You may have heard that the midwest, my little corner of the universe, has been hit hard by storms. My specific little area has avoided the worst, and we’ve been watching the major storms fly by on the television, just clipping us as they rip past, but we have been inundated — on Wednesday, in particular, it was one of those days where you huddle inside while the thunder rattles the windows and the water gushes out of the sky. There is a lot of construction work on the road in front of my house, and they had to stop while the roadbed turned into a sea of mud.
So where we are, it’s uncomfortable but nothing more, which means that our greatest affliction right now is the epidemic of dumbness on the news.
“We’re just kind of at God’s mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start,” Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said. “We’re going to need a lot of prayers and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding.”
I guess god really hated those people who died or had serious property damage then, huh, Dumbass Don?
I really can’t stand public officials who think they are being helpful by telling people to waste their time.
Hey, how about this one?
“I believe that this is God’s way of doing things, and I’ve got insurance, so I’m not worried about it,” said Tim Grimm, who was forced to leave his home in the city’s Czech Village area.
And they call atheists unfeeling, arrogant, and amoral…
Why the hell would I pray? I’m God and I’m laughing!
Hey YHWH, how about you do something worthwhile and tell your flock to burn fewer fossil fuels?
Oh, thee of little faith!
“I believe that this is God’s way of doing things, and I’ve got insurance, so I’m not worried about it,”
But you’ve got God… why do you need insurance? Can’t you just pray everything better afterwards?
Oh ye of little faith!
-OEJ
Yeah, we’ve been getting torn apart here in Wisconsin too. There is flooding going on all over, like by Pewaukee Lake. Fortunately, we are in a nice spot that avoids all the flooding. I haven’t heard of any idiots in our area like those, though.
All these storms, (I’m in Kansas City) we’ve been getting, provide the whethermen a chance to keep people in fear that they will either be struck by lightening, or washed away in a flash flood, or swept up by a tornado. I’ve lived here for 50 years, I just laugh at all the scare tactics.
Lower Michigan’s been getting absolutely slammed… a tornado hit my hometown and knocked out power for scads of people. LOTS of damage. The (not really)fun part? It seems to have mostly the poorer, more religious communities. Way to go there, God.
Good luck with the storms. Hopefully, any catastrophy in your area will be handled better than New Orleans.
Eli said:
Evidently his aim’s no longer quite what it was back in the Sodom and Gomorrah days.
Not promising, if public officials think praying is constructive.
Well praying worked in New Orleans right? Bush prayed and… oh right it didn’t. Must’ve been all the promiscuous gays that stopped prayer from working.
Chertoff says that the tornado that killed those Boy Scouts was an “act of God”. If that’s the case then, by all means we should be fervently praying to that A*hole to back off the kids now. In fact, Bush should be declaring a war against this meteorological Terrorist who clearing hates us for our freedoms and wants to kill us.
Actually telling people to pray does do some good. From his point of view. It keeps yocals that want to go look at all the damage in their houses instead of in the way.
Praying is constructive, provided you’re constructing castles in the air…
Send some rain this way. I don’t like having to drag that damn hose to water the flowers, and the landlady kvetches about the water bill. (Yeah, you want the “curb appeal” on the place, but don’t want to pay for keeping it up, right.)
This is Linn County — Cedar Rapids — less than 200 miles from the tornado that flattened Parkersburg a couple of weeks ago. Near Waterloo/Cedar Falls, much of which is itself underwater at the moment. A couple of hours’ drive from my home in Des Moines which is nearly underwater, too. And just across the state from Little Sioux where four Boy Scouts were killed this week. If they really believe these natural disasters are God’s doing, she is really pissed right now. Iowa has had a rough go of it lately.
And some people I know, instead of getting off their dead asses and filling sandbags, are instead forming prayer circles. Funny thing is, it’s those evil atheist liberals who are pitching in mostly and doing their damndest to save this state. For all their posturing about caring for others, the religiots are happy to scoop up the credit, but not do the work.
“[T]his is God’s way of doing things.”
