When Religion Kills

When Religion Kills

Three recent incidents have made me wonder about God and the items/places we use to represent religion. We have a notion of God and then attach these notions to items and places that we consider some how different from non-sacred objects. Christians attend church once a week because they believe that is what God wants. That some how God will see them there, put a check mark by their name, and then listen intently to their prayers. Most major religions have some variation on this theme.

The first case was in Jerusalem [story] when part of the Wailing wall fell and nearly killed several woman while they were praying.

The second was a fire in China recently that killed 39 women while they were praying [story, story].

A third example occurred during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca where hundreds were trampled (see Google for a history of deaths).

I recognize how stupid it is to question acts of God, like recent threads about why God makes deformed children and such.

Those Chinese women and Muslim men died doing what they felt their religion, and hence their God, wanted them to do. It seems that going to church and praying should be the one time where nothing can happen to you, if there is a God. Either God exists, is vengeful, and wanted them to die. Or he’s negligent and quite obviously wasn’t paying attention, which then makes me question the entire notion of praying and having those thoughts heard.

The Wailing Wall is considered one of the most religious places on Earth. One person was quoted as saying, “It was a miracle that no one was killed.” To say it was a “miracle” implies that perhaps God intervened and they were saved. But I say that’s wrong, if God actually ever intervenes than clearly those people were supposed to be killed, that would have been the miracle, and God screwed up.

Without questioning the existence of God, these three cases make me question the notion of attributing religious significance to inanimate objects and places. This leads me to three possible scenarios (there may be more):

1.) There is no God, which obviously can’t be proven.
2.) There is a God, He doesn’t like us very much, He can’t be appeased, and these actions are meaningless.
3.) There is a God, we have misinterpreted what appeases him, and all we’re doing is pissing him off.

I suppose a forth scenario can be ripped off of South Park,

  1. He doesn’t like prayer or the manner it was being done

    We could wonder about the “holiness” of the Wall itself too…

cry I replied to this entire thing, and when I hit submit the boards decided I wasn’t logged in :mad: So if I come off harsh, it’s because of that, not you.

I can’t speak for other Christians, of course, but that’s not why I go to church. Yes, it’s because God wants me to, but I do it because I love Him and He asked me to, not to score points in some heavenly brown-nosing contest.

Or perhaps God never promised them that they would not die, or that prayer would give them supernatural protection against earthly death. For all we know, those who died wanted to die talking to God, and God granted that desire/request.

I’m not sure I follow your reasoning here, perhaps because I’m coming from the “world is God’s sandbox” mindset. Supposed to be killed according to who? If God decided that He wanted them to have a near-miss, then how does that constitute Him screwing up?

Or perhaps God doesn’t reward obedience with earthly immortality, and you’re looking in entirely the wrong direction.

I don’t know if there were no women involved in the accident during Hajj. I didn’t follow the reporting on it. Such accidents happen regularly (of course not always with so many people involved).

Next: Your interpretation starts from the point of view that life = to live and stay alive, is what you estimate having the most value of all you can think off.

This is not the case with people who believe that life is only temporarely and in fact gives us the occasion to enter a peaceful and happy afterlife. Most call this “entering/being in heaven”.
Hence life on earth means nothing in comparison and dying is only the last step you take towards God and eternal blessing and happiness.
Many Muslims even see it as the blessing of God when you are permitted to die during Hajj. You then die on a moment in your life on which you furfill the one of the five pillars so many Muslims long for during years or even a lifetime.
The vast majority of Muslims only can go once in their life on Hajj. Many even can never can due to circumstances.

You also believe that God “needs” somehow to be “appeased”, picturing God as some kind of monster-entity that wants to be fed or otherwise it takes revenge.
Maybe you could explain where that view comes from?

Salaam. A

I don’t understand why you think dying at a place of worship is any worse or different than dying any other place. The way I see it God puts us on the earth with a finite life to live and we die when we are supposed to. He can’t really help it if a person just happens to be in a place of worship or on a pilgrimage at that time. On the other hand, I seriously doubt whether God keeps a scorecard of when and where each person prays. I think he looks only at the big picture and makes sure the human race doesn’t press the self-destruct button at any time(not unless he want it anyway), and leaves the details to work themselves out.

I agree with Aldebaran’s Choice#5. The profane point of view thinks of death as the ultimate disaster, and that a god who caused your death is a horrible monster. But the believer can regard the gift of death from one’s god as a blessing, being called back to the bosom of the beloved god from out of this vale of tears. Just saying that there’s another way to look at it. In Islam, one of the 99 names of Allah is al-Mumît (the one who causes death), paired with al-Muhyî (the one who gives life).

I also agree with emacknight’s Choice #4—Cosmic Humor. Ram Dass tells this anecdote of his guru in India, Neem Karoli Baba. One day a person came to the guru saying their relative was very sick and at death’s door. “Please help, O miraculous guru.” So Neem Karoli Baba picked up a banana and said: “Here, give this to the sick person. That will take care of it.” The relative thanked him and rushed home. They mashed up the banana and fed it to the sick person. Who immediately died.

These gurus are often known for their wicked sense of humor.

When Neem Karoli Baba himself died and was on his funeral pyre, he was surrounded with grieving mourners. One of the Hindus who was present began laughing out loud. The others got angry at her. “Chî! How can you laugh on such a sad occasion?” She said: “As I looked at the fire, the guru sat up and told me, ‘It’s all right, Ma.’ Rama in Heaven was pouring ghee on his head to make him burn faster, and Guru Ji was laughing, and Rama was laughing, and everybody in Heaven was happy.”

“Everyone wants to go the heaven, but no one wants to die.”

