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July 17, 2024 - 9:00pm
In 1981, a bullet narrowly missed the heart of a certain Karol Józef Wojtyła when an aggrieved Turk shot him in the Vatican City. Wojtyła, whose professional title was Pope John Paul II, later forgave his would-be assassin, who managed to penetrate the Bishop of Rome with two bullet holes, leading to significant blood loss but without killing him.
This being the 64th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fátima, she was later invoked as the Pope’s protector that day, and he said himself that a “motherly hand” had guided the bullets to miss his vital organs. I am not the first to wonder why Our Lady of Fátima could not have guided the bullets to miss him altogether.
We have seen a similarly religious response from a similarly religious political milieu following the attempt on Donald Trump’s life on Saturday. Given how close he came to martyrdom in Pennsylvania — turning his head slightly at the exact moment of impact, which was therefore taken by his earlobe rather than his occipital lobe — it has been suggested by a number of political commentators that God had a hand in saving the former president at the last moment. One wonders, as one does of the Secret Service that day, what took him so long.
Megyn Kelly this week provided a useful case study. Reminding her viewers that Trump was shot at 6:11pm, she read a passage from the New Testament: “Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” The citation? Ephesians 6:11. “I’m almost emotional reading it,” she said. “It’s just that what happened to him and our country this weekend is extremely grave and extremely important, and we are all so lucky it wasn’t worse than it was.”
It would take a utilitarian theology of incomprehensible proportions, however, to convince the family of Corey Comperatore, who did catch a bullet that day, that our providential father was controlling its trajectory. How lucky his daughters should feel that the Lord — or perhaps Our Lady of Fátima again? — protected Trump by redirecting those bullets into their dad.
Such is the unthinking theological sloppiness of those who think that God was guiding those bullets, those who insist that Trump is God’s chosen president. This is the same Trump who when asked to name a single Bible verse that he liked, said: “The Bible means a lot to me but I don’t want to get into specifics.” At least he won’t struggle to pick a favourite now.
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SubscribeI like the arctic monkeys
Logically speaking, we probably live in a simulation. Therefore, whoever created it can change the rules when they want to.
I am relieved we have Alex O’Connor to clarify that God “didn’t do anything”. It’s no wonder Peter Hitchens got so annoyed.
You occasionally ask yourself “Can atheists get any more tedious?” The answer is always “YES!!!”
How ironic.
The irony is that it takes the same amount of faith to believe in god and to not believe in god.
Pretty funny, some people don’t understand that having a firm belief about the unknowable goes both ways.
Dogma is the death of reason.
The belief in reason can be pretty dogmatic too
Except… “belief in reason” is not the opposite of religious belief. Only those who don’t understand human spirituality might think that.
The “belief in reason” is the most dangerous and psychopathic type of belief. This my statement is very easy to proof if you are modest and able to think logically.
.
Do you remember Robespierre?
It’s not a belief.
What dogma are you trying to paint me with? This article is a strawman argument, much like the discussion in the comment section.
Reason has nothing to say about religion, nor does science.
Reason is horribly overrated.
No – atheism is, dy definition, a lack of a belief in God, not an active belief that He does not exist. Even Dawkins made the point clear – he cannot and does not say that there is no God 100% – just that he sees no evidence for Him, and that if someone makes a bold claim, it is on them to prove it, not on everyone else to disprove it. This is particuarly important where the claim is used politically – as most organised religion clearly is.
You are confused with agnosticism.
No, he’s not. Atheism is simply lack of belief in god(s). Agnosticism is the view that you cannot know. You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic believer (faith is not knowledge). This is a common confusion. I always had to clear it up when teaching philosophy of religion.
Then we’re all agnostics then, aren’t we? And if it all did begin with the Big Bang then either nature acts in ways beyond our current capacity to understand or there’s something outside nature operating. In which case it’s all a matter of faith, well faith and/or choice. I choose to believe one thing, others believe another. I respect their faith.
Well said.
What is the name for someone who definitely believes there is no god?
Deluded fool.
No he’s not.
Did you read the post. Seems like he believes god does not exist. As to Dawkins, what do percentages have to do with it. Generally when I talk to people I give them the benefit of doubt. So talking with religious people and they talk about how god affects them, I naturally assume god is at work in their lives making their lives better. It’s sad you don’t respect that. And I talk to people who don’t believe in good also. Oops, God.