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Doing what things? Being a pain in the neck?
If Tim Grimm doesn’t have flood insurance, he may end up finding out that his his homeowner’s insurance is exactly as effective as prayer.
I saw an interview with some of the Boy Scouts. Sure enough, one of the young boys knew that god spared him because He had a purpose for him :P Bad enough he’ll have survivors guilt to deal with.
Sure enough, one of the young boys knew that god spared him because He had a purpose for him :P
And the four scouts that died essentially right next to him, presumably four of his ?friends, were all fucking assholes in God’s sight?
I don’t see how it can be comforting to think there is someone who is in charge of running all the horrors in the world.
“I believe that this is God’s way of doing things, and I’ve got insurance
Insurance?? I guess his faith is pretty weak because taking out insurance is betting that god is not gonna stick up for you, or that god doesn’t exist.
God is just trying to convey that he wants new merit badges for Irrational Thinking.
That would be redundant, there’s already a religion badge. I never achieved it.
Funny. PZ’s post popped up after I refreshed my browser after ranting about exactly the same quotes. Need an apprentice? ;-)
Just think, without that pesky god, there wouldn’t be any bad weather. Every day, blue skies, and rain whenever the crops need it. Damn that rascal god of theirs, it’s always causing trouble.
God should only be capitalized when it’s at the beginning of a sentence!
I believe that this is God’s way of doing things, and I’ve got insurance
Isn’t insurance a form of gambling?
The boy scouts were targeted by God because they allow those dirty homosexuals in their clu… Oh, what, they don’t? It must be because the state they lived in allows gay marria… Oh, it doesn’t? Well, dammit it must be because those scouts are dirty athiests that kicked God out of their li… Oh, the scouts aren’t athiests either? Well, shit. I guess god just wanted to call them home. He works in such mysterious ways you know. See, problem solved.
Well, Christians are obviously all about the love and compassion for their fellow man in times of crisis. I wonder if Timmy Grimmy is the kind of potatohead who would drive by a traffic accident and
thumb his nosepray instead of ringing up 911.Gyaagh! These people disgust me.
What a strange kind of Christianity.
My best friend’s brother died Wednesday when the tornado hit his boyscout camp in IA. His family is extremely religious and they’re taking it really hard. I heard someone say to his mom that “the rain falls on the good and the bad, because if it only fell on the bad, then everyone would want to join the ‘country club’ and become a Christian.” I almost gaged. Can’t these people get over themselves for one minute in a time of sadness?
What I would like to know is, why, whenever “Acts of god” are mentioned, does it always refer to horrible destruction? If I were in charge there, I’d call them acts of satan and try not to give my “god” such a bad name…
WTF? I thought indoctrination of the unbelievers was one of the highest tenets of being a Jesusite. Now they want to keep people out?
Well, their god does favor quantity over quality. He’s a big “show me the numbers” guy.
Hey, I will admit I was right with the Sheriff in the “it’s in God’s hands now.” Given all the destruction that is occuring, it says a lot about what God’s thinking, eh?
Pray? Sounds more like begging a psycho killer to save your life!
Did those intelligently designed tornadoes have a mind of their own with the free will to be selective in their widespread destruction? Or was there another mind that blindly delivered the same on a random basis to make sure that it showed no preference to the god afflicted? Reasoned in any way, religion is a hopeless mess of abject insanity.
I always thought the biggest sign of a lack of faith was a lighting rod on a church.
The Pope riding around behind bullet proof glass is a close second.
God’s way is to beg God to spare people Acts of God.
Man’s way is to get a topographic map and locate above the flood plain.
Place yer bets!
You can have mine. I ain’t using them.
We ask a kind and loving god to comfort those who suffered from this tragedy that he should have (because he’s kind and loving) and could have (because he’s god) prevented.
“And thank you, God, for sending Lisa to save us from the bug you sent.” — Rod Flanders.
