So I was watching WVU do their best to lose to Marshall, and near the end of the game, there was a commercial for the cardiac unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital (which really is an amazingly good hospital), and after discussing the joint, they had a testimonial from this old guy who had had a heart attack, and he sang the praises of the unit, and then said “If it wasn’t for God and these doctors, I’d be dead.”
And look, he’s a sweet old guy, happy to be alive, but all I am doing while watching this is “WHY ARE YOU THANKING GOD FOR SAVING YOU- HE’S THE ONE THAT GAVE YOU THE HEART ATTACK IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE?”
And look, I know that according to Fox News and a lot of people, thinking this makes me a horrible person, because right now we apparently have some sort of fucked up social contract that I never agreed to where we all have to pretend we are shoulder deep up Santa’s pasty white Jesus blessed ass, but for fuck’s sake. Why does God get credit for all the good shit?
Every Super Bowl winner praises God. The losers gather and pray. Leon Festinger, anyone? How come no one on the losing side ever mans up in front of the camera and says “Jesus screwed us.”
THE END
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
England is crumbling in the first session of Day 3 of the Perth test. It’s looking more and more like the Ashes will be settled before the sides get to Sydney and Melbourne.
schrodinger's cat
A request; can you put up a photo of Tunch, the big white kitteh of BJ? He is the BJ Santa Claws + Jeebus all rolled in one. Kthx.
dmsilev
Terry Pratchett, _Interesting Times_.
Scott S.
It’s probably the same reason Harry Whittington apologized to Dick Cheney. What if the cranky old bastard decides to fuck you over even worse?
scav
Name that J?
Omnes Omnibus
Cookie Monster’s cover of that song is awesome.
Scott S.
Also, the Bills’ Stevie Johnson blamed God for a dropped pass once. So some of ’em are moderately more sensible…
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: That is along the same line as the old “God answers all prayers; sometimes the answer is no.”
Jebediah, RBG
My office “adopts” a couple of families each Christmas and everybody buys presents for them. This year, one of the families is a grandma who is in charge of three young kids cuz Mom got deported. Also, each of these families includes a pediatric cancer patient.
If God gets credit for saving that nice old man, He also gets credit for giving little kids cancer.
ETA: I was going to try to put a humorous “button” at the end of this comment, but I’m too pissed off by the notion of pediatric cancer patients. (Some of whom have a deported mom.)
StringOnAStick
I went to the memorial service today for a friend who died way too miserably and way too young; apparently that was God’s will.
Comrade Dread
The best thing about The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was Tom Waits as the Devil.
I personally thank God for the good things in my life to acknowledge that while my actions may have contributed to my good fortune, there were a host of other factors involved that might have caused things to go another way. I also thank God for the good things in my life to remind me of just how good my life is even on the days when it sucks because there are people out there who don’t have families, who don’t have a house, who don’t have food to put in their stomachs and it reminds me that I need to give to them and support charities and government programs that help them.
As to why I don’t thank God for the bad times in my life, it’s usually because I try to be honest in my prayers and not lie about how I’m feeling. If something f***ing sucks, I’ll say it f***ing sucks. I trust I’m not hurting His feelings by telling Him so.
lockewasright
A similar sentiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeWPScnolo
Percysowner
I knew a devout Christian who when she did something good she said God needed to be thanked and if she did something bad, the devil had been in charge. As far as I could see that girl never felt personally responsible for anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I just love the idea of CM having a dark side.
Tokyokie
@efgoldman: Actually, Brett Butler, a devout Christian, was a member of that team, and he’d rip into teammates who said that sort of thing. I think his reasoning was God gave the players the ability to play the game at a high level, but what they did or didn’t do with that ability was their own doing.
Always like Butler, and the Braves sending him to the Indians in the deal for Len Barker was a dark day in team history.
hildebrand
I am with Rabbi Kushner on this one – I would rather posit a god of limited power and unlimited love and justice than vice versa.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tokyokie: Eric Liddell: I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.
KG
They’ll tell you that The Lord works in mysterious ways, or that he’s testing us, or that trials and tribulations are necessary to enjoy the kingdom of heaven. It’s bullshit, of course. If there is a god, he doesn’t much care about us or our suffering… Or he can’t do anything about it.
Cervantes
While your agony (or, at least, your irritation) appears to be real enough, John, I have to ask: do you think of religion as an edifice based primarily on reason?
