Nothing says “god loves you” like when he sends one of his creatures to eat you.
He did not deserve to die but I wonder if his flock stood around watching and wondering if they should interfere with god’s will. [bbc]
A crocodile has killed a Protestant pastor who was baptising followers near a lake in southern Ethiopia.
Docho Eshete was conducting the ceremony for about 80 people on Sunday morning at Lake Abaya in Arba Minch town’s Merkeb Tabya district.
Residents and police told BBC Amharic a crocodile leapt from the water during the baptism and attacked him.
Pastor Docho died after being bitten on his legs, back and hands.
When I first read this story, my very first thought was if people would take this as a sign that the pastor was worshiping the wrong god.
Sobek suffers not usurpers to his divine potency!
Similar story: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-06/beloved-terrier-eaten-by-a-crocodile-it-had-taunted-for-a-decade/9840026
Hurhur, cuz Christians are stoopid, amirite?
From the very short article you linked to;
In other words, they responded as most humans would. Do you wonder whether Christians are less human for being Christians?
Isn’t there a passage in the King James Version telling people to always mount crocodile guards before baptizing? Check Leviticus.
Hemant Mehta says this story is bogus.
Me, I remain agnostic.
Rob @ 4:
If christians actually believed the crap they profess, then yes, they would question whether or not it was god’s will. As it stands, that’s just one fucking problem with the shit stew they believe – it can be bent and twisted in any way one likes. If they truly believed the god’s will crap, they wouldn’t dare interfere.
“When I first read this story, my very first thought was if people would take this as a sign that the pastor was worshiping the wrong god.”
Praise Offler and pass the sausages.
Caine @7:
What “god’s will crap” are you talking about? For all the legitimately horrible and/or silly things that a lot of Christians are taught to believe, I don’t recall any teachings that say you have to stand passively by while someone is attacked by a crocodile, or about to be run over by a truck, or whatever. That’s just bullshit. There’s enough to criticize without making shit up, or telling Christians what you think they have to believe.
There’s certainly no justification for Marcus’ tawdry little dig inspired by a really horrific incident, if it actually happened. There is serious doubt about whether it did, or if it’s another “crazy things that happen in Africa” story. And if it didn’t happen, this is all just bullshit squared.
While the SO was still in CICU after his heart-incident, I had a conversation (in the cafeteria) with a Christian who criticised me for interferring with God’sWill™ by calling 911 and doing CPR on the SO.
“Hurhur, cuz Christians are stoopid, amirite?”
Well, Yes.
and nasty
and mean-spirited
and smug
chigau@#10: that is evil (and smug). And stupid, because he should have seen that the fact that you were there and knew what to do was also God’s will. Obviously.
This “God’s will” bullshit has no explanatory power at all, so it’s entirely useless if applied honestly. If applied dishonestly, though, it gives people like that a made-up measure they can use with anything in any way that suits their biases. Handy. (And disgusting.)
chigau @10: Makes one wonder what that person was doing in a hospital.
So, you’re generalizing from this person to all Christians? Most Christians?
For the traits of stupid, mean and smug, I’d say they’re about equally distributed across all beliefs/non-beliefs.
Rob Grigjanis@#4:
Hurhur, cuz Christians are stoopid, amirite?
Not really.
I was amused by experiencing my own cognitive dissonance, a distinctly different sensation from what I would doubtless have felt if I were there. Clearly, the christians would not have felt anything like what I felt, because they were too busy dealing with the situation.
The essence of situational humor is weird stuff; it’s my opinion that to a large degree it consists in finding a situation humorous because one is not there (i.e.: there’s a “butt” to the joke) That’s a pretty ungenerous interpretation of what’s going on, and I think it’s probably too simple, which is what brought me around to seeing situational humor as a sort of defense mechanism and cognitive dissonance. First, it’s only funny because I’m not there, and secondly, it’s only funny because I don’t share their perspective on a more or less unrelated topic. Laughing at a situation is really laughing at oneself and being thankful that it’s not you.
In other words, I am imagining the cognitive dissonance I would feel were I in that situation, and I find that funny. I picture myself struggling to get the pastor free and yelling, “thanks, lord, for sending this fucking crocodile, asshole!” at the sky.
You are pointing to what I think is a truth, namely that almost all humor is “hurr hurr thank ${god} that was not me!” – a defense mechanism. And particularly a defense mechanism against the apparent randomness of everything. Humor is a weak explanation for why the other guy slipped on a banana peel and I did not. Whether or not you interpret that as me finding a moral flaw in the person who slips on the banana peel is stretching it, though I suppose that sometimes one does.
Rob Grigjanis@#12:
So, you’re generalizing from this person to all Christians? Most Christians?
For the traits of stupid, mean and smug, I’d say they’re about equally distributed across all beliefs/non-beliefs.
If you broaden “stupid” I suppose you’re right, but specifically the atheist is laughing at the believer because they believe which the atheist does not. In the sense that it’s stupid that christians believe there is a great omniscient puppet-master that put that crocodile there, the christians are pretty stupid.
As you say, they clearly weren’t all that stupid – they tried to rescue the guy – which, in itself, was extremely dangerous.
I see your point, and I mostly agree with it, with the proviso that it destroys virtually all situational humor as not being funny because it amounts to laughing at someone getting hurt. You’re not framing it exactly that way; that’s how I see it. Every video on failblog, basically, is that kind of humor; we are laughing at something that didn’t happen to us, because if it did we would not be laughing at all.
Humor is nasty stuff.
You know the old saying: “tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and drown”.