Oh, btw, I was born Iowegian and lived there more than 20 years. I went to school in Cedar Falls, which is currently mostly underwater. I have good friends still there who live by school. My folks still live in the NE part of the state, and a couple of bridges have been wiped out near them (the bridge in Fort Atkinson on HWY 24 is one of them). My neice lives in Cedar Rapids, although is probably at her folks’ now. My in-laws live down south, and probably the only problem they’ve encountered is that the field in the river bottom is wiped out. HOwever, that is not uncommon. They themselves are visiting sis-in-law down in Ok City, so are missing it. So I know lots and lots of people affected by the current flooding (didn’t know anyone affected by the tornado – that was out west).
That all being said, we here in northern Indiana have not been hit all too bad. I’ve seen the Mighty Wabash a lot worse than it is now (this is nothing like the flood of the winter of 1992 (yet!), or even summer 2004). The cornfield behind our house is so far in great shape, and should be a windfall for the guy who just bought it. Of course, things are much worse in the southern part of the state.
Given all that is going on, I kind of feel guilty in that I am actually looking forward to the heavy rain predicted for today/tonight. We’ve been having a problem with water leaking into the basement, but I _think_ I have it fixed now. If we can get through a heavy rain without any water in the basement, then I will know it is fixed.
Given all the problems that it has caused all over, am I a bad person to want heavy rain? (after tonight it is supposed to dry up for a while)
No not for that, you are a bad person because you are commenting here at Pharyngula. Because we all know that only evil atheist bastards post here (leaky basements or not), and all evil atheist bastards are bad people.
;)
But I worked so hard to try to solve my leaky basement problem. It was easy to figure out where the water was coming in (although it took ripping out the drywall), and that was easy to caulk up, it was harder to figure out where the water was coming from. I think it was from the outside seal around the window, which I also re-caulked. Man, I hope that is where it was coming from.
Then again, I’m not the most skilled caulker. Fortunately, I wasn’t worried about neatness, only about creating a good seal.
I seem a little obsessed, don’t I?
WTF? I thought indoctrination of the unbelievers was one of the highest tenets of being a Jesusite. Now they want to keep people out?
That was my first reaction, but I guess there’s no point in having a major superiority complex if there aren’t a substantial number of people to feel superior to… I’m going to the memorial service tonight, which is in a church and will be full of fundies insisting that Sam is in a “better place.” Even worse, Monday would have been his 14th birthday :(
“A lot of prayers”?
How many is a lot? 100, 1000, 100,000?
Is there some prayer tipping point after which God feels compelled to stop the rain and the flooding that he (presumably) started?
Hey, there must be a lot of people praying for nice weather in L.A. It’s always sunny there!
What an idiot.
I read that article too, and wondered if you’d come across it. I was just as affronted. A public official saying this kind of stuff? It’s really sad.
“…only about creating a good seal.”
But, in fact, you have only created a temporary God seal.
Start praying!
Pablo #40
You are a bad person. But, hey, whether you are a member of Jesus’ country club or not, you apparently could still get “rained on.”
Here’s what our self-described “commander guy had to say:
Can I puke now? The American people are not all Christians and we don’t all pray. Why not give us some facts, tell us what matters, like how many government personnel you sent to the area, how much money you will spend, how many volunteers you need, what supplies are needed, etc. I’m sick of the ubiquitous official response, “our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their loved ones.”
“”…only about creating a good seal.”
But, in fact, you have only created a temporary God seal.’
What you need is the Lord Privy Seal®. Ask for it by name.
I grew up in Western Iowa and I went to Scout camp at Little Sioux back in the day. It would be hard to get emergency vehicles in there when the weather is good, let alone after a tornado ripped through. Luckily the kids were there for Junior Leadership Training (both one of the worst and best experiences of my youth), which takes only a few of the more experienced scouts from each troop in the area. So it wasn’t a full-blown scout event with entire troops of kids. Still terrible, but it could have been so much worse.
Now I’m in Dubuque and yeah, it sucks, but we’re much better off than other areas. Plus I live high up on a bluff instead of down by the river so all I’ve got is a few puddles in my basement.
It could just be a crude form of population control.
