This is an actual quote I read today from the head coach of the University of Michigan football team, Jim Harbaugh. Give it a quick read and then we'll dissect it, shall we?
"Even now, as we all go through what we're going through with COVID-19, I see people more concerned about others. More prayerful. As I said, God has virtually stopped the world from spinning. I don't think it's coincidence – my personal feeling, living a faith-based life, this is a message or this is something that should be a time where we grow on our faith for reverence and respect for God. You see people taking more of a view of sanctity of life. And I hope that can continue. I hope that continues and not just in this time of crisis or pandemic.
Ok. Someone please tell me, is it even remotely possible that it's not completely lost on Mr. Harbaugh that he's ACTUALLY suggesting (he says it's 'no coincidence') that his God killed, or at least 'allowed' to be killed, over 100,000 people worldwide (SO FAR) with this virus, of which the huge majority are from Christian nations, so that the rest of us that are fortunate enough to not be killed, would stop and give MORE respect to God and have a greater appreciation for the 'sanctity' of life!?!?!? And notice I said people here; not ants, or weeds, or flowers, or rabid bats or anything else. PEOPLE that were ALIVE, with families and friends and jobs and responsibilities and lives, all DEAD so we can appreciate the sanctity of LIFE! Wow!
And wouldn't it follow, and make a lot more sense, that if this virus is how God actually goes about making His point on such matters, that we would be far more inclined to revere and respect him much LESS, not more?!? Can I get an amen?
And the worst part is, we live in a society where he'll probably get thousands and thousands of 'likes' of one form or another, or pats on the back like what he said was so great or profound or meaningful, and he'll probably get no pushback whatsoever. Lord help us! No, wait.......on second thought, please don't!
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
God is good, god is loving. And every so often god kills millions of people indiscriminately to remind us how loving it is.
Mr. Killens, do you know how frustrating it is when someone expresses in 2 sentences something more precisely and more effectively than what I was trying to say in 20? Nicely done!
Yup, based on this reasoning it’s amazing I still have pets and kids alive - I mean really amazing. I must not love them enough.
What? Respect for a god that promotes hate, greed, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, indoctrination, child abuse, repression, genocide, slavery, murder, racism, fear, lies and immorality? Ummm no.
Just a hint god. Respect is earned...without you being around, it actually has a negative effect.
God might have killed 100,000 innocent people, but he saved Tom Hanks and Boris Johnson. The hand of god was right there guiding the hands of the physicians, and his protecting spirit impregnated the masks and gloves and gowns of the medical personnel who were able to get PPE because they were treating celebrities.
Thanks be to god for giving us the great blessing of this pandemic.
@Jimmy Neutron
Perhaps begin with ancient Egyptian religious beliefs about 5 thousand years ago . Fast forward a few thousand years to India then to the fertile crescent ,from whence came Judaism and later Christianity.
To the nineteenth century and Joseph Smith who invented Mormonism. (early mormons believed there were people living on both the sun and the moon)
Finally to the twentieth century and L Ron Hubbard, who once wrote; 'If you want to get rich, invent a religion" .So he did that, and now we have Scientology. To be fair, after looking at the beliefs touted by Scientologists I have to say that their loopiest beliefs don't seem any loopier than many Christian beliefs .
So yair, I think you CAN make this stuff up. People have been doing it for millennia.
Somebody once said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating public taste". To which I add my own corollary, "or gullibility "
Thought for today: "Religion: Man's attempt to communicate with the weather" (Grafitto Cambridge England 2000)
Spin doctors take their training in religion.
[post deleted by moderator]@Davi C
If you want to argue for Christianity or whatever; do so in the debate forum.
@ Davi C
"Your argument is based on death and suffering being evidence of an evil God."
Yet later you describe suffering. According to your beliefs, your god created this universe, knows all, and is therefore responsible for everything that happens. Past, present, and future.
Thus your god inflicts suffering just because it is an evil douchebag. This relationship you describe is a classic abusive relationship.
"Take John Bunyan for example. He was one of the greatest preachers in the seventeenth century. Because of the Gospel, he was arrested for twelve years in terrible conditions. He had a wife and children. In his biography, he says that sometimes the pain of being aparted from his family was so much that it felt like flesh being pulled out of his bones."
John Bunyan was a Pilgrim preacher. He was sentenced for three months. He just had to agree not to preach anymore, but refused, and his sentence was extended. At any time he could have announced he would stop preaching, and this condition did not require him to renounce his faith. But he stayed in prison and supported his wife by making shoelaces. So don;t feed me bullshit about him missing his wife.
"Therefore, rest assured that all the children of God that suffered somehow because of the coronavirus were strong enough to go through this."
That is a blatant lie.
Pastor Landon Spradlin wasn't worried about coronavirus when he went to New Orleans to preach during Mardi Gras. A month later he was dead. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52157824
Virginia pastor dies from coronavirus after vowing to keep church open despite essential business order. https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-pastor-dies-coronavirus
Bishop dies after saying ‘God is larger than this dreaded virus’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/coronaviru...
"But realize it is not God's fault"
It is.
@Jimmy Neutron
While Tom hanks and Boris Johnson etc get the headlines. The people that are going to do the bulk of the dying, will be the world's poorest. Especially with those that have pre-existing conditions.
If someone were to take a data based approach to this virus and try to connect a "god" to it. By the end of this year, the numbers will be overwhelmingly: god hates the poor/vulnerable. The richer you are, the more "god" likes you. I have 3 different medically vulnerable people living in my household now, that I am taking care of.