Hill Dweller
The White Baby Jesus made me use the race card against Megyn Kelly.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: If that is true, how do you explain the Immaculate Reception?
scav
For god so loved the world that he sent them his only quarterbacks and, no matter how good they all were, no matter how much they all obeyed each and every of his precepts, commandments, whims and carbo-loaded, generally half of them will be damned on any applicable weekend.
hoppipolla
@KG: if he’s god, he’s not good, if he’s good he’s not god. sondheim, i think?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Oh, ye of little faith.
Cassidy
Paddy
Why do some people point and ridicule loudly the poor and downtrodden then praise and whisper kudos about the rich and affluent? Hmm.
kdaug
Oddest thing today. Sitting in my office, knock on the door. The BACK door. And then it opens, and some woman with a little child thing are talking to my dog, who was somewhere halfway between play and bite/tear/mangle.
I came to the door, dressed in my usual dapper Saturday afternoon regalia. OK, “came to the door” probably doesn’t do it justice, cause the woman looked terrified, and I wasn’t smiling, and she stammered something about retrieving a lost ball from my back yard for the child thing. Which is fine (and I said so), but shit, damn, fuck, what are you opening my back door for? And coming halfway in house? And talking coochie-coos to the dog who, seriously, could have ripped that kid’s face off and asked for a biscuit afterwards?
With a ~3 yr old kid leading the way? “Let’s go in here!!!”
Images of the 10,000 ways this could have ended much worse all involve sirens and lights and testimonials from the other neighbors. And blood. I hate blood.
NotMax
One director in a theater group to which I belonged in an on-again, off-again fashion got totally bent out of shape when I flatly refused to participate in the prayer circle to J.C. he insisted on having before every performance.
Having a lead role, it was a safe stance to take, but would have opted out regardless.
Also got into a row with the county when I found out from someone that one of the guest speakers at their mandatory DUI classes was a guy proselytizing that the only way to drive safely was to turn your soul over to you-know-who. Far as I know, that ended and he hasn’t collected his speaking fee from the public till in the 25 years since.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Hey, I don’t even have the faith to be an atheist. Agnostic City, baby.
kdaug
Oh, so I thank God for not having to clean up toddler face pieces off my floor today.
That’s something. Right?
Bill E Pilgrim
Tack on “Amen” and you’ve got the core prayer for a whole new religion right there. I can hear millions now reciting it nightly. Snif. Beautiful.
NotMax
If the winning team at the Stupor Bowl got paid and the losing team got zero, might make for a livelier contest.
Jebediah, RBG
@kdaug:
Yes, it most certainly is.
smike
Even though their god has been responsible for a lot of pillaging, genocidal attacks (including the flood one, you know), and rape (including, evidently, one certain virgin a couple of thousands years ago), you’d better not talk shit about him because, you know, Hell. So, win or lose, thank god. He’s one mean sumbitch who will take you out if you cross him. But he is also a loving god if you know your place. And your place is to take whatever shit he throws at you and to heap upon him high praise. And maybe, someday before he kills you, he will stop throwing shit at you.
Seems weird, but it just works that with with some gods.
kdaug
@NotMax:
srv
And here the John Cole of the Left, War-on-Christmas Denialist, ranting about Christian expressions of freedom during Christmas Season.
Baby Jesus Weeps.
Yatsuno
@Bill E Pilgrim: I smell TAX BREAK!!! Hey it worked for L Ron Hubbard.
NotMax
@srv
Turning the breast milk into wine mellows him out right quick.
scav
@srv: Being mocked for internal incoherency is so just so total war on the jebus princesses that the whole being chewed on by lions thing or hanging about with nails poking through bodyparts just pales in comparison. Your halo blinds and stigmata turns the green one red.
David Koch
the reason Romney lost is because Jesus hates Mormons. Everyone knows that.
NotMax
Is it too early for holiday Pogo?
jl
I don’t know about Cole’s glib atheistic logic. Many sweet old guys and gals give themselves heart attacks and strokes through hideous food choices and health habits. That couldn’t happen in West By God Virginia of course, but there are other places.
And maybe God tried as hard as s/he could to stop the heart attack and/or stroke but couldn’t. Hmmmm… how about that, master logician, Cole?