If you can keep people busy with praying, playing connect four, or some other pointless but quiet activity, then they won’t be out looting or standing around gawking and getting in the way.
Just finished watching the video news on Comcast and the tornado destruction in Chapman, Kansas. Among so many other buildings, three churches were destroyed by that intelligently designed toenado. All three probably had lightning rods on them, but that didn’t mean shit to that “mindless” tornado! Where the hell was their god to protect its own houses of nonsense? Beyond rational comprehension.
When I went to Lowe’s, I chose a caulk that was wood/concrete compatible. None of the ones I looked at said it was good for God.
Anyone else notice the areas hit hardest are really religious areas? I mean, God spared all of us liberal heathens in Chicago. Besides a little rain… it’s been beautiful out. Maybe God’s trying to take his people down a few notches. And the idiots just aren’t getting it!
Led Zeppelin (thats HEAVY, would anyone have listened to “the aluminum balloon”?) comes to mind:
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move
I feel terrible about the folks suffering in the Midwest, I just hope that the response is as competent as Clinton’s response to the flooding in the same area in the mid-’90s. I am not holding my breath, though.
The “story behind the story” is about land use in the Mississippi drainage area. Just as one cannot separate the Katrina deluge from the degradation of the delta, one cannot separate this disaster from over-development on floodplains, and the constraining of the “father of waters” with levees. I hope I don’t come across as callous, but this over-engineering of riparian zones seems to lead to such problems.
Well that is truly sad, God or not.
That’s what my church taught when I was a kid – that we should trust in god, not “waste” money on insurance. I remember hearing a preacher say that spending money on insurance was no different from playing the lottery. . . .
Except, somehow, when the church lost a ton of money in the stock market (apparently, *that* kind of gambling was acceptable), they told the members that it was okay but the investments were *insured* (WTF???? Never did understand that one.) But I ever heard the “insurance is gambling” sermon again . . . .
Longtime Lurker@55: Those lines were actually written by Memphis Minnie (though I do like Led Zep’s “interpretation” better).
I guarantee you that Minnie knew all about levees.
Sorry, I meant 54, obviously.
tsg (#36) said: “I always thought the biggest sign of a lack of faith was a lighting rod on a church.
The Pope riding around behind bullet proof glass is a close second.”
Especially since he I always thought the biggest sign of a lack of faith was a lighting rod on a church.
The Pope riding around behind bullet proof glass is a close second.
______
Especially since Pope JPII credited the Virgin of Fatima (how he knew it wasn’t the Virgin of Guadalupe, considering how popular he was in Mexico, I don’t know) with “guiding the bullet” so that it missed all his vital organs. I’m probably not the first one to wonder why she couldn’t have “guided it” so that it just missed him altogether, or perhaps turned all the bullets in the gun into duds.
I live in Milwaukee and we have been hit hard by the storms as well. During a tornado warning at work yesterday, I heard a coworker say that she thinks all this terrible weather is due to the Mars lander, and shooting rockets into space must be messing with our atmosphere. I sighed quietly to myself.
Oops, should have previewed before posting. Ignore the bit between the close quote and the separator line in #59.
I used to live in Cedar Rapids, my sister was born there, and I have a lot of family that still live there.
So far it sounds like all the family’s houses are safe. Only one lives IN the city, and I think she got lucky in being located in an area that didn’t flood. Yes, I said lucky, not miraculously saved by God because she’s more important than everyone else.
I saw that quote about more people needing to pray, and I wondered how long it was until it showed up here.
I’m trying to make sense out of this. Not the flooding, the apparent excess of God speak when there’s work to be done to try to save the city. Is this sort of thing on the rise? Maybe the media is just focusing on it more to appease the fundies?
Whatever it is, it’s embarrassing! This is the sort of thing I expect from some third world nation hit by a natural disaster. There you expect to find people in group prayers, or doing native dances, or whatever it is one is traditionally supposed to do to seek an improvement. Because people like that often have little else they can do. But when the rest of the civilized world reads that the local police leaders are telling people to pray to make the water go away in what is supposed to be the LEADER of the modern world, it’s just damned embarrassing.