Marcus @14:
For me, there is no humour in any situation involving the death or severe injury of innocent people, even if their stupidity (as you or I might perceive it) is the cause of their predicament. Because my gut response is that could be me, or someone I care about. I remember seeing a video years ago of a guy getting hit by a van, then by a car going in the opposite direction. It may have been a fake (a bloody good one), but what turned my stomach were the comments. They were all laughing at the dumbass. Maybe I lack a certain funny bone, but if so, that’s fine by me.
But I wasn’t really talking about the humour aspect of the incident. I find it really weird that you would wonder about whether the Christians might be thinking about “interfering with god’s will”. You and chigau may have met Christians like that, but I never have, and I doubt they comprise more than a tiny fraction of the whole. It’s a lot like some theists “wondering” about why atheists don’t go around murdering people because they have no moral compass. In other words, it’s lumping a whole lot of people together because of a distorted perception. Most Christians probably believe in God’s will, but they don’t presume to know what it is, or that it dictates their non-intervention in specific instances. They would find that just as weird as you or I would.
Tabby Lavalamp #1
https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E03/506905.jpg?b64lines=IEFORCBXSEFUIElGIFdFIFBJQ0tFRCBUSEUKIFdST05HIFJFTElHSU9OPyBFVkVSWQogV0VFSyBXRSdSRSBKVVNUIE1BS0lORwogR09EIE1BRERFUiBBTkQgTUFEREVSLg==
Rob:
Oh, I’ve met them too. One springs to mind, when I was waiting to have my breast sliced open – she informed me that it was god’s punishment for being such a fucking evil, horrible, immoral person who had the nerve to be an atheist. They abound in hospitals, for your information. I’m sure it’s right fucking nice you haven’t met any asshole christians, but you can’t walk a block without tripping over them here in Ustates. Just because it’s outside your personal experience doesn’t mean one damn thing, except you decided to be an asshole about it all.
There is a cemetery in Oregon City Oregon that is full of dead children because the particular christian sect that the parents of all those dead children belong to do not believe in medical care for sick people. They pray over them, they anoint them with oil and the children have been dying for over fifty years because the parents refuse to get medical care for them. They die of treatable diseases like diabetes. So maybe you don’t know of any stupid christians, or christians who would rather pray and wait for their children to die but they do exist. In the last ten years or so the state has gotten fed up with this and has prosecuted several of the parents who let their kids die in the name of their religion.
And how about the catholic priest who told my mother that her child, who just died 12 hours after it was born would not go to heaven to be with jesus, but would remain in limbo for all eternity. This happened in the hospital minutes after my mother was told her child had died. Yeah, horrible christians exist in the USA.
One could simply argue that nasty jerks are nasty jerks, and they use their own particular world views to justify their jerkiness.
I would argue, however, that the core of Christian doctrine is in itself a nasty, nasty thing.
Yahweh is not a lovable fictional character, nor is Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild and Throwing Us All Gleefully into Hell Where our Torment is the Entertainment of the Elect.
A “Celestial North Korea”
Of course, there are wonderful people, kind people, people raised well who use their own cherry picked version of Christianity (because ALL versions are cherry picked. There is no pure elemental Christianity) to justify and inspire wonderful activities for other people that transcend anything my lazy ass does.
It can easily be weaponized by nasty people in the situations described above.
bmiller@#21: That’s exactly it. While some people are inspired to do good who would not otherwise do it, quite a few jerks are enabled and given justification to be more so.
If you look at belief system as chests of tools, most have something in there that can be used for good, although quite a few items are dual-use. But some chests are mostly thumbscrews.
Caine @18:
I’ve met plenty of asshole Christians of the kind you mentioned (punishment for evil, etc), thanks very much. I’m related to some! That’s not what I’m writing about. For the third fucking time: I’m writing about Marcus’ Christians who would watch somebody being attacked by a crocodile (or a kid drowning in a pool, etc) and stand around wondering whether they should do something. That’s fictitious bullshit.
Anyway, I’m done here. Don’t want to put any further strain on folks’ reading comprehension.
Rob Grigjanis:
Don’t want to put any further strain on folks’ reading comprehension.
Perhaps the straining is on your part. After all, you’re trying to go from my saying “I wonder if..” which ought to be obviously absurd to anyone, except apparently you, to: Marcus claims that there are actually christians that would stand around thinking that. A claim I do not make.
I said clearly and repeatedly that my comment was about my response and not what I actually thought any actual christians living or dead actually think or thought. My point was similar to the pictures of the popemobile and the comment “nothing says ‘I have faith in the lord’ like 3” of bulletproof glass” – it is a comment on the viewer more than what’s going on in the picture or what the pope believes. Or, in your world, would that be claiming the pope is having a crisis of faith?
You seem desperate to score a few points, or something, but I’m not going to let you extend your own interpretation of my comment and score points off of that.
Now, if you want to claim that my humor appears to lack empathy, we can talk about that. But it’ll be mostly me saying “yeah, so?” Or perhaps my sense of humor sucks as badly as your comprehension, which is probably another “yeah, so?”
Marcus @24:
Hilarious. Maybe someday I’ll try the “I wonder if…” gambit, and make the same lame defence (“obviously absurd to to anyone, except apparently you”) when challenged. What you said “clearly and repeatedly” was just more bullshit trying to back off from what you actually wrote.
Funny how nobody else said it was obviously absurd. They were too busy saying “yes, I know Christians like that, or as bad as that”.
Yeah, that must be it. It couldn’t possibly be trying to call out bullshit. OK, now I’m done. Probably.
Sven? Is that you?