If you believe in the Christian God (at least), one might argue that He was rewarding those killed with eternal life in heaven. Isn’t that supposed to be the goal?

I don’t get it. Why would being involved in the act of religious worship make a person immune from death or injury? (It turns out, btw, that being in church is one of the safer places to be, death-wise–you’re less likely to injure or poison yourself, as at home, and there are few industry-related accidents or car crashes in church.) But anyway, the world is a place where stuff breaks, things catch on fire, people choose to hurt each other, and various accidents happen. Every once in a while, somebody decides to go shoot off a gun during a church service, and people get killed and injured. It doesn’t mean God hates them, it means someone decided to shoot a gun, and the natural consequences followed.

Death happens to everyone. For most religious people, death is not the worst thing that can happen. It’s just what does happen sooner or later, and then you go somewhere else and continue. I should think that many people would think that dying during worship might be a good way to go.

Well, Super Gnat said all that better than I could.

I should probably note that in my religion, we have sacred temples which are very special to us. The temple in Samoa burned down several months ago; it was being remodeled and something went wrong with some electrical equipment, or something. Hundreds of people gathered to watch their most beloved spot of worship burn to the ground. Naturally, they were very sad; but they were also grateful that the fire occurred at night, when the building was empty, and that no one was hurt. In all the commentary on this sad incident, I haven’t seen one person ask why God would be angry, and whether there was some cosmic vengeance going on. Stuff just catches on fire sometimes. Donations immediately started for a new temple; it will be started this summer, I believe.

To paraphrase my favorite saying about nature:

God is not cruel, just pitilessly indifferent.

Which is fine, but I also showed an example from Christien and Muslim beliefs.

Where did you give an example of “Muslim beliefs”?

Salaam. A

I’m not sure about the Queran, but I thought that somewhere in the Christian Mythos it says not to worship idols. Therefore, all this signing the cross, wailing wall, Statues of Jesus (usually a Hippie-looking caucasion, BTW), and even praying to Saints (who have been made Saints by some pope or other) sounds alot like Idoltry. The same as a Church/Temple being “Holy”. Imbuing an object with qualities of Diety. Or am I barking up the wrong religious symbol?

I think he means the pilgrims on the Hajj who were crushed to death - the thrust of the OP seems to be that these people were following the commandments of their faith, and died in the act of doing so. The reasoning seems to be that they were punished for following their faith (by dying) rather than being rewarded (with further life), and “What sort of God would allow such a thing to happen to his followers??!? :mad:”

As others have said, for many religions, life on earth is only a pale shadow of what life in the hearafter is going to be like, and funerals, as well as being a time of mourning and comfort to the bereaved, also have an element of celebration for the loved one who is now in paradise.

Grim

Praying towards the Wailing Wall is not idolatry. No one is praying TO the wall. It is the western retaining wall around the area that used to be the Holy Temple. If the Temple were standing, people would be praying therein, and there would be a continuation of sacrifice that was put on hold when it was destroyed in 70 CE.

In Jewish liturgy, it is referred to as God’s Chosen House. It isn’t to say that God isn’t everywhere. We just have a large number of commandments that are tied up into the Temple’s existance. The fact that Jews make a serious deal about the wall is that it is the last remnant of a place that was special since King Solomon built the first Temple, and Ezra and Nechemia helped the Jews build the second one. The Western Wall is not actually a part of the building, but of a wall surrounding the building. The western wall happens to be closer to the place in the Temple known as the “Holy of Holies” than the southern wall. The room called “Holy of Holies” contained (in the first Temple) the Ark of the Covenant, with the Tablets Moses brought down Mount Sinai (both the first and second set).

Jews pray that God allow us to rebuild the Temple so that we can start fulfilling commandments which got interrupted because it’s not there anymore. But with or without the wall, the prayers are to God, who cannot be represented by ANYTHING.

I would suggest reading the book Dissappointment With God by Philip Yancy. It’s very well written, though from a Christian point of view, it deals honestly with tough questions, and it doesn’t beat you over the head with the answer. Where is God When it Hurts is also very good.

-Tom

I usually picture God as someone who has been playing Sim City for a while - roughly around the point where one gets bored of the conventional building and development, and starts to move the pointer toward the “Disaster” menu.

Religions don’t kill.

People use religion as an excuse.

Guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.

Dal Timgar

If those who died were faithful, they were merely receiving their reward.

Anybody remember that Gary Larson/“FAR SIDE” cartoon of “God at His Computer”? It shows a bearded, white-haired guy at his computer-while the display shows some poor schmuck walking under a piano (suspended by a rope that has just snapped). The white-haired dude (God) is about to press a button labelled “SMITE”!
That’s how I see things! :slight_smile:

I think its safe to say that most of the people replying believe that God causes death. Whether or not you follow the “God’s Sandbox theory,” there seems to be a consistent theme here that God causes death.

The reason I found those three incidents so ironic was that if we assume those two things:

  • God causes death
  • God wants us to pray

Then the thought of God killing us while we pray seems wrong or at the very least mean. No, there obviously should not blanket imunity, but I also disagree with this notion that “God kills us as a reward.” Even if that last statement is true, why doesn’t He kill more of us? Why aren’t there more deaths at temples as dangermom pointed out? At the very least, what I see is an inconsistency and as an engineer that bothers me. To conclude, I’ve been told the problem(s) with my premise is that I’m applying my values and rules to God which is wrong. However, are we all not doing the same thing? Some sort of post hoc rationality? I posed the classic question of “why did God ___?” and I had a dozen fairly consistent replies. Does anyone feel confident enough to say they know what God wants, with reasonable certainty?