You might as well tell her it’s my fault. I turned 40 on June 6th, and you’ll notice that it has not stopped raining since.
Aside from that, however, is it wrong of me to see her whacky comments as a good thing? I mean, at least she’s trying to take a rational approach rather than buckling down to superstition.
Obviously, yes. She’s horribly wrong, but I’d have been a heck of a lot more put off if she had said, “God must really hate Tommy Bartlett” or some such nonsense.
She thinks the landing on Mars messed up our weather? Or she doesn’t realize that it launched almost a year ago? Or she isn’t bothering to distinguish between the Mars lander and the shuttle? Yeesh!
Then again, don’t suppose I have too much room to criticize others’ strange notions, given that I heard my dad muttering about not really believing we actually *sent it* to Mars . . . . Apparently, he’s bought the whole “moon landing hoax” and raised it to “Mars landers hoax” . . . Why? Because he’s religious, and doesn’t think god wants us “out there,” and figures if god doesn’t want us out there – then we aren’t.
…and figures if god doesn’t want us out there – then we aren’t.
Wow. Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, anyone?
Actually, I suppose that could be really insulting to your dad’s intelligence. That wasn’t implied. At all. Just the word order you used immediately called up the literary reference in my head.
Disclaimer: I am not gloating. At all. Really. Not.
Up here in The People’s Republic of Massachusetts, the weather has been phenomenally beautiful this week. Perfect, even.
This is not unusual for this time of year.
In fact, year-round, this is a very safe and livable place. Tornadoes are only slightly less rare than a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion. Hurricanes, too, are uncommon, and most of their power is usually depleted in those rare instances whenthey actually make it this far.
Earthquakes? Feh. I’ve lived here my whole live, and have yet to feel even the ghost of a tremor. Volcanoes? Right. Nevvah happen.
Venomous creatures? Only in the bleachers at Fenway.
Excessively hot or cold weather? Meh. Not really. Killer blizzards? Nah. Mile-thick ice sheets? Not lately. Large, man-eating predators?
Mmmmm… let me think.
Nyet.
This obvious proves something about God’s Love – Love, I say! – for liberals, liberal christians, atheists and agnostics, all non-Christian theists, baseball fanatics, all manner of underground bands and Brechtian neocabaret duos, and high concentrations of high-quality institutions of higher education (i.e. the liberal intelligensia and whatnot).
Hey. I’m just sayin’.
So now Mars figures into the earthly religious insanity! Wow, this is getting better! Actually, the Cassini spacecraft that is at Saturn and its moons is probably the real culprit. What is happening is that Cassini is trimming the material at the edge of the outer ring, causing it to overcome Saturn’s gravity and travel as a microscopic entity and reach earth’s atmosphere, thereby causing havoc with the planets magnetic belt which is directly polarizing the magnetosphere and has a direct bearing on the birth, duration and intensity of our intelligently designed tornadoes1 How does that sound? Poor Mars, lifeless as it is, being blamed for the results caused by religious madness. Carl, if you were only here to witness this mass dementia!
Two hours ago: Calls for Des Moines to be evacuated! Oh shit, our prayers didn’t get through! Hey, there are our gods: sandbags and humans!
Kseniya, today truly is perfect weather in Mass. That may have something to do with Gay Pride week and tomorrow’s Gay Pride Parade. Statistically, gays bring good weather. I know they at least keep tornado away. So much for that homophobic, smiting God.
Earthquakes? Feh. I’ve lived here my whole live, and have yet to feel even the ghost of a tremor. Volcanoes? Right. Nevvah happen.
As long as you don’t say Nevvah happened…
God is clearly pissed that the Boy Scouts are keeping gays out.
Yes Dennis, God made Massachusetts for lovers, without prejudice.
I can’t march this year, I have to work down on the Cape tomorrow…
Must the flow in the Des Moines river? It’s not raining there today.
