Scientists Do the Work, God Takes the Credit
From a news report that caught my eye:
Timing, faith, heroics, preparation and a bit of luck spared thousands.
Local, state and federal officials credit luck, happenstance, timing, faith, heroics, preparation and the seasoned experience that comes with living in the heart of Tornado Alley for the relatively low victim count.
Really? Faith was one of the elements? How did that work?
Of the elements listed, “luck,” “happenstance,” and “timing” all pretty much mean the same thing, and are true. Some people survived simply due to chance.
“Heroics” I get as well—for example, teachers risking their lives to save their students.
“Preparation” definitely—storm shelters no doubt saved many lives. Related to that would be “seasoned experience,” which both led to the preparation and informed people what to do in cases like these.
But “faith”? Where did that come in? I mean, let’s say we’re assuming God controls everything, at least as far as nature is concerned (people have free will). Okay, but then that means that he sent the tornado. I don’t see how faith helps you there. And if it means that praying saved people, then that must also be applied to those who did not survive: did they fail to pray? And if so, did God kill them for it? What if they did pray but died anyway; how would faith have helped them there? Surely there must be many among the survivors who did not pray; why were they left alive?
So, really, I don’t see how faith could possibly be included in that list. Maybe as a coping mechanism afterwards, but in terms of keeping people from harm? Hardly. So why force that into the list? Read the article, and you will see no evidence whatsoever to support the inclusion.
Eventually, the “news media” was also credited, albeit only near the end of the article; acknowledgment of the communication system for warnings is appropriate, surely more than faith was.
However, something far more relevant was pretty much ignored: science. You know how all those people got warned so quickly? Scientists studied how weather works. Scientists, some of whom risk their lives chasing these storms to get the data required, worked out the mechanics of tornado prediction. And scientists developed the technology which brought the message to these people. Not to mention that engineers designed the building structures and shelters that saved so many lives.
So, really, the biggest thanks of all should go to scientists, who probably were #1 on the list of life savers.
How many thanks did they get? How many were mentioned in stories like these?
None.
But faith gets a big “thank you.” Not as big as God himself, though; see the video at top, in which Wolf Blitzer awkwardly tries to actually press a “thanks” to the Lord for the woman and her child surviving the storm. It’s not just that she was an atheist, but rather that Blitzer seemed so eager to get a “Thanks be to Jesus!” out of her.
Next time, Wolf, ask someone if they might want to say a word of thanks to the nameless scientists who did most of the work. But then, if he did that instead of trying to praise Jesus, then he’d be part of the War on Christianity™.
17% say they never attend church vs. 42% who say they attend at least once a week.
http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/How-the-Faithful-Voted-2012-Preliminary-Exit-Poll-Analysis.aspx
We’re outnumbered at least 2:1, LOL. Heck, the born again/evangelicals outnumber professed athiests — 1 out 4 or 5 people are white evangelical.
Fox News was very smart that it was stupid dumping on the religious people, they’re the middle of the country, both figuratively and literally.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/03/real-boundaries-bible-belt/1617/
I can recall a time where it was rather embarrassing to wear your religion out on your sleeve – I’d say before 1980. At least where I came from.
Leo Strauss, spiritual/intellectual father of the Neocon movement is the guy that created the idea: Atheist-Philosoper-Supermen should run the country. Strauss had the Nietzsche-ian belief that without religion, most people would descend into decadence, and bring society with it. Only ‘supermen’ can be atheist and not be decadent. Of course when ever there’s a line drawn through society, the rich are the saved, or the elect or in this case “the supermen.” Religion then, Strauss believed, was a tool to impose upon the masses in order to control them… to heard the cattle of humanity away from decadence. Atheist elites, for the rabble excessive religiosity to control them.
Mind you, as atheist, they aren’t particular as to the brand of religion.
Towards this, the Rich republicans adopted the Neocon idea that it is their job to run society, and that they would coopt religious movements to do this.
They’ve infiltrated every religion. They spawned organizations through their foundations funding conservative wings of every religious sect out there. There is the democracy and religion project that has as its agenda to coopt main line protestant religions. They succeeded with the Baptist. There’s the Catholic League which has no formal ties with formal catholicism, but has extensive ties to the Neocon establishment. They lock arms with Orthodox Jews. There’s even a guy out there named Stephen Schwartz, a Jew who appears to have converted to Islam, who I believe was originally working that side of the street for the Neocons – the way Donohue works the Catholicism side of the street.
These movements are well funded. In some cases they plant people into these religions and use money (donations) to move them up the latter within those organizations. (Guys that bring in money always get promoted, even in religious organizations).
So the media campaign is to make people more religious on the one hand, and then drive them into the waiting arms of religion on the other, where they will be greeted by a conservative agenda driven community that will convince the people driven into that to be saved AND be a member of the community, they have to surrender any liberal political aspirations that they have.
This is pure evil done iin the name of religion. This is a big, massive project done by people who have too much money and to much time on their hands as well as too high of regard for themselves.
In other news,
“Tokyo consumer prices excluding fresh food rose 0.1 percent in May from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today. ”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-31/japan-output-exceeds-estimates-in-boost-for-abe-revival-campaign.html
Abenomics is working (!/?)
“God bless those Pagans” – Homer Simpson