When we had our car accident on black-ice and totaled our car it was very nice to get so many sympathetic reactions. We were lucky enough that we had no personal injuries. The accident wasn’t all that severe but the airbags went off and that caused the insurance company to write off the car as a total loss. We really appreciated all your comments. Many comments are of course of the type “Thank god you are safe” and “ it wasn’t your time yet” because they are sort of standard in our culture and serve as a great indication that people sympathize with your situation. But it was very nice to receive them none the less.
When watching interviews on TV with victims of natural disasters you hear this kind of expressions all the time. But let’s look at some of these, which struck me as being very odd under the circumstances. An old Lady, thanking God that her cat was saved while her neighbors were killed in the same tornado, has her values a bit skewed wouldn’t you say? Who created the tornado? A Statement such as “it wasn’t your time yet” implies that everything is foreordained and that what ever you do doesn’t affect the outcome. It is also very puzzling why some people get “saved” while other perish in the same event. A fisherman who was saved by divers after days trapped in an air pocket of the sunken vessel profusely thanked God for saving him while 5 of his crew mates all drowned. Was he a “better” man than his peers? When the interviewer of CNN asked another woman, which house was destroyed, the “obvious” question “ I guess you thank God that your family was saved” She said “I am an atheist”. The interviewer did not know how to react to that. She explained that she finally realized that she did not believe in an almighty god. I was very amazed that she said it because many “unbelievers” do not want to admit that, including myself until recently, since it carries an unwarranted stigma of being ‘immoral’ among other ‘bad’ character traits.
If you have wondered why some “good” people get killed while some “bad” people survive or why some children never have a chance to grow up there is an answer. No, the answer that ‘it is God’s will and that he has his reasons that cannot be understood by us mortals', is not an answer but a cop-out. This kind of "answer" is an admittance by the Clergy, that they don’t have an answer that makes sense. The answer is simple: You were lucky or unlucky. Random chance. It is very hard for most people to accept that. The future is always uncertain, therefor many persons believe that there are ways to foresee the future. Many so-called psychics take advantage of that belief. Religion promises a future eternal happy life after death so that all the bad things in your life are God’s will and you will be compensated for that if you believe. You can stop wondering now about why things happen the way they do. To be a rational thinking person you must conclude that happenings in life, such as accidents and diseases, are random. Some times you are lucky, and sometimes you’re not. So far I have been mostly lucky but I can accept the FACT that tomorrow I could be unlucky and that's a fact!
When watching interviews on TV with victims of natural disasters you hear this kind of expressions all the time. But let’s look at some of these, which struck me as being very odd under the circumstances. An old Lady, thanking God that her cat was saved while her neighbors were killed in the same tornado, has her values a bit skewed wouldn’t you say? Who created the tornado? A Statement such as “it wasn’t your time yet” implies that everything is foreordained and that what ever you do doesn’t affect the outcome. It is also very puzzling why some people get “saved” while other perish in the same event. A fisherman who was saved by divers after days trapped in an air pocket of the sunken vessel profusely thanked God for saving him while 5 of his crew mates all drowned. Was he a “better” man than his peers? When the interviewer of CNN asked another woman, which house was destroyed, the “obvious” question “ I guess you thank God that your family was saved” She said “I am an atheist”. The interviewer did not know how to react to that. She explained that she finally realized that she did not believe in an almighty god. I was very amazed that she said it because many “unbelievers” do not want to admit that, including myself until recently, since it carries an unwarranted stigma of being ‘immoral’ among other ‘bad’ character traits.
If you have wondered why some “good” people get killed while some “bad” people survive or why some children never have a chance to grow up there is an answer. No, the answer that ‘it is God’s will and that he has his reasons that cannot be understood by us mortals', is not an answer but a cop-out. This kind of "answer" is an admittance by the Clergy, that they don’t have an answer that makes sense. The answer is simple: You were lucky or unlucky. Random chance. It is very hard for most people to accept that. The future is always uncertain, therefor many persons believe that there are ways to foresee the future. Many so-called psychics take advantage of that belief. Religion promises a future eternal happy life after death so that all the bad things in your life are God’s will and you will be compensated for that if you believe. You can stop wondering now about why things happen the way they do. To be a rational thinking person you must conclude that happenings in life, such as accidents and diseases, are random. Some times you are lucky, and sometimes you’re not. So far I have been mostly lucky but I can accept the FACT that tomorrow I could be unlucky and that's a fact!
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