I think that “God came through” sounds to me like; “He really did me a favour (by offing those other dudes),” rather than “He helped me to be my best in this race”.
It’s just the way it hits the ear.
Right, Sweet. ultress and scotti, nobody is saying that Christians shouldn’t pray or give thanks for victory: it’s just that it’s really rude to rejoice publicly in your good fortune if it happened as a result of somebody else getting hurt. Good competition manners, for Christians or for anybody else, require you at least to pretend that you’re feeling sympathetic about the other person’s misfortune instead of just being happy for yourself, whether your happiness involves being grateful to God or not. Rest assured, if the winning runner were an atheist who babbled on about how hard he’d worked and how lucky he was to win and never mentioned God at all, we’d be calling him a self-centered asshole too. Maybe that sort of selfish rudeness just grates more when it comes from Christians, because they are the self-proclaimed champs of loving their neighbor.
Bingo, Kimstu. Ultress has a history of being overly sensitive about this topic, so I was practically expecting her to completely miss the point.
For those of you who see the word “Christianity” from me and automatically think I’m attacking your religion, let me spell it out real carefully like.
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God has better things to do than care about who wins the 200-meter-dash in an Olympic trial, what with hunger, war, and comforting the families of 109 people on a Concorde.
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If you want to thank God for giving you the strength and ability to succeed, go right ahead. I might refer to #1, but it’s not going to make me want to start a Pit thread about how YOU are an asshole.
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If you thank God for your victory when the two people who were by all rights supposed to beat you are writhing in pain on the track behind you, and you are AWARE of this, it’s fucking unsportsmanlike. And I’m sure God gets a real huge kick out of hubris, as well as taking joy in the misfortune of others. Most “good Christians” (quotes because I used the phrase in my OP, not because I don’t believe there are such things) are aware of this, and wouldn’t dream of saying something like what Capel said. He didn’t even MENTION the other two runners until the interviewer asked him if he noticed. I mean, how Christian is that? Yet, he can sure thank God when it suits him.
So there, ultress and others. I am NOT bashing Christianity. I’m bashing these paragons of virtue in the public eye who insist upon making a mockery of a perfectly good religion. And once again, it’s sad when a nonbeliever has to point this shit out to you.
Okay, I AM bashing Christianity.
Look at it this way. God made everything, God made the heavens and the Earth. God, being omnipotent and all seeing, knows that all these little molecules and atoms are going to end up forming into a racetrack, a hamstring which will stop working at the most inopportune of times, a runner who’s going to fall down in the last bend, and another runner who’s arrogant enough to think this is all done for his benefit. The thing is, if he believes in an omnipotent God, then he’s right.
You say that God wouldn’t have time to worry about such insignificent events. But God’s omnipotent, he knows all and sees all, and has all the time in the universe. To believe that God is true and then say he had no effect on the event is like saying the Earth has no effect on the ground. He had to have an effect, he’s God. Anything that happens, he wanted to happen, because if he didn’t want it to happen, it wouldn’t happen. He made all of these bits, and knew where all these bits are going, therefore there must be a plan.
So, if you believe in the God presented to you by the bible, you pretty much have to believe that he wanted the race to turn out exactly the way it did. He also wanted John Capel to win. He also wanted DrainBead to post about it. And also he wanted me to come in and play devil’s advocate.
And that’s why, if you believe in an omnipotent God, you pretty much have to throw all logic out the window.
See, I can understand how you can say God didn’t have to turn them into salt pillars to help * His * runner. Seriously, if God had just turned them into salt, His runner might have tripped over one of them and lost the race–after all, they were leading the race.
What I fail to see is how He failed to vaporize them entirely…
You know, if the LBMB was not so fucked up, I could link you to a long-deleted post she made there about a couple in South Carolina she worked for many years ago whom she loved dearly.
That post brought me to tears as she told about how this loving couple examplified everything that a Christian should be like, and the profound influence they had on a as she called herself “fucked up kid” back then, as well as today.