Why should we respect people who believe in the supernatural?
Do you disbelieve everything you don’t understand? That’s one way to have a life full of surprises.
Exactly.
Interesting point on the burden to prove a point
In the sciences, when writing any research proposal, you begin with the null hypothesis – the negative of what you are proposing and success is defined as being able to disprove the null.
Religion is a matter of faith, not reason. Where were you educated? You just might have a winning lawsuit.
No, really, it doesn’t! There is not a scrap of evidence to support the idea of an all knowing, all powerful God who built the universe but somehow only created one species to worship him (why?). These concepts are full of self contradiction.
God isn’t a vague “spirit of the Universe” or the Big Bang. It is very easy indeed to disbelieve the concept of God of the monotheistic religions. And isn’t it strange how people get so angry when you deny that God might possibly not have a male gender?!
Whenever a non-believer or agnostic asks a question of believers, there is usually a very vague “we can’t understand everything kind of answer. But then there’s an absolute angry insistence that we do of course know understand that God somehow has male gender!
Exactly there is no scrap of evidence, and in fact no scrap of evidence possible. Except of course for whether the people who have the belief find benefit from it. Maybe you should ask some of them and find out how it allows them to function.
It’s a comfort to people and that’s it.
God doesn’t have a gender. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes that abundantly clear. We call the Church ‘mother Church’ and ships ‘she’ but no one actually believes those nouns have the female gender. Using he for God and speaking of God as a father is merely drawing attention to qualities that we traditionally consider as concepts of maleness such as strong, all knowing leader. That’s not giving God a gender. Only people who haven’t understood that god is omniscient and omnipresent confuse the simplicity of language with actual being.
Absolute drivel. You know not of what you speak.
No. Atheism is literally a-theism, a lack of belief in a god or gods. It is not a positive belief about what exists. Religious believers are atheists too, about all the gods except the one they choose to have faith in.
If you discount the supernatural that’s fine, but why doesn’t that need alternative set of beliefs to explain the material world?
Evolution is a fact not a belief it’s a science.
Evolution is not a fact. It is an elaborate theory that spins a coherent story. This story explains a myriad of puncuate facts we have accumulated — facts in the form of fossils of fantastic creatures which do not exist in the modern world.
Another explanation is that fossils are simply a tremendous practical joke played by God on a credulous humankind.
Neither is capable of proof. Because my God is above such peurile behavior, I believe in evolution — but I can’t prove it, and neither can you.
Evolution explains the material world? How?
Does that precept help you sleep at night.
Being an atheist is not a belief. If you know something is a fact you don’t need to believe.
You believe you know something is a fact. That’s a belief right there.
Any more tedious than the more fundamental Christians claiming every random event is evidence of Gods plan?
As the article suggests, if God saved Trump why did he sacrifice a seemingly good loving father to do so? Why did I have a friend lose a father and step father to illness before the age of 30, despite coming from a church going family? Why have I lived a relatively comfortable life despite mocking Him relentlessly, while those who follow the Bible religiously live in poverty?
Yes you’ve just discovered theodicy, which has a history going back thousands of years
These are rhetorical questions. Nobody can answer them in a way you’d accept. I’d only point out that mocking God doesn’t hurt God nor does mocking the religious harm them; these things only hurt you. As Dostoevsky pointed out, “They will pronounce these words in despair, and such blasphemous utterances will but add to their misery—for human nature cannot endure blasphemy, and takes her own revenge in the end.” The religious poor have consolation and you, living in comfort, have none. Man doesn’t live by bread alone.
I’m well aware of that, it’s always back to blind faith and excusing everything bad that happens as having some higher purpose, and I simply don’t buy it.
God could have saved Trump by causing the gun to jam, or the would be attacker being caught before he could get shots away but instead he’s seemingly sacrificed a god man for no material gain.
Doesn’t sound very loving to me personally
God could have done anything else but what happened is what happened and it’s useless to second-guess it. I was an atheist for most of my adult life and would have said the same things you said until a couple of years ago. I just realized eventually that moral umbrage is pointless. The man who died died under circumstances that most men secretly dream about, saving his family, all of whom lived. And, if God is right, they’ll all be together again momentarily anyway. What’s the alternative? Anger? Against whom? A god that doesn’t exist?
Looking down their nose is all they have.
Not seeing beyond the end of yours is all you have.