We can hold out in self isolation, ordering food online and having it delivered to our door with zero human-human interaction, decontaminate the food containers, and our chance of getting sick drop to near zero. No "god" needed, just being lucky enough to have a source of income, where I can work from home remotely, which provides the income needed to allow us to self quarantine.
@LogicFTW
"Especially with those that have pre-existing conditions."
Yair.
My best male friend is 59. He weighs 450 pounds . Plus he has emphysema and a heart condition. He isolated himself in his house as soon as it looked as if there MIGHT be a pandemic. IF he contracts the virus he will almost surely die. He's middle class in terms of property and money. Hew will probably be fine. We talk daily by voice mail and by "Discord' a video chat free app.
ME? I'm an old fuck. I live alone and my health is OK ,although not robust. I have type 2 diabetes, controlled with medication. Last couple of months I've been losing weight in an attempt to address the diabetes. .Have lost 20 lbs so far. Want to lose another 10. . I take life day at a time, and wear a face mask if I MUST go out.
BUT, IF you are poor, homeless, or simply live in say rural India, Africa, China, or South America you're fucked. Chances are you and yours will contract the virus. You will either get over it by yourself, or you will die,.
From Huffpost US Today, Sunday April 19 :
"Epidemiologist Delivers Blunt Reality Check On Current Phase Of Coronavirus Pandemic
"The pandemic is only just getting started," warned William Hanage, a professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at Harvard.
The coronavirus pandemic is not even close to being over, an associate professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at Harvard cautioned in a new editorial published by The Guardian this week.
In fact, it is “quite the reverse,” wrote William Hanage.
“The pandemic is only just getting started,” said Hanage, who explained why “talk of the ‘peak’” of the spread of the contagion “can be misleading” as “it’s not clear whether you are talking about the Matterhorn or Table Mountain — both have a summit, but the peak is far more pronounced in one than the other.”
Hanage also warned “there may be a mountain range.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/epidemiologist-coronavirus-peak-...
Agreed cranky47.
The math is easy:
This is a highly contagious virus of which, vaccine is at least a year off. And so far "herd immunity" is at less than 1%. Need to get to at least 50% herd immunity before this virus stops being ultra contagious and merely just being highly contagious.
At least for my area, current stay at home restrictions and social distancing seems to have leveled off new case count to a manageable number that it does not completely overwhelm our local hospitals. Which is great, but until herd immunity goes way up, and or their is a vaccine, this is far from over. And the world over is running out of protective gear at frightening speeds which will further damage our front line medical workers capability.
Surveillance will never work well in USA, so its left with testing, except testing needs to get to the millions per day, before we can actually safely consider opening things back up, in stages.
A bunch of random sample antibody tests are going on now, if they show that more than 90% of cases go unreported, things are actually not going to be as nearly bad as we thought. (Still really bad though!) As evidence by northern Italy or NYC area.
@LogicFTW
"And so far "herd immunity" is at less than 1%. Need to get to at least 50% herd immunity before this virus stops being ultra contagious and merely just being highly contagious."
Fascinating.
I had a good friend who eschewed modern medicines (especially vaccines) in favour of alternative medicines.
He was always going on about the latest bit of humbuggery*** he had just found online, often with a triumphant "AND it cures cancer!" He was very fond of the term 'herd immunity",which he was unable to actually explain to me. SO I did some digging. The article I read claimed that for say an unvaccinated child to be safe from measles due to herd immunity, there would need to be a population immunity of 85%. Is this figure too high, or is a figure of 50% possible a bit optimistic?
What became of my friend? After he had been complaining about being tired all the time for several months, finally got him to see a doctor. Blood tests, doctor rang him at home as soon as the results were back, telling him to go to the hospital NOW . He died 8 days later from an especially aggressive form of leukemia .
He was 70, a lovely, trusting soul of modest intellect and even more modest formal education. I believe his life was shortened because he believed in and followed alternative medicine. Through humbuggery on the net he had learned to distrust science and doctors. Those frauds are culpable in his death imo.
***************************************V*****************************************
***''Humbuggery' is a compound word. I have no idea if I invented it. Probably not . To me it refers to frauds and hucksters who bullshit the gullible whilst sodomising them financially. You know, like televangelists ,alternative healers and Dr whathisname on Oprah
@Cranky47
Forgot to commend you on your weight loss. Nicely done!
Hopefully I can respond with a longer reply tomorrow.
@cranky47: So ..... He was fine until he went to the hospital .......... he got a bit tired and decided to try one out. ............ he got there and they gave him a case of leukemia........... he died eight days later. Sounds like an advertisement for humbuggery to me.... :-)
@Cognostic
"Sounds like an advertisement for humbuggery to me.... :-)
You ARE joking?
My take is my friend died from ignorance, gullibility and a distrust of mainstream medicine.
Constant tiredness is a symptom of leukemia . He had been tired all the time, for months. Had he not gone to the doctor when he did he would have almost certainly have simply died at home, where his brother or I would have discovered the body .
l repeat; imo, the frauds who push alternative medicine instead of mainstream medicine are culpable in his death.
ME? I have taken vitamin supplements with my Dr's encouragement. However, I research ANY prescribed medication and try to stay informed---I stopped taking a drug called Fosamax (for osteoporosis) . Learned anecdotally that it causes necrosis of the jaw and stopped taking it.. My dentist later confirmed that claim.