was on the chopping block.

survived. What they were doing in that mine - now that is the real mystery.

Why were they working when everyone else was home watching the Rose Parade and football on the observed New Year's Day?

they save just one miner and not the other 12?

Would they blame God for the deaths since they had given him credit for the miracle.

One woman, the next day, said, "We got our miracle and then you took it away!" No, ma'am, sadly you never got "your miracle." Mines explode. It happens, and every miner knows it.

When Rita Cosby was positively GUSHING miracle-talk, I said to my wife, "This just MIGHT be a little premature -- they ought to hold off talking about miracles until those men come out of there alive."

If God gets the credit for a "miracle," he has to get the blame for the tragedy too. Note that I think it's questionable theology in either case.

Bake

God or Jesus blame for that. Only when the "miracles" happen does the LORD get credit. I happen to be religious, not obsessively so, and it just burns me up when people are always thanking Jesus for winning the lottery, winning a football game, or getting a bargain at a sale. God is not "up there" micro managing our lives. We make our own decisions and are responsible for our own actions. The "miracle" is that we are a higher functioning organism with the capacity for thought and reasoning.

who was she implying took it away?

when he asked me "What's a Miracle?"

My Answer - "something we haven't figured out yet"

When I was growing up in Kalamazoo, a tornado hit in 1983, destroying a church near to the one I attended. All I heard for weeks was how god "protected" us, because he was watching out for his own (his own being us, of course).

I expect that some disaster somewhere has destroyed one of our churches - but I'll just bet that the pastor there didn't say it was proof that god wasn't looking out for us, or that we're not god's favorite people. Maybe I shouldn't say "us" since I don't believe in Yahweh any more.

I thought the same thing when I heard the terrible news about the miners. When we experience good fortune it's proof of god's love, protection, or at least existence, but when we have terrible, shitty things happen, god "works in mysterious ways." In Paul's words "man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest." (that's Paul Simon, not the apostle).

Even if they all lived.

A miracle would be if everyone with cancer was suddenly cured.

Having a mine collapse on your head isn't what I'd call a miracle...

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You have anything to say about the topic?

It's really not written in a way to invite discussion, only yet another pile-on on religious people.

the people who are discussing it?

just the usual snide, self-congratulatory mockery of religious people. Nothing interesting about that--it goes on all the time here.

Besides, picking apart the reactions of people who have had their hearts torn out just to play another round of "I'm so much smarter than those religious dumbasses" is vile. These people have been through hell these past few days. Let them mourn. You'll have plenty of other opportunities to declare how wonderfully wise you are.

substantitive discussion. Don't you find the blame switching from god to people a bit weird?

or intellectually inconsistent when they have just found out that someone they love has died. I get the point you are trying to make, but it's such an obvious, commonplace one that has been done so many thousands of times here over the years that it's a bit hard to get too excited about it.

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If we were college freshmen and this were a beery late-nite bullshit session, then I would probably be impressed by how delightfully and bravely radical you are, but I guess I'm jaded, having heard all this over and over and over for decades.

I do have one question for you, though. Are you at all interested in building a majority coalition and winning elections? If so, how do you propose to do that in a nation where well over 90% of the electorate professes some sort of religion? Running on an "opiate of the people" platform is guaranteed to lose fifty states in the presidential election, every senate seat, and all but a very few house seats, if not all of them. Then the GOP, and their Religious Right bosses, will be free to do absolutely anything they please.

Or, of course, we could stop harping on topics that divide people and deal with what we can get people to agree on. As Malcolm X said, "if we bring up religion we’ll have differences; we’ll have arguments; and we’ll never be able to get together. But if we keep our religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God, but when we come out here, we have a fight that’s common to all of us against an enemy who is common to all of us."

Although I agree with you, I don't know that his childish rant will alienate voters, or that DU is that powerful an entity to alienate the majority of people in 50 states.

Most have never heard of it.

and I can't quite see what is political about posting the same sophomoric rants about religion over and over. And, of course, I did not say that his posts on this board would bring down our party, only that shouting Marxist slogans is a really ineffective political strategy.

There's a compulsion on this board to harp on divisive topics that I just don't understand. Rather than deal with practical action about things we agree on, many people would rather preen and posture and piss off potential allies for no good reason.

and I don't understand the attacks on religion, or religious ideas either.

Totally impractical, and unnecessary.

