God's Tebow-bias

Great Debates
1

An undoubtedly scientifically blind and rigorous recent nation-wide pollfound that 43% of all Americans believe Tebow is winning due to divine intervention. They think God wants Tebow to win so He comes and helps. What happens if someone from the losing team prayed as well…? How does God determine who deserves it if both people are praying…?

Follow up question: why does God have such a flair for the dramatic? Why not just make someone overwhelmingly better on a consitent basis (think more Brady and less Tebow)…? Why does God like 4th quarter rallies so much more than early-onset dismantlings?

2

Each second of prayer is considered a prayer-unit, aka a PU.

God simply adds up the PU from each team, ignores the millions of PU from thousands of starving victimized children, then makes sure the team with the higher PU wins.

Of course, if a team has any Muslim or atheist or closeted gay players, that offsets some or all the PU of the team.

3

Well, if God helps Tebow then they were praying against God’s Chosen Quarterback, so clearly they must have secretly been praying to…SATAN!!

It’s a storm god thing, they don’t do subtle.

4

He has a plan.

5

He seems to like Tebow.

6

So that’s a different dude? Like…pantheistic?

7

whaaaaat?? is that true? those 3-1-6 stats…?

dubious.

and anyway–shouldn’t God be at church? heck, doesn’t the bible say not to toil on the sabbath?? Tim’s totally working.

i know this topic is just comedic chip-shot fodder, but i really wonder what the general idea on prayer is. in a real kind of logical way–

i started thinking about it a lot after the japanese tsunami.

a lot of people said “OMG how awful. we’re pray for you, japan.”

my first thought was, "why didn’t you pray this never happened in the first place…? if you did, and this happened, why would God all of the sudden spare anyone…?

to paraphrase Mr. Deity: God seems to get all the good credit. a tornado hits, hundreds die, “God has a plan, we just don’t understand it.” One baby dies while the rest of the family is killed, “it’s a miracle from God!!”

i confess, i’m a striving-to-be-logical Deist on an ever-descending plane into more rational conclusions–i don’t believe anything is supernatural. i think anything we don’t understand is just a fundamental shortcoming in modern science–something that, as time goes on, more than likely will be better understood. something like thunder used to be zeus throwing his bolts back in the day is understood more by modern society. whatever the underlying energy or connectivity of reality is (if there is a thing) can and will be understood and explained by science. it most certainly won’t be called “god” but may or may not ostensibly serve as the analogue for a religious deity.

that said, i still pray on a pretty regular basis, and i believe it helps (in a self-manifesting way).

i can’t, for the life of me, figure out why God would–if He is real–care about sports. or my big promotion, or where i left my car keys, or my cancer.
it would demonstrate an anti-benevolent sort of bias…
indeed, if there IS a God and a Heaven as the judeo-christian belief dictates, being alive would be hell. so, in my mind, God saving that one baby while taking the family would be punishment to the baby. far from a miracle. 'you don’t deserve the immediate pleasure of eternal bliss. you have to stay and learn algebra. You’ll have to hear Ke$ha sing." it’s veritable doom.

my father was a preacher growing up. i’d ask him about all this but we have a pretty solid working relationship going on. i’m not rocking that boat…

8

God likes Tea. Hence his support for the Tea Party and Tebow.

And he takes his with cream, natch, to whiten it.

9

A Christian at work said to me, “imagine what the Super bowl would be like, with millions of people praying for Tebow!” With that kind of prayer power, this could be the first ever 150 to nothing victory.

Basically, God wants Denver to win, is cheating to make it happen and he doesn’t care who knows it. We mortals can only try to calculate the prayer point spread and hope to get in on some of God’s action.

10

From my pursuit of knowing God, I believe God looks at the heart, at the underlying motivation of the request.

There is a perfect heart, that would be the heart of God. If your heart is lined up with His you are God as Jesus is God as He walked on earth. You are also a extension of God on earth.

When such a prayer request comes in, God will look at the reason, not just for you, but all that pray. If the intentions line up with His, He will grant it because that is also His intention, He is praying that the event will happen, and when God speaks (in prayer), it happens. I would expect that the intents that God is looking at would be more in line that the person wants to inspire others, more then to make a boat load of cash but there are no hard and fast rules.