If the wife remarries after the poor mans murder what happens then in the afterlife? The poor bloke spends 30 years waiting for his missus to turn up at the pearly gates to find she’s now with somebody else?
Er, Jesus is most specific about that one. There is no marriage in heaven.
(Yes, you can supply your own jokes there.)
This sounds like the premise to a short story Mark Twain might have written in his later years. I’d hope after being in heaven, the guy’s found a way to be magnanimous about his wife not wanting to spend the rest of her life on Earth alone or, if not, hopefully they’ve got a bouncer at the gates when he punches the other guy in the mouth for touching his wife lol
Lol? Yawn.
We don’t do “lol” anymore? I’m out of touch with the young people.
Yes, yawn indeed.
One thing religious people never consider: You are going to have an enormous family in heaven (or hell?)! All those thousands of generations of family hanging around.
God forbid!
I think most men, and women, would like to die in their sleep.
I’m sure you’re right and yet none of us get to make that choice. We can believe we’re the victims of blind chance or we can believe we’re part of a benevolent plan that plays out the way it should. That’s the only freedom we have. We can be grateful for what we get or we can be bitter about it but, as Larkin wrote, “death is no different whined at than withstood.” If your fate is to have the chance to die heroically saving your loved ones, I think that’s something to be thankful for. You could complain, of course but, if you’re an atheist, who are you complaining to?
My friend cut his finger on a can of dog food. How dare God punish this poor man, simply for trying to save an innocent dog from starving to death, etc., etc.
The idea that bad stuff won’t happen to good people may be a facet of some religions, but it’s never been a principle of Christianity.
Religion is a matter of faith and choice. You’ve chosen not to believe. That’s entirely your prerogative, and nobody should interfere with it.
PS God may have intervened to prevent 11,453 murders yesterday. By definition, we’d never know, would we? Just saying.
And if we knew all the answers in every situation, well…..we’d be God.
The very first thing God gave man was free will. It isn’t up to God to step in and prevent choices people make.
And again trump moved.
Trump moves in mysterious ways.
Some people seem to think so.
The answer is that Christian supporters see Trump as God’s plan to save America from the Democrats’ evil. Religion allows you to ask and answer your own questions. Pascal’s wager is the same- Christianity never solves the problem of death but promises eternal life.
Eternal life would be here on earth, wouldn’t it.? However, the after-death thingy is supposed to be a second-best comfort.
Why do christians tend to vote the saame way in the US?
If you don’t believe He exists, why do you feel the need to “mock Him relentlessly”? Conversely, if you’re simply mocking the deeply held beliefs of God-fearing individuals, that seems a tad ungenerous.
What certainly doesn’t exist is the mythical biblical promise that bad things on Earth never happen to good people. That promise only exists in the minds of atheists. If anything, the bible promises rather a rough ride.
Any text that promises anything is a fool’s game – including the bible, cobbled together during a time when we didn’t even understand the earth travelled round the sun, then edited to remove awkward bits that didn’t fit the early Christian narrative. Believing in that is idiocy.
Exactly.
The Lord moveth in mysterious ways
Exactly!
After reading this, I immediately thought, “Do we really need another one of these guys?” Someone who thinks it’s smart to ask someone who believes God cured him of, I don’t know, cancer, “Why’d he let you get it in the first place then?” Boring twats, all of them.
Yeah, pursuit of truth is so boring. BTW – vanishingly rare for someone to directly challenge a faitfhful cancer survivor that way, but if they did it would be borish. What we actually have is people questioning ideas/a line of reasoning – nothing wrong with that, particuarly when that line of reasoning has been massively imposed on society, politically, socially, intellectually, ppsychologically etc for thousands of years. A couple of small contemporary illustrations: a gay man ill and dying in a London hospice recently had to endure his nurse praying vocally, over his death bed, for his corrupted gay soul; secondly, in my own, not unusual educational experience: approximately 1,000 hours of religious education/indoctrination (unwanted by myself and parents, and paid for by my parents, compulsarily); hours of atheistic education/indoctrintation: zero. Y
You have it exactly opposite – overwhelmingly, it is religious people that proactively, forcefully try to impose their will/beliefs on others, and who tend to be noisely judgemental, preachy (it is after all – His will!). Atheists write books, give lectures and make occasional converstational comments, jokes on such matters.