So yeah, I too get a kick out of Drain’s posts on Christians.
She has the audacity to call them as she sees them.
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Three months, two weeks, two days, 16 hours, 11 minutes and 26 seconds.
4306 cigarettes not smoked, saving $538.37.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 22 hours, 50 minutes.
**
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Drain Bead *
So at the end of the race, the reporters were there to interview the victorious Capel, who said something that basically sums up like this.
"Last night, I got on my knees and prayed to God to help me through this. God came through!**
[Quote]
Sorry, I still don’t see how asking God to help you through something difficult and then giving Him thanks because He DID help you equates with thanking God for causing injury to two people in order that you should win.
I spent alot of time on my knees asking that God would give me the strength to bear the pain of taking care of my terminally ill mother. I spent time again praying that I could deal with the illness and death of my brother, one year later. In between the two deaths, I prayed for the strength to accept the deaths of my two oldest cats, who were like children to me.
Never in any of the thanks I gave to God for “coming through for me” was there any hypocrisy. Where in the statement (as posted) did the guy indicate that he was thanking God for creaming his opponents so HE got to win? The statement was, “Last night I got on my knees and prayed to God to get me through this. God came through for me.”
Unless this was different from what was actually said, this man did nothing wrong. If he had completed the race and lost, I have to assume he would have said the same thing. Of course, no one would have interviewed him, so we will never know.
Scotti
<rant>
I think the whole “God’s will” thing is pretty friggin’ convenient most of the time.
Something good happens, and it’s all about
“Praise Jesus! Halleluyah! The Lord’s work is glorious!” and shit like that.
A plane full of nuns and babies and grammas crashes and burns with no survivors and it’s like
“The lord works in mysterious ways.”
Some asshole gets drunk and plows his Toronado into a couple of teenagers at 70 mph, and walks away without scratch. The 14 year old girl dies, and her 17 y.o. brother ends up in a wheelchair, and people just make excuses for the Almighty Lord God in His infinite wisdom, who is working in mysterious ways.
No thanks, what a bunch of bullshit.
There’s nothing anyone can say to me that’s going to convince me that when some sick fuckin’ asshole sodomizes a 2 year-old girl or when a 4 year-old boy comes into the hospital with multiple contusions and blunt trauma to the head to the point that he later dies (all at the hands of his father, with a softball bat) that it’s some omnipotent invisible guy in the sky who loves me, and he’s just working in mysterious ways.
It’s crap, it’s all crap. If you want to buy into all that shit, then fine, go have fellowship with everyone else who needs something to believe in so bad that they’ll buy anything.
Just don’t expect me to believe it.
Working in mysterious ways. Hmmph. Sounds more like
“God aint here, sweetie! If he is, he sure don’t give a fuck. Or he’s one twisted son of a bitch, because only a sick fuckin’ bastard would allow the things that happen to ‘his children’ and call it ‘infinite love and compassion’.”
But, but, we have Free Will! And there was a perfect paradise that was ruined by man’s search for knowledge! It’s not God’s fault, it’s man. It’s free will!
Then don’t credit God with every little good thing that happens. If someone goes into a hospital, or is revived at the scene, it’s medical science, not God. It’ that free will thing again.
And don’t give me any “God gave man the ability to do the things he does.”. shit either.
Either all things begin with the Lord, or they don’t, not just when it’s convenient and consistent with the “Jesus saves and loves you and shit like that” load of crap.
</rant>
This is not directed towards anyone here, it’s a lot of personal stuff that the thread set off.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled pit thread.
Pepper’s Personal Point of View:
I think that God quite frankly would be happy to leave us all alone, and not interfere with us in anyway. HOWEVER, His children often ask for help, in one way or the other, and oft times He pulls through for them.
Something like “Dear God, could you please bless my sick sister. She’s very ill, and I love her so much. I don’t want to see anything happen to her. Please, God, hear my prayer.Please”—And God will hear that, and His heart will be touched by your faith, and hopefully, she is cured.
