Sunday, August 30, 2009
Arrow of God
Hearing someone praise God for his power on the evidence of a little girl surviving being hit in the throat near the carotid artery only makes me think:If God was so powerful, couldn't he have simply prevented the arrow from hitting her?
There's just something not right about the logic: this little girl was struck by a deadly object in a horrific fashion but it's OK because God allowed it happen just enough to wound her, but not kill her?
This must be the same reasoning that says torture and indefinite imprisonment of non-combatants is OK as long as there's no permanent organ failure.
I guess that means rape is fine as long as the mom survives and has the resulting child because, hey, everyone loves babies! They're so innocent.
Sorry to go off on a tangent. I saw the initial comment that sparked my posting on Facebook, otherwise I'd link to it. I get that the mother is relieved her child survived the arrow, but attributing just one small part of her surviving to God and using it to state that "God is powerful" is simply horseshit and doesn't stand up to any kind of thinking at all.
But the writers of the various books of the Bible, and all the men who have spent centuries interpreting it, don't really like thinking and reason, do they? It got in their way. Better to discourage reason and logic in favor of convoluted worship of authority; that's how a cult is built, after all.
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I don't understand this reasoning either. My guess is they're comparing good to evil: the devil fired the arrow and god "protected" her, which allowed the arrow to miss the really important spot.
I don't understand the parallel you're making to torture or rape, though. Would be interested in hearing you elaborate on this.
The thing that gets me about organized religion is that it spends a lot of time trying to explain and/or attribute everything that happens to god, in some way, when the much more likely answer is that things just are. People live, they die, they get hit by cars, they fall out of trees, etc., etc., etc. Life goes on. The girl survived because she was lucky. Period.
It also fascinates me the extent to which people will go to prove or disprove the existence of god when, at the end of the day, what do we really know? I have yet to hear of anyone who has proven - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that god exists or doesn't.
It does strike me, though, that you seem particularly interested in pointing out ways the other folks are wrong. Guess I just have to wonder why. :)
I prefer, I guess, not to spend my time thinking and stewing over something to which I'll never really know the answer. Maybe that's naive, but I don't think any religious person was ever converted to non-belief through goading. It seems to happen more organically, when they're encouraged to think independently and learn to trust their instincts.
Just my ten cents, I guess. Food for thought. ;-)
I don't understand the parallel you're making to torture or rape, though. Would be interested in hearing you elaborate on this.
The thing that gets me about organized religion is that it spends a lot of time trying to explain and/or attribute everything that happens to god, in some way, when the much more likely answer is that things just are. People live, they die, they get hit by cars, they fall out of trees, etc., etc., etc. Life goes on. The girl survived because she was lucky. Period.
It also fascinates me the extent to which people will go to prove or disprove the existence of god when, at the end of the day, what do we really know? I have yet to hear of anyone who has proven - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that god exists or doesn't.
It does strike me, though, that you seem particularly interested in pointing out ways the other folks are wrong. Guess I just have to wonder why. :)
I prefer, I guess, not to spend my time thinking and stewing over something to which I'll never really know the answer. Maybe that's naive, but I don't think any religious person was ever converted to non-belief through goading. It seems to happen more organically, when they're encouraged to think independently and learn to trust their instincts.
Just my ten cents, I guess. Food for thought. ;-)
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