But that brings up the puzzle of whether God could make rock too heavy for hermself to lift, or create an angel who could get prideful, and so evil and powerful that said fallen angel Satan could efeat hissm or herrem said God.
Which confuses me, so, time for a cold beer out here on the left coast.
David Koch
This is how Megan Kelly honors white Jesus.
jl
@David Koch: I approve of that kind of White Kelly Xmass.
NotMax
@David Koch
Looks as if she’s letting loose a massive fart.
Keith P
It’s like when fighters thank God for winning the fight (saw one do it tonight, in fact), but they never blame God when they lose. Just once I would like too see someone to say “It was God’s fault that I lost tonight”. Adrien Broner was a good candidate to do it, but he ran out of the ring too fast for that to happen (total lack of professionalism and class, which isn’t God’s fault).
srv
@jl: I know God wants you to be Rich, but where is it that God wants you to be fat and diabetic?
Debbie(aussie)
The ranting JC is back. Woo hoo! That was fantastic
David Koch
Digya see they gave the Heisman Trophy today to a darkie!
OUTRAGEOUS!
Johnny Heisman was white! He’s a historical figure!
Now the liberal media bias turns the Heisman into a black award!
First they came for Christmas, then they stole the White House and the Vatican, then they came for Santa, then they came for Jesus, then they came for the Heisman Trophy….. WAKE UP sheeple! we’re inches away from liberal FEMA detention camps!
Omnes Omnibus
@David Koch: Dude, you’ve jumped the shark on your own schtick. Hard to do.
John Cole
@jl: God’s allegedly omnipotent and omniscient (and not only that, a greedy dude, because some guy came down off a hill with a bunch of stones for the masses where God stated, quite clearly, that he is a jealous God), so if he can not stop a heart attack that he either caused or knew about, we might start to run into all sorts of ridiculous internal contradictions in this whole invisible deity bullshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole: Cannot or will not? Remember the jealous part. What if the dude did something that pissed off the big guy? Like wearing a cotton/cashmere blend…
kdaug
@John Cole:
Do tell
eemom
@Jebediah, RBG:
“He that made kittens put snakes in the grass.”
(Who said THAT, ye multitudinous BJ Gods of musical history?)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eemom: The Jungle Bunglers?
NotMax
@eemom
Pish-tush. Satan made kittens.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Tull.
Lurking Buffoon
This song is relevant to this post. It is also all kinds of NSFW. Seriously, I wouldn’t listen to it unless alone in a dark room… so long as the walls aren’t thin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-PX2Z4r-e4
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You beat me, you toad.
wasabi gasp
I think it’s all hooey, too, but when I see my arm still attached after dropping one of the chainsaws, I thank god.
Omnes Omnibus
@wasabi gasp: You are a professional chainsaw juggler? That explains a lot.
kwawk
John Cole said:
My thoughts are that if somebody, a divine being maybe, has the power to give you testicular cancer. It’s probably a good idea to refrain from giving criticizing them publicly.
Just saying.
danielx
Read somewhere about how every night of high school football season in Texas, teams on both sides of every game pray before the game…do the losers say God done forgot about us?
Omnes Omnibus
@kwawk: If such a being existed, that being would probably note one’s private criticism as well.
ruemara
My mother-my entire family- loves to quote this verse: “I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children begging bread.” The urge I have is to say in response, “That’s because I’ve never bothered to look”, but the FB fallout would be so irritating to deal with. Frankly, I’ve seen a lot of righteous types going through crap and it’s always some secret test that god is giving out. After a while of constant travail, I wondered if there’s not a god in the vein I was raised to believe, or if he was a huge asshole. Jury is still out.
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: Job. Book of.
kwawk
@Omnes Omnibus:
True. But this particular being as a nasty vindictive streak if you’re inclined to believe those things. Lot. Abraham. Job. Best not to challenge the being publicly. It gets real angry when it doesn’t get it’s way.
Omnes Omnibus
@kwawk: As an agnostic, I just try to avoid the entire thing.
Churchlady320
@hildebrand: Thank you. That IS the point. Anyone who thinks God saved them is insulting those who died or were harmed. God is not a cranky and capricious Santa Claus with a Big List but the life force among us all. The power of good and compassion arises from us and can be killed just as quickly by us. Life and death just ARE. It’s what we do for the living that matters – and is the manifestation of “God”.
