How would major religions react to the aftermath of the film Armageddon? (spoilers)

[Clothahump]

@Quartz

For those of you who haven’t seen the film, Bruce Willis & co go and destroy an asteroid which would otherwise destroy humanity, if not life on Earth.

So, how would major religions, particularly Christianity, react to the fact of these people literally having saved the world?

They’d find a way to make money off of it somehow.

[begbert2]

@Alessan

Look -

Every successful act of heroism always includes a bucket load of good luck. Do you think that luck wasn’t a factor with the pilot who landed in the Hudson a couple of months ago? Sure, he was brave and smart and capable, but there were also other factors involved - what if the engines had failed a minute earlier? What if the winds had been different? What if there had been a big boat right in the middle of the river? Hell, what if some other pilot had been in the cockpit?

Heroism implies risk, and risk implies randomness; after all, if the end result were certain, it wouldn’t be very heroic, would it? That randomness is what some people call luck and other people call God, or fate, of karma. The guys from Armageddon would be the first to admit that luck played a part in their triumph - and I doubt they’d mind if some people liked to pay tribute to it as well as to them.

I don’t believe that people who praise god for a successful herioc act are talking about luck, and I don’t believe they’re excluding the credit for the deliberate actions of the hero. I believe they’re giving credit to a presumed sentient diety for causing the event to occur as it did, lock stock and barrel - just like they seem to be doing.

And not all acts of heroism require luck - reaching out and pulling a child out of the way of an oncoming bus is heroic, for example.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Quartz

So, how would major religions, particularly Christianity, react to the fact of these people literally having saved the world? Would they be demonised for having diverted the Hand of God?

Of those who believe in an active God (which includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims), though there is a tension between God’s sovereignty on the one hand, and human beings’ free will and ability to affect the course of earthly events on the other, I think that the vast majority would tell you that something as major as the destruction of humanity would be under God’s control: it would happen if, and only if, God was ready for it to happen. Thus, if the world was not destroyed, it means that God did not intend that the world be destroyed at this time. So either God knew and intended all along that Bruce Willis & co. would save the Earth, or he had a Plan B.

That, as I said, is what I think the majority view would be. But, humans being the wacky irrational creatures that they are, there would be people who would have all sorts of weird perspectives on the thing.

[JRDelirious]

@Thudlow_Boink

Of those who believe in an active God (which includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims), though there is a tension between God’s sovereignty on the one hand, and human beings’ free will and ability to affect the course of earthly events on the other, I think that the vast majority would tell you that something as major as the destruction of humanity would be under God’s control: it would happen if, and only if, God was ready for it to happen. Thus, if the world was not destroyed, it means that God did not intend that the world be destroyed at this time. So either God knew and intended all along that Bruce Willis & co. would save the Earth, or he had a Plan B.

That, as I said, is what I think the majority view would be. But, humans being the wacky irrational creatures that they are, there would be people who would have all sorts of weird perspectives on the thing.

Right. Sorry, Locrian, but Humanity being saved from a world-ending cataclysm by a human effort would NOT be a “gotcha” for most mainstream theologies. They’ve had thousands of years to make things fit; if they can handle theodicy, heroic human achievement is a walk. As begbert and others point out, they’ll credit the Divine Power with having used these men as his/her instruments. To repeat the example, folks speak of the “miracle on the Hudson”, as opposed to the “display of kick-ass-superstud airmanship and good structural buoyancy design on the Hudson”. It’s ingrained in the collective mind.