Praying for a cure

One of the common things people pray to God for is for a cure for disease, such as the current one.  We see how long it is taking for a vaccine to be developed, what with human trials, etc. Stock prices surge in the company that finally develops it, and those investors become very wealthy.

But if you could just pray for a cure, wouldn’t God (who created the disease to begin with – or maybe it was the devil?) simply snap his fingers and create a cure?  Polio was first discovered in 1789.  It wasn’t until 1908 that doctors and scientists identified it as a virus.  In the mid 1950’s, the Sabin and Salk vaccines were implemented and in 1979, the US saw its last case of polio (with the exception of a foreign traveler in 1993 who brought a case to the US).  It took decades to come up with that vaccine, and at the height, 35,000 people a year succumbed to the disease.  I’m sure people were constantly praying for a cure.   But it took science to finally come around with it.

Recently in the news a couple who work in the medical industry took their special needs child to a church-sponsored “covid party” and the girl died shortly thereafter.  That’s as bad as faith healers who don’t invoke medical attention at all.  How is that pro-life?

My point is, you have to wait for science to develop these cures, and it takes years.  Praying doesn’t help.

You had to be there

Unknown source for this joke:

I told God a Holocaust joke.  He didn’t get it.  “Well … guess you had to be there”, I said.

Ricky Gervais tells this joke to Jerry Seinfeld, who laughs for a long while, then marvels at the layered nuances and philosophical depth of it.

It’s true.  Why would a god who actually existed not do anything during the Holocaust, but find your keys for you?  Help you with a test?  Find a job?  Not get a speeding ticket?

Why, when Jesus’ disciples all died, didn’t people go, “well that guy was full of shit. He said he was going to come back, and now even John’s gone and nothing”?  No, they doubled down!  Once religion became about 1. controlling people and 2. making money, it turned a page.  Now it’s totally about controlling people and making money.  Especially the money.  There’s an Instagram page called “Preacher Sneakers” that shows various holy men, usually young, wearing shoes (or belts, or shirts, etc.) that literally cost thousands of dollars.

I’m still convinced Jesus was making money at baptizing people.  John the Baptist was thrown in jail for it, but Jesus moves right in to his turf and takes over.  Like a gang member.  Why would he do that if not for money?

 

 

Grateful to God to be an American

Kellyanne Conway stated today she is “grateful to God to be an American”.  As if God arranged for her to be born to Christian, white, United States born parents.  As the world goes, Americans (people born in the US)  are a minority.  If God had anything to do with the US being a first world leader in the world, why wouldn’t the Bible continue past 95 AD and take place all over the world?   Here’s a map of the New Testament events:

I think I’m going to write a “newer testament” and include the US.  Makes sense.

Team Jesus

I thought prayer worked?

Miracles

People often attribute miracles to things that happen while medical professionals are at work.  These miracle patients often thank God first, then, as an afterthought, the EMTs, doctors and nurses.  Sometimes, when they are “brought back from the dead” they’ll say God or Jesus told them “it’s not your time”.  And the medical professional resuscitates them.  Does that ever happen when there is no medical intervention?  That someone is dead, they see Jesus, Jesus says “it’s not your time” and the person spontaneously comes back to life?  And if God doesn’t make mistakes, why put the person in such a position?  There is currently a few articles online about a woman who had a heart attack while hiking and claims to have seen Jesus.  She had her heart shocked some five times but finally came back to life.  This happened in February 2018.  The reason for the popularity bump in the story, is the woman’s niece got a tattoo saying “it’s real” which is what the woman wrote on a notepad when she awoke after surgery.  The niece posted a picture of the tattoo on Instagram, and the tattoo artist also put the story on Facebook and it has gone viral.  Ironically, Leviticus 19:28 forbids tattoos.

The cross is victorious

 

Someone posted this about the Notre Dame fire.  What does that even mean, the cross is victorious?  What twisted logic is that?

Two headlines juxtaposed a world apart

This is in today’s New York Times.  An article about Hasidic Jews who don’t vaccinate their kids for religious reasons, right above a headline about the giant asteroid that struck earth millions of years ago.  One of these articles is based on something that didn’t happen, i.e.  God directed humans to obey certain laws which now, some 10,000 years later, is still being followed to the detriment of said humans’ health.  Ironically, the older event is the true event.  Based on facts discovered in part, very recently.  Just bizarre.  If God, for example, sent the asteroid, you’d think it would be in the Bible and God would send some type of rainbow like thing to prove he was never going to do that again.  My point is, you can’t believe both of these things are true.

Prayer

There’s really only two things that people pray about: weather and health/death.  I’m not counting praying that the Patriots win because somebody else is praying for their opponent to win, and prayer is going to work 50% of that time.  But praying that it won’t rain on your wedding day, praying to “guide the surgeon’s hands”, praying that the family heals emotionally after a disaster/shooting/loss is still praying for (mental) health.  So why do we have doctors and meteorologists if prayer works?  Last night there was another very destructive Bible belt tornado.  How can anyone possibly think an invisible man in the sky has something to do with that?  And that talking to him in your head can affect that? Even if the tornado missed your house and you attribute that to your “personal relationship with the Creator” what about the people across the street where lives were lost?  I guess you’ll pray for them.

The white washing of Christianity

Would you be as excited about Christianity if Jesus looked like this?

We are completely “brainwashed” to think that Jesus looked like a painting done in 1940, with long red hair and very white skin. 

The names of the more prominent characters in the Bible have been changed to easy to pronounce (and name our kids) names like Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  I read an article online about “50 actual people who were named in the Bible”.  They were mostly kings and Pharaohs and they had long Egyptian and Middle-Eastern names.  Those names weren’t changed for our benefit.  The only reason we are familiar with Methuselah is because someone noticed he lived longer than anyone else.  Would Christianity have flourished if the images and the names weren’t modified when it changed location?  It’s like the Mormons thinking Jesus is going to return to Missouri.  People are probably grateful they don’t have to travel so far.

And have dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth

If God created man to be the top of the food chain, he would have not created us hairless (dependent upon animals for warmth), he would have enabled us to fly, breathe under water, kill something with a simple bite, cling to walls,  change color for camoflage, etc.  We would have had the best of all the other animals’ survival attributes.