So in the case that both sides are praying for a win, and both hearts are aligned with God. Well God being God gets to decide. Perhaps one will have to lose, but in losing gain something far more valuable. Or just perhaps God will perform a miracle and both will win, basically God can split reality to have 2 outcomes that appear not possible, but it is very possible with God.

How does the second one, the miracle play out. Some people will see one win, others will see the other win. God will select the people in a way that the conversation doesn’t (or rarely) comes up between them. In the rare case that it does it is usually years later, the person may see the crack in reality, or just accept that they were mistaken when they lose the bar bet of who won.

11

Things like this are always attributed to God after the fact. You’re never going to get anywhere if you argue against this kind of de facto reasoning.

12

“RRRARRRGH!!! Tebow must SMASH puny humans for Jesus!”

13

with all due respect to your beliefs, i need to know: *when do i get to start smiting people?! *because things are about to get really awesome for me…

14

yeah yeah i know. like i said: Mr Deity. God wins no matter what.
i also know there’s massive existential and theological pretext required for the question to even be suitable to ask.

introspective, fervent believers, i would imagine, have considered the scatter-graph results of prayer and more than likely have an explanation. the best answer i can come up with is “God is ambivalent,” which would seem to be an intrinsic requirement.

i’m curious to hear it.

15

Pssst… while Tebow HAS had a huge amount of success, he’s also lost lots of games (at the high school, college AND pro levels). He’s won NCAA championships, but he’s also lost them.

You really think he’s unaware that God doesn’t magically help him win?

Like him or not, he graduated from college in less than 4 years with a good GPA. Does that sound like a guy who sat around and waited for God to make him pass his exams, or like a guy who actually STUDIED??

Like him or not, look at his physique and ask- does he look like a guy who trusts in God to make him a top athlete, or like a guy who spends a LOT of time in the weight room?

Now, I’m already on record (many times!) on the SDMB as saying I like Tebow but just don’t think he’s going to succeed long-term as an NFL quarterback. He misses open receivers too often, and he misses them BADLY. He can’t consistently make throws that NFL quarterbacks HAVE to make. My guess is, his career will be a lot like Vince Young’s- he’ll have a lot of great moments, he’ll make a lot of highlight reeels, but eventually, it will become clear that he just doesn’t have what it takes to make it as an NFL quarterback.

God may have given him certain natural talents, but that’s where divine intervention ends. Tebow has worked very hard to make the most of whatever gifts God (or, if you prefer, nature and blind chance) gave him. But God HASN’T magically given Tebow victories, and even Tebow knows that. Tebow merely sees that his success on the field gives him a spotlight from which to share his values.

Naturally, people who don’t share his values would like to tell him, “Shut up and play ball.” Though, let’s face it, if a successful athlete used his celebrity status t push a message they LIKED, they’d think it was wonderful.

16

As a nonChristian, even I have to admit that his attitude is admirable.
He lives his faith. I don’t agree with him, but I really like it that we are talking about an athlete who isn’t after hookers and blow.

Not that there is something wrong with hookers and blow. :slight_smile:

17

Yes; I think that he probably really does think God is behind it all. Whether it’s actually from his efforts, the efforts of others or sheer luck he’ll find some way to give “God” the credit; the only credit he’ll give himself is to pat himself on the back over the Christian righteousness & moral superiority that has convinced his god to hand him the success he deserves. That’s pretty common Christian behavior.

18

Sometimes, I just wish that one of these guys would say something like “Jesus why did you screw up that last play!!!”

19

Anytime you want. If God is angry at this person, and you are lined up with God’s heart, you can act with him on smiting (anger is not a sin, though it can lead to sin, which just means your anger is misdirected). God can get very busy on someone’s a$$ and yes if you are His saint you can be a part of it and see the results.

But if your heart is not aligned with God, you can still smite anyone you have been given control over, and over those who have submitted to your control. As such in marriages, parent/children boss/worker traffic cop/driver their are power structures that allow ungodly smiting and you don’t need to be aligned with God for that. But you have to deal with the effects of ungodly smiting, namely karma.

For when one of the ones you smite cry out to God from their heart God will be with them and you now will be facing God. God will take up their cause against you.

Also if you try to smite a person protected by God rules state that the smiting will return to sender, so be careful. :slight_smile:

20

God doesn’t love Tim Tebow. He just hates Ben Roethlisberger.