Churchlady320
@hildebrand: Thank you. That IS the point. Anyone who thinks God saved them is insulting those who died or were harmed. God is not a cranky and capricious Santa Claus with a Big List but the life force among us all. The power of good and compassion arises from us and can be killed just as quickly by us. Life and death just ARE. It’s what we do for the living that matters – and is the manifestation of “God” and the extension of Jesus as he taught us to be: expressions of unconditional love and just peace. And this IS the basis of contemporary Protestant and other manifestations of real Christianity and other compassionate and non hateful faith.
NotMax
@danielx
There’s doubtless a couple who are actually praying that the head cheerleader loses her top.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Well, yeah.
Jebediah, RBG
@eemom:
TULL!!
ETA: Beaten to the punch repeatedly. That’s what i get for going to the kitchen for pizza and a bowl.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jebediah, RBG: Late to the party.
Bill E Pilgrim
@NotMax: A couple?
Kinky.
Violet
Dang, I always get here late for the really fun threads.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: One shouldn’t judge.
Villago Delenda Est
John, I hear you on this. It drives me absolutely bonkers for people to praise some non-existent supernatural being for the actions of other humans.
The worst offenders are the Mammon-worshiping scum who dare call themselves “Christians”.
angelfoot
“All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
AMEN.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Dude. One can also look at it as a way of trying to be humble. Not saying “Fuck yeah! I am the fucking best thing you have ever seen and if I had good offensive line you would not believe what I could have done. Fuck you, you puny little man.”
A Humble Lurker
I just don’t care. Sometimes the atheists and the Jesus freaks just look too similar and I have to leave the room. To make popcorn. So I can come back and watch the ensuing blood shed with a proper nosh on hand.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Humble Lurker: Butter?
A Humble Lurker
@Omnes Omnibus:
Please.
angelfoot
Also, football is a brutal and unforgiving sport run by greedy bastards. The players may be confused about their allegiance. If you gotta serve somebody.
wasabi gasp
@Omnes Omnibus: No, just telling a tale…professing my faith with hyperbolical stylings.
What’s it explain, though?
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Popular psalm at the Church of Mr. T.
Omnes Omnibus
@wasabi gasp: Nothing, and that is a lot.
Violet
Does anyone have a good explanation for why God has to be praised all the time? Seems like God must be awfully insecure to need all that praise. Churches just praise and praise and praise. Everything God does is perfect and he’s the most wonderful, greatest entity ever and believers can’t get enough of saying so to him.
If he’s that great, why does he need to be praised all the time? Doesn’t he know he’s amazing? Is he insecure?
David Koch
@eemom: Slim Whitman
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Do not taunt happy fun ball.
Suffern ACE
@Violet: not really. However, it is more difficult to trespass if one’s primary pursuit is worship.
NotMax
@Violet
There’s a Donald Trump quip in there somewhere…
Radio One
I think that, in a cosmic sense, God was right to ask Job what right he had to judge God for his decisions in the climax of the Book of Job. But by doing that, it makes God sort of an alien, divorced from human rationality or social constructs, and also divorces God from the central message of the Bible, that God has always had a personal stake in shaping humanity.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Violet: Realizing that was less a serious question and more a rhetorical one, nonetheless I think there’s a serious answer.
“Praise the Lord!” and the bowing and all the rest of it comes directly from a time when there were lords of the very human kind roaming the Earth, I mean more so than there are now, and they absolutely demanded constant displays of obedience and declarations by the peasants about how inferior and subservient they were. The Lord is great and I am not and so on. The minute one of the little people showed a slackening of awe, awff went his head or whatever.
It’s a mechanism of control, basically. So in that sense the Lord in those cases was absolutely insecure about keeping his position, terrified most likely.
KG
@A Humble Lurker: when I really want to fuck with the jeebus freaks and the atheists, I tell them that I’m a pagan and keep faith with the old gods… I’m honestly mostly agnostic but tend to believe if one god exists, it’s logical that a race of them could exist
@Violet: Jesus actually told people to pray in private, which fits with his whole humility schtick. But there is a long line of evangelicalism within Christianity, going back to Paul, which hold that Christians have a duty to spread the good word of the one true god, to save other souls
Betty Cracker
My sister (yes, la cucaracha) and I finally finished the goddamned Christmas cookies, just moments ago. It doesn’t matter how early we start. We’ll be boxing them up in the wee hours. Currently enjoying a nice red wine on the porch and watching a helluva storm across a lake that is headed our way.