Kseniya: Now explain why God has bestowed a similar lack of natural disasters to Idaho.
Pablo @ 73 It does not have to be raining for the river to overflow its banks. Just check the online news service to keep abreast of what is happening.
Rey. Always asking the tough questions. The answer, however, is clear. Two things:
Okay, some of this is truly sad. We have technology, we have forecasts. We know when dangerous storms might occur in the US midwest. We can keep tabs on weather reports. We can have proper shelter. The unfortunate scouts in Iowa, should not have been so poorly prepared.
Taking risks might be an option and I am not totally against some risk, but if god exists and is watching as people pray for help when they can avoid the danger – that god would shaking its head in disgust.
Dang, I was in Des Moines in 1993 for the “Flood of the millennium.” (I was one of those immoral, self centered atheists helping to build sandbag levees.) A lot of changes in procedures went into effect after that. Huge earthen barriers were built around water pumping facilities, structures were strengthened, policies were changed. I hope all that bothering was for something, and they don’t get hit as hard with damages as they did then.
Hmmm. It looks like Des Moines has a few billabongs.
Don’t just sit around mumbling, get OFF your arse and DO SOMETHING — like HELP SANDBAGGING!
the implication being that as soon as the roadbed had reached its ultimate state of “sea of mudness,” the crew was able to get back to work on it.
the infrastructure issues up there have been in the news recently, and if this is the standard m.o. there, i can see why. especially combined with the viscious freeze/thaw cycles.
good luck.
PZ said:
“Not promising, if public officials think praying is constructive.”
“During the Grasshopper Plague of 1877, Governor Pillsbury called for a day of prayer on April 26, 1877. A subsequent sleet storm killed all the grasshoppers. In Cold Spring, Minnesota, a chapel was built to honor the miracle.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Pillsbury
Sleet in April in Minnesota! Wow! Whoever would have thought such a thing possible?
I guess if you pray often enough something good is bound to happen…sometimes.
I’m reminded of Skinners’ experiments on pigeons and rats when he discovered that Intermittent Reinforcement was a better reinforcer than regular rewards.
But I guess God’s got this all figured out…
“Brechtian neocabaret duos” -Have any alcoholic friends?
Des Moines evacuated! That’s the second major U.S. city to be rendered uninhabitable (hopefully, for only a short space of time) in Chimpy’s tenure as president. Lordyloo, this nonsense is getting old.
Again, I hope those people get help, and hope the Red Cross’ use of donated funds is scrutinized well so I can feel confident when I bust out the checkbook.
Anyone remember how, after Katrina, those bastards at FEMA listed Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” as a worthwhile charity?
Finally, any natural disasters hit Dover, PA? ‘Nuff said.
On a whim I googled ‘gay’ ‘parade’ ‘iowa’ and found out that this weekend was the big Capital City Pride weekend in Des Moines. Of course most of the events had to be canceled or postponed due to the impending evacuation of much of the city.
I guess Pat Robertson is right after all.
(I suppose a lot of church bus trips will be canceled too.)
I think it’s time to,
‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition’
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=dryBNYaj1sA
WTF? I thought indoctrination of the unbelievers was one of the highest tenets of being a Jesusite. Now they want to keep people out?
The really premium real estate up in Heaven–the spots closest to God, or the outside rooms with a good view–is hard to come by, so it’s best if the population of Heaven doesn’t get too large.
As for the flooding, isn’t this, as predicted, part of God’s demonstration that He’s a mite miffed at California’s legalizing gay marriages? Although, admittedly, He certainly works in mysterious ways, punishing California by flooding the mid-West.
To the arks!!
In Cedar Rapids here. Mays Island has now become Mays Reef.. it’s pretty crazy.
I’ve noticed something though, that the longer I am non-religious, the more crazy the religious folk sound. I’ve been watching the news pretty-much nonstop for the past couple of days. Yesterday they interviewed the pastor of a church that had “gone under” as it were. Her advice to people? “Don’t worry about the future, because God is already there.”