Yea, I guess its more "practical" to conform to the social norm. :eyes:


You do know of the prophet of neo-conservatism pro-fascist Leo Strauss's take on religions role in controlling people don't you?

on using religion to control the masses don't you?

Or have you forgotten.

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who happen to belong to a religion.

And if it is an opiate, then so be it.

Personally I have found more in it than that.

but you are entitled to your opinion.

Just don't think that bashing religion is helpful to anyone really.

love your neighbor as yourself Luke 10:27
do unto others as you would have them do unto you
seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17
You have not strengthened the weak, or healed the sick, or bound up the injured ... This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the sheperds and will hold them accountable for my flock. Ezekiel 34: 4-10
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me ...whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for (Jesus). Matthew 25; 31 - 40
look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world James 1:27

Nazis, the Mafia and any crook who says he is a true believer can get into the tent. Which, it looks like is more important than anything else when religion meets politics.

I agree. It's really sad to see that some people are so insecure that they try to prop themselves up by putting down other people. Especially reprehensible when the people they are laughing at are those most deserving of our sympathy at this time. Little kids who have just lost their Dad or Grandpa, after having been told that he survived. It makes me weep for our nation that there are some so cruel as to mock those people.

Oh, I forgot, we deserve to go to hell because we deny him/her/it.

Stuff a sock in it.

No one's laughing at "little kids who have just lost their Dad or Grandpa".

The type of religious fundamentalism you preach, and the bigotry it inspires, has been and still is a major cause of misery and oppression in the world, so spare us the sermon and accompanying crocodile tears.

Have you ever posted a nice post -- ever?

Oh, wait, that's not nice, is it?

My bad.


I think George Carlin worked that into one of his routines.

It is truly destructive of the thought processes. How can people wallow in such idiocy and what effect does it have on democracy.

I won't be able to get back here until tommorrow.

isn't that gods work?

I love selective reasoning.

when good things happen is gods work, but when bad things happen is human error. And god supposedly created whom??

so I guess god is fresh out of wrath these days, huh?

Or perhaps that the dozens and dozens of safety violations that this company commited could have had something to do with it. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
perish the though.

Just keep those heads in the ground folks and watch as more non-union miners die.

The god stuff confuses the issue: People doing things to people. I wondered why the religious types didn't blame the Katrina victims for bringing on the wrath of god. Or maybe they did and I missed it.

Little early I would think.

Don

The feeling of a hug from a good friend. A child's giggle after getting a free cookie in the bakery. A warm breeze on a winter day. A patch of blue sky and sunshine when you're really needing it. The red poinsettias. Discovering a stranger who appreciates the magic of people-watching. Toes that still wiggle after 62 years.

Can't buy that shit at Wal*Mart, folks. No way. No how.


The real miracle is the fact that those people lived and loved among others, touching their lives so positively that they were mourned at the end. How can we feel any loss without having enjoyed the gain for such a long time? Every loss is but the trailing edge of yet another blessing. Count those blessings and give thanks for those miracles while we have 'em!

There can be only one true prayer: "Thank You!"

Seriously I like your post.

:yourock:

and attitude. :hi:

none of the blame.

minds mired in superstition.

:boring:

And whether God or a supreme being can or can't intervene in these things, I don't know? Do you?

Personally I believe that a supreme being has helped me to overcome difficulties. Now maybe the belief in that being and the love from that being just allowed me to tap into spiritual power that we are all capable of harnessing.

I think that the reality is that people die all the time. It is a part of life, and no reflection on the designs of a higher being.

Some would even propose that we all "chose" the life we are leading before we were born. I don't believe that, but then I can't prove it to be wrong either.

I pointed out.

What happened to the tolerance of others that liberals are supposed to have?

Even if you don't believe in Jesus, or believe that certain miracles, if any, are attributed to him, it is rather in poor taste to call those that do idiots, and I'm saddened to read that sort of rhetoric here.

tolerance only applies to those who are like them. If you have a different belief or creed, you are fair game for vicious mocking and name-calling.

I'm always confused as to why people praise Jesus and God for "saving" them or "protecting" them from certain dangers, but never admit that the same God, being all powerful and omnipresent, would actually have had to create the hazard to begin with.

In religion you're told never to question when bad things happen, becasue it's "God's work". But you are allowed to praise him when good things happen? I don't get it. That's not.........fair.