Yatsuno
@Betty Cracker: I. Regret. Nothing.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Now you’ve dredged up memory of the gingerbread crack house.
Ruckus
If he didn’t get credit for all the good stuff, such as it is, then he could only get credit for all the shit, which we all notice because it happens so often. So if he only got credit for all the bad shit then we’d all think he is a pretty fucked up deity and wouldn’t give a damn at all.
It’s just easier to not give an invisible sky pilot any credit or thought at all, good or bad. The world makes a lot more sense that way. One does have to take responsibility for stepping in dog shit however.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Where is that from? I don’t remember seeing that and I suspect that I would have.
moderateindy
Ther is an old comedy bit I remember where the comedian talks about this, his line was “We were doing just great until Jesus made me fumble….he hates our team.”
A couple years ago I remember someone that survived a shark attack but lost a limb speak about how lucky he was that Jesus was with him. All I could think was, Jeebus must hae not have liked you too much, as he was too busy to get off the couch and help until after the shark started dining on you.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
How long ago did you two make up for you swatting her ass with a fly swatter?
Betty Cracker
@Yatsuno: Sadly, it’s blocked in my country. WTF?
@NotMax: I love that so very much.
Yatsuno
@Betty Cracker: Florida restarted the Confederacy? Or did Washington get absorbed by Canada and I didn’t notice?
Comrade Mary
Thank you, football game I cared not at all about, for making John post that Waits video. A-fucking-men.
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: Neither of us can stay mad at the other for more than an hour.
bago
This fumble was brought to you by the almighty. I don’t know what that receiver was up to last Tuesday, but the powers that be cursed him with fingers so buttery he should consider cooking pastry.
Betty Cracker
@Yatsuno: Maybe Bugs really did saw us off this time.
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: The verdict on that is not friendly to the sky god.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
And yet it’s not blocked in my country.
Yatsuno
@Betty Cracker: @Amir Khalid: I SWEAR on Celestia’s mane I did NOT expatriate. Trust me, the looming medical bills suggest otherwise.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Here.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
My sisters could have learned a thing or three from you two.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
The ad right above the crack house was for the book of mormon. Damn inappropriate considering the topic of this post. Or the other way around, what the hell do I know?
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: My sister and I have always been the best of friends — we’re 15 months apart in age and were close allies during all kinds of crazy family shit. But I know that’s definitely the exception rather than the rule. Most sisters seem to have much more fraught relationships. It’s sad. Who else in the world can totally understand your family dynamics?
Baud
Beats me. I’m still trying to figure out why Republicans are treated the same way.
RepubAnon
@Keith P: One particularly disgusting variant on this are the movies where a bunch of angels decide to help some depressed little kid by helping the kid’s favorite team make it to (or win) the championship game. (“Angels in the Outfield.”) Notice how, in the entire world, there’s only one such kid?
I’ve always wanted to see a movie where there’s another bunch of angels helping another kid (kid #2) – whose favorite team happens to be the arch-rivals of kid #1’s favorite team. What happens next – do the rival teams of angels fight with each other?
As for me, I find comfort in this thought: “”I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?’ So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.” Marcus Cole, Babylon 5: A Late Delivery from Avalon (#3.13)” (1996)”
Cervantes
@A Humble Lurker: Both sides do it?
Snarla
I’m amused at the idea of God trying real hard to prevent a man from having a heart attack, but just not quite being able to stop it.
divF
-Tom Waits, Heartattack and Vine”.
One of my favorites.
Heliopause
Christians have never been able to quite make sense of the contradictory portraits of the Deity in the Bible. The anthropomorphic Deity who gets pissed off and intervenes in human affairs coexists in the same text with the Hellenic Deity who is invisible and loves us from afar. Not surprising, then, that people don’t quite know how to work Him sensibly into the ups and downs of daily life.
kc
No one wants to piss God off. He’s very vengeful, you know.
karen
Because they don’t want any nuts with guns shooting them.
Joe Buck
You’re going to hell for that, John. This is because, as every true Christian evidently knows, the all-loving God sends people like you to be burned and tortured for all eternity for making disrespectful jokes.
Marlon
This is just further evidence that God is conservative–He can’t fail, He can only be failed.