There is a story on the abcnews website From Fear to Survival: Knowledge Is Key - ABC News about a little girl who saved her family during the tsunami 4 years ago because she remembered something from her science class. Her SCIENCE class. She noticed the signs of an incoming tsunami and was able to convince her family to move to safer areas and her family was saved in the nick of time.
But of course, they’re calling her “The Angel of the Beach.” Huh?? She didn’t pray for help. She used what she learned in SCIENCE class to help her.
And of course, all the religious commentors on the site are saying that “God” guided her to convince her family to safety. I guess the tens of thousands of people who were quickly praying in the face of oncoming doom messes up God’s success rate.
Well, Happy Lendervedder, if they truly used science, they’d probably come to the conclusion that prayer doesn’t work. And spooje, there is evidence that she attended a science class that gave her the warning signs of an approaching tsunami. There is no proof or evidence that god made her family listen.
Calling someone an “angel” doesn’t necessarily imply that you think they had divine guidance. That news story just says that the nickname was given to her by British tabloid writers. It sounds to me like the sort of nickname you might give someone to lionize them for doing something great. Do you have any other references that lead you to think it was meant as an assertion of divine guidance?
A lot of religious people believe that God is responsible for literally every event that ever happens. To someone with this view, it makes no difference that her actions were the result of knowledge she gained in a science class. God is responsible for that, too! Of course, this belief also makes it a senseless truism to say that any particular action was divinely guided.
Next thing you’re gonna try to tell me is that those guys in Anaheim aren’t divine creatures either.
Or maybe you’re going to tell me that Rosie and the Originals weren’t actually referring to an infant who was simultaneously a divine being.
Or maybe you’re going to tell me that the chick that kept warning me that her boyfriend was back, not to mention her cohorts, were not actually supernatural beings.
And maybe you’re going to tell me that Shaggy and Rayvon were actually singing a hymn?
Look, Sparky, people call other people, particularly people who who do amazing things, particularly when those people are young women, “angels.”
It’s an allusion to the literary convention of what an angel is, not some conspiracy to subliminally convert everyone to the unwitting worship of the Divine.
Go stop a REAL crime.
Trust me- they aren’t. Oh sure, they have had their moments (well, okay, one) but I went to my first game in 1967 and they have been cursed WAY more often than they’ve been blessed…
Well, Shawn, regardless of what you think, religious people can believe in science, and scientists can even be religious. But like people have pointed out, your anger at the use of “angel of the beach” is completely misguided here, as it was just a nickname plopped onto her by the British media-- an institution not known for being overly religious in a country not known for being overly religious. Who is your beef even with here? And why the fuck do you really care?
Do you always find ridiculous things to be offended by, or is this part of some New Year’s resolution for you?
Actually, I was not really offended by the “Angel of the Beach” nickname. However, I knew that the religious would seize that as an opening to tie it in with divine actions. And why do I care? Well, it’s just another in a long line of the religious spinning things however they see fit. Like my coworker who claims that it was prayer that saved all those aboard the flight that landed in the Hudson.
I don’t know. If you think that is ridiculous to get upset over, oh well, too bad. But when I see frothing atheists going ballistic on religion, I can really see where they are coming from. And it’s not regardless of whether I think religious people can believe in science. True science, not just using the “results” of science, means you have to test and go with what the evidence suggests. I don’t see the religious doing that. I don’t see them saying “well, you know prayer really doesn’t work because, logically, everything is supposed to happen according to god’s plan and that would interfere. Let me test it out.” No, instead, I see them abandoning the scientific method and spinning prayer every which way except the spin that it doesn’t work. They’ll use every argument to say that "well, prayer doesn’t mean what you think it means, it means this or that, yet people still use it to pray for safety and the health of people. They keep moving the goalposts. If religious people truly believed in the scientific method, they’d have to ask themselves the hard questions and abandon that which the evidence did not support.
Yeah, and that is why I nod in my most patronizing manner whenever I hear that shit. (checking my watch) Yep, after midnight (EST), so it’s Friday, and I have successfully transitioned into Atheist Mode.
I’m not saying it’s ridiculous to get upset over this, I’m saying that I don’t see this mindset prominently displayed in the comments of the article you linked to. You’re saying “all the religious commentors on the site are saying…etc…” but when I read the comments I don’t see those numerous religious zealots attributing to god the girl’s achievement.
Ironically, it seems that the OP who was pitting “Religious people who spin stuff however they want” was in fact … spinning stuff however he or she wanted!