Yeah but being as universal education came from outsiders like Robert Raikes getting loads of flack for stating Sunday Schools so poor kids could learn to read I think you and your parents got a bargain. 1000 hours spent learning about what motivated Raikes and Butler and Wilberforce and Ashley Cooper seems reasonable to me.
“I am not the first to wonder why Our Lady of Fátima could not have guided the bullets to miss him altogether.”
Which is very much like asking the cancer survivor why God let him get sick in the first place if God was just going to cure him later on anyway. I point to this as boring and predictable because it is. It answers nothing and convinces nobody. And why should atheists be so keen on trying to persuade people that God doesn’t exist anyway? Is it good for the faithful to lose their faith? Did the New Atheist movement lead our society into the sunlit uplands of Reason? Of course not. The widespread acceptance of scientific materialism and atheism lead people to lose hope and grasp wildly for something to give their lives meaning which, predictably, turned out to be corrosive forms of political radicalism we’ve got to cope with now.
What I would say is, think about the good of others for once and realize that you, as an atheist, have accepted a philosophy that has no answers for life’s most important questions. I used to be an atheist and I know why you resent religious people. You’re struggling under the weight of meaninglessness that your own chosen philosophy has imposed on you and you see people who seem to have found a way to make their peace with the world with all its suffering and injustice. What right do they have to be so certain? Again, think about the good of others, not some theoretical good (i.e. If they’re stripped of their illusions they’ll realize life is precious and live more fully in the moment) but their real good and I think you’ll see that a nurse praying for the soul of a man, what?, dying of AIDS is not offensive but beautiful.
No, it’s you who’s struggling under the weight of your own incapacity to understand human spirituality, of which the concept of “god” is just one aspect. If you find the world and existence meaningless without “god” that’s your problem, there are those who’ve seen beyond that psychological self-deceit.
The rest of what you’ve written is just third rate sophistry to try to fit your narrative.
Oh, “there are those who’ve seen beyond that psychological self-deceit”? Who? If the entirety of a human life is the maybe 75 or 80 years the lucky ones get on this planet and then they just disappear, their consciousnesses popping out like a lightbulb filament, what’s the meaning of it all? Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus to attempt to come up with an answer to this question and all he was able to muster is that we’re all rolling the rock up the mountain pointlessly, and we know it’s pointless struggle leading nowhere, but we have to imagine Sisyphus being happy on the way up. He threw in some other reflections such as, one shouldn’t commit suicide because non-existence is just as absurd as existence and it’s no point rushing from one absurdity to another. Bracing stuff. Anyway, I’ve read most of the atheist philosophical canon, having been one myself for most of my adult life until recently, and found nothing of much value in it to sustain a human life. Maybe you’ve found something I missed.
We don’t look to the supernatural to find meaning in life.
Right, which is why we’re increasingly realizing we have a crisis of meaning. When people ask what the meaning of life is, they don’t mean having tea with your aunt or collecting stamps or whatever you, subjectively, think it is. They mean, objectively, what are we doing here? Since we’ve decided we don’t need the supernatural, we’ve lost the narrative basis to answer that question coherently. Now, all we have is tautological nonsense like, ‘The meaning of life is finding meaning in life” which implies it’s the responsibility of each person to create life’s meaning for his or herself. In other words, without the supernatural, we all have to become Nietzsche’s ubermensch. I’ve never met an ubermensch but if you’re one of them, awesome. The rest of us mere mortals need some guidance on the matter.
There probably are many who have seen beyond that self deceit. To be honest, Lancashire, I’m not convinced you’re one of them. And what’s third rate about his sophistry – if it is sophistry at all. It’s reasonable, isn’t it, to ask about the effects of loss of faith on politics and public life? Even Dawkins does that.
If one asks of someone who believes in “God” what exactly it is, they aren’t able to give a reasonable explanation
To my mind, the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris are ultimately doing religion a favour – by calling on them to raise their game. Perhaps in the direction of what one might call spirituality rather than organised religion. Religions and religious belief is better when it is anti-fragile: able to receive criticism, and grow from that (where it is legitimate). Coddling is rarely good for anyone or anything.
The New Atheists were to religion what Karl Marx was to Capitalism. Both the New Atheists and Marx wrote incisive critiques of these institutions but ultimately couldn’t formulate anything to replace them that worked because they shared this one characteristic in common; they were all academic fantasists who had no grasp of human nature. If someone can look at human history and conclude that humans are the kind of creatures that would be willing to work and hand over the product of that work for the benefit of total strangers without destroying the incentive to work or you think humans are the kinds of creatures that can become convinced that there’s no god and still maintain an objective basis for morality or value for human life, that person shouldn’t be taken seriously by sane adults. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why atheists say what they do but they’re not thinking it through sufficiently.