…Que?
got an email from jesus. he says he’s sorry about the midwest floods, but his bladder was full, that he just couldn’t hold it any longer and the midwest seemed as good a place as any to take a leak.
The monotheistic religions have to tie themselves into knots arguing that the same entity responsible for all these disasters is also the Intelligent Designer we should love — omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, but apparently not omnicompetent. (“Whoopsie!”)
Maybe polytheism would make it easier on them. Credit the “good” deity/ies for all the good events, but blame all the disasters on the “bad” deity/ies.
Blaming the Devil doesn’t quite suffice, because the Devil isn’t supposed to be as strong as God, so he can’t create disasters without at least the passive connivance of God — as in the Book of Job.
HTH, theists. HAND.
If a church is destroyed by a natural disaster, yet it happens miraculously to be covered under the proper insurance, isn’t that insurance fraud? If we bring them to court and threaten life in prison for working with their god to perpetrate fraud and abuse of the insurance industry, how long would it be before they began to insist their god has no such influence on the earth?
Because he has a soft spot in his heart for the Christian Identity Movement.
Kseniya: “Hmmm. It looks like Des Moines has a few billabongs.”
Problem is, the Mississippi and its tributaries are so constrained by levees that the river no longer meanders like it used to… no meanders, no oxbow lakes, therefore no billabongs.
@ #60: Wow… just, wow.
I’m in lower Michigan, too, and both eastern and western parts of the state got hit pretty badly in the recent storms. The property damage and power outages were greater here in the “liberal/democratic” east, but the republican/born again/Amway west had all the fatalities.
So why did Yahweh smite the true believers so? Maybe it’s the area code: 616
I’m sure Richard Swinburne would have a few choice theological rationalizations to offer up for any suffering caused by the Midwest floods:
“My suffering provides me with the opportunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the opportunity to show sympathy and to help alleviate my suffering. And it provides society with the opportunity to choose whether or not to invest a lot of money in trying to find a cure for this or that particular kind of suffering…Although a good God regrets our suffering, his greatest concern is surely that each of us shall show patience sympathy and generosity and, thereby, form a holy character” (Science and Theology News). To paraphrase his rationalization for the Hiroshima tragedy (from his book The Existence of God, quoted in The God Delusion)…suppose one less person had been negatively affected by the Midwest floods. Then there would have been one less opportunity for courage and sympathy!
Gosh, Christians are upbeat! Of course, it’s also true that each of those people who died from atom bombs and natural disasters no longer have an opportunity, themselves, to develop “holy characters”, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!
It’s interesting how the god of the bible helps its most beloved creation to grow and develop spiritually in much in the same way that a brew master trains a new strain of yeast.
One thing I’d like to know from Christians: If your house is destroyed by “an act of God,” can you sue your church?
Much of the discussion in this thread appears to be tackling the issue of theodicy head-on. It is, indeed, probably the biggest intellectual barrier to theism: why does a God who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent compel us to live in a universe in which we are threatened by natural disasters, scarce resources, and human-created evil?
John Polkinghorne (who is both a scientist and a theologian) advocates a “free process” model of theodicy – that is to say, God has created the universe in such a way as to allow it to build and run itself, and such a world “is better than the puppet theatre of a cosmic tyrant”. He seems to have a point. On this understanding, God does not interfere in the operation of the natural processes which He instituted, even when they cause suffering, because to do so would be to remove the free will and free choice of every being in the universe, and to make Himself into a cosmic dictator.
Of course, this constitutes, by definition, an admission that there is no material evidence of the existence of God; since if one accepts that the universe is allowed to run itself without the intervention of God and that God does not intervene in natural processes, then it is equally plausible to argue that there is no God in the first place.
The other problem is that this (somewhat deistic) conception of God does not square at all with the Biblical conception of God, who intervened all the time in human affairs (and often in a way which seems radically contrary to established morality). (I’ll continue this later, I have to go offline now).
No, God is denying responsibility for this one. In a press release yesterday he put the blame squarely on Pat Robertson and said it was punishment for Pat’s help with the 2004 presidential election. God also added, “I’m sick and tired of Pat Robertson blaming me for every bad thing that happens”.