However, the people who blame and/or thank God for everything DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!
If God loved his children, He wouldn’t be able to resist getting involved.
Glad to see that I didn’t let you down Drain. But the point of the board is to express opinion. If everyone had the same opinion then the threads would be awfully short.
Many times your posts give me an excellent view that I normally wouldn’t consider. Most of the time I feel my response is inadequate. I rarely miss your point.
As I stated I didn’t see the interview. But I can imagine this kid is probably not well versed in national TV interviews. Especially since you pointed out that he was not favored to win. As with most sports events that happen to end this way, his shock at finishing, and winning, probably clouded his thinking for the moment. I’m sure he was concerned with the condition of his two competitors.
And Satan, just because someone has the audacity to ‘call them as they see them’ doesn’t make them right, or wrong. It’s still just an opinion, of which we are all entitled. I respect that in most people.
And hey, that’s what God’s FOR. I believe I mentioned that comforting the families of lost loved ones is one of those things that prayer is for. And while I think God has better things to worry about than who wins a track meet, an athlete thanking God for his strength is perfectly okay. But when you have won a race thanks to two competitors getting injured, thanking God for your victory is probably not the classiest move. A true Christian attitude, if you ask me, would have been for Capel to express his concern for his competitors and then perhaps to say something like “I prayed to God for strength in this race, but I never wanted my victory to come at this cost.” That’s class, and John Capel showed none of it.
Actually, by all rights Capel would have come in third and still made it to the Olympics anyway. But you’re laboring under a misconception anyway. I have seen several interviews in the losing locker rooms at Super Bowls and other major sports events, and not once did the losing team mention God. God is apparently only reserved for the victors.
I mean, seriously, if Capel had been interviewed after losing, what would you expect him to say? “I prayed and prayed to God to allow me to win this race, and God didn’t come through?”
But from what you say, he didn’t pray for God to allow him to win the race. He prayed for God to help him through it. He finished the race, the others didn’t. Sounds to me like a couple of others could have used some help too.
Wonder what they prayed for…
Now true, I’ve never been around any professional atheletes, but the kids that I’ve known that were into sports didn’t just thank God when they won. They thanked Him when they had fun and lost. Or when they made it to and from the competition safely. Or when they just lost, but that they had the strength to finish. (That was usually mine… I’ve never been very athletic.) But those people don’t get interviewed, so they don’t get to thank God on national TV.
Um, no. God wants us all to behave in certain ways (won’t go into that now). It does not follow, however, that he forces us (or the universe) to behave in those ways. He can see what we consider to be the future because he exists outside of time and everything is happening at once and forever.
quote]But from what you say, he didn’t pray for God to allow him to win the race. He prayed for God to help him through it. He finished the race, the others didn’t. Sounds to me like a couple of others could have used some help too.
Wonder what they prayed for…
[/quote]
Hmmmm. Sounds remarkably to me as if you are saying that God was punishing Johnson and Greene for hubris. Mind you, this could be the case–I haven’t seen two athletes snip at one another quite as much in my life, so my own personal karma-meter says they had it coming. But frankly, I have no idea what, if anything, Greene and Johnson prayed for, so I’ve been leaving them out of it. Perhaps they prayed for the same thing, and God just didn’t choose to give it to them this time. You’ll never know.
That aside, you still have to admit that what Capel said was pretty much unsportsmanlike, and bringing God into his unsportsmanlike conduct makes it even worse. I bet if the kids you mentioned above won a soccer game thanks to the opposing goalie pulling a muscle, they’d care more about whether or not the kid was okay than they would about how their prayers to make it through the game were answered. I’d hope so, anyway.
True… anyone who’s actually concerned about God in their life should certainly show concern for the people around him. (Speaking of which, I’d be interested in what happened afterwards. It seems odd to me that the 2 front runners were taken out by the same thing.) That part of his behavior wasn’t right, by any means. I was just dealing with him thanking God.