Sam Harris’ ‘Waking Up’ presents formulations that work – and that substantially predate Christianity. Dawkins & Hitchens did, in their way, not a religion, but a profoud interest in philosophy, people, nature and all the enlightenment has, and is bringing.
Admitedly not for those who like their ideas pre-chewed.
Harris practices meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. I find it mildly ironic that Harris’s continued relevance, if he has any, is due to this and not to the vicious polemics against religion and religious people that originally made him famous. Did you read Harris’s The Moral Landscape? It was his attempt to overcome Hume’s Is-Ought problem. To say it failed to overcome the problem would be an understatement. It’s not that I didn’t love Hitchens and Harris when they first came out, it’s that they failed to proffer anything that kept me from eventually seeking out religion. And I’m not the only one.
The larger point is, things that aren’t religion don’t scale. Maybe a few individuals can get along without spiritual transcendence but not on a larger level. As I said before, I think you guys have to be honest with yourselves and question whether you can continue to regard yourselves as the reason people when the decline of faith you’ve championed has lead to bad outcomes. Yours is a utopian project no less fantastical than communism. You have to accept what human beings are – a religious animal.
Preachy, preachy.
So true. They feel compelled to proselytize.
They can be equally literal-minded, simple and over-zealous as the religious fundamentalists they’re so obsessed with
Well that’s a much better comment than mine. I should have read further.
Of course it can be tedious to keep making the same completely points, obvious to any five-year-old who hasn’t been indoctrinated, over and over again!.
So why exactly did God protect preserve Trump while letting the other guy die? Oh, no doubt “He moves in mysterious ways”! That’s such a very convincing explanation!
Is it really “obvious to any five-year-old who hasn’t been indoctrinated” that everything that happens in the world is the result of random chance, that there’s no direction behind events no matter how much most of us can see and feel that there are, and that just because materialists insist that there’s nothing behind apparently incredible events that there really is nothing? If you can convince yourself that atheistic materialism can account for everything you see happening around you, good for you. But you have to understand that you’re the minority and continuing to insist that everybody else on Earth are no better than moronic, stubborn children who refuse to get with the program is, itself, silly and childish. Moreover, shouldn’t the repeated failures of atheists in different historical epochs to do away with religious faith and replace it with a civilization based on enlightened rationality cause sane and rational people to abandon the project? Isn’t the definition of insanity, per Einstein, repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result? And yet here we are talking about this again at the tail end of the latest failure of atheistic materialism to bring about a utopia of pure reason. Accept that human beings are not purely rational creatures and the universe we live in is not governed by purely rational, mechanistic “laws”. I understand these facts trouble you but they’re not going to change.
I don’t know, no one does. But I do know masculinity isn’t toxic and there are men who will die for their family and there’s good and evil and this is the good thing to do. And I believe most men would do the same. That’s not a bad thing to ponder, is it, what makes a man?
I believe every man has considered what he would do if he was faced with evil and every man, in his heart, knows he’d better not fail to stand up to it if that day comes, no matter the cost. There are things worse than death and failing in this regard is one of those things. I made a similar argument when those armed security guards cowered outside while a shooter rampaged through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing students and teachers. Two unarmed teachers, Aaron Feis and Chris Dixon, died running towards the shooter in an attempt to stop him. I think every man knows in the deepest part of himself that you want to be Aaron Feis or Chris Dixon and under no circumstances would you ever want to be the security guards.
And neither would any woman want to marry a man who’d run out of a burning building leaving his wife, children and aged parents to follow.
Of course she wouldn’t but I doubt many women in today’s political climate would want to admit that they want men to behave like men. In my opinion, the problem is something like, women want men to behave as they’re traditionally supposed to behave, they just don’t want to give men any respect or honor for it. This is why we’re seeing generations of man-children who balk at taking on the burden of doing the hard and dangerous and self-sacrificing things men are supposed to do. They’re brought up in a society that refuses to give them the honor doing those things has always afforded them so why should they not live lives of immature, self-centered pleasure-seeking if they’re not going to be respected for choosing the righteous struggle?
Alex 3:16- For