@#99 Walton —
In addition to the ones you mentioned, another problem with this interpretation is that if this god is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, couldn’t he have created a universe in which the laws of nature were different, and thus tragedies like natural disasters, genetic diseases, etc couldn’t happen? This would not interfere with our free will at all and would be a much better world to live in.
For gods sake Etha lol,are you still debating the rehasher ? Ive never met anyone who so stubbornly,then apologetically and then again stubbornly will rehash some stupid conservative/coulteresque/biblical/religulous argument without ever trying sincerely to learn anything.
Hes like Kenny with an IQ,its not helping tho !
I know this is in rather poor taste, but the water here in Cedar Rapids that destroyed a number of churches, and the homes of a horde of religious people who have been holding prayer services to god to thank him for destroying their houses (or something to that effect), came about 30 feet from destroying my home, and I can just imagine the headline: Churches destroyed, Atheist spared!
Yeah, Zeebo, but you’ll get yours when you die and go to Hell, so nyah nyah.
I’m just wondering where I can buy god insurance or maybe add a rider to my policy protecting me from a capricious spoiled creator and/or his followers. You can’t blame a tornado for wreaking havoc, it’s a mindless vortex of wind, but a “loving” god? Can I have THAT malicious twat arrested?
@ No 103 :
How does the Christian mind delude and compartmentalize that fact away tho,Zeebo? If we can figure that one out,we might be able to find a cure for them LOL
clinteas said:
Yet more evidence we’re all secret Satanists maybe? Alas, I feel your hope for a cure may be a little on the optimistic side!
@ Lilly de Lure,
can I first say that you have the most erotic nick on all of the interwebs…:-)
And it doesnt take a satanist to see that Christians are in trouble to explain away the killed scouts or flooded churches,cant all be gay satanic atheist evolutionists in the places where natural disasters hit,can there lol…
clinteas said:
Why thank you, I aim to please! ;-)
If everything else fails they’ve alway got the “God moves in mysterious ways” out to fall back on for this one.
Yes,very true Lilly,always a failsafe with them…Its part of the reason why arguing with those is like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands…
Clinteas said:
Now there’s a depressing thought to take with me into lunch!
I buy my fish in the supermarket Lilly…..Now there’s an allegory for you lol…
To be fair, Don Zeller just had lost his own house. Westboro just warned Iowa City that God was going to punish them for tolerating homosexuals. After arbitrarily killing 4 kids, he apparently flooded them out as well.
I was evacuated from my home in Johnson county, Iowa. Although the house itself ended up not being flooded, the power was out, and thus the water supply, and we may have sewer contamination, and the road to the place was flooded over. I can’t believe all the people around here who are thanking God that it wasn’t worse, thanking God that they’re safe, thanking God that they’re unaffected, praying for the affected, etc. It’s really pissing me off because it’s such a mind-fucking paradox. If God gave a shit about you or the people affected, he wouldn’t have sent a flood in the first place.
I’m thankful to the National Guard, the volunteers who sandbagged, the people who took in the evacuees (including my own self and my two cats; thanks, Brian!), the firefighters, police officers, DNR officers, the Red Cross for setting up shelters and giving out meals and so on, the television and radio media that kept people apprised of closed routes and warnings about going into floodwater, the verbalized well-wishes of my friends who can’t be here to help in person (different from prayer as it gives me a morale boost).
If this flooding is God’s will, then fuck him and he can pay for all the damages (over $800 million in Cedar Rapids alone), the lost work, the pain and suffering, the loss of life. I do not understand how anyone could possibly reconcile a tragedy like this with a loving God.
It pisses me off to no end that anyone (though I expect it from those asshats at Westboro) could cheer on the damage and injury and uprooting and death of people whose only mistake was to live near a river.
I was reading Dawkins’ The God Delusion before this started. I’m still working my way through it, and damn straight this sort of disaster only strengthens my reason and rationale for not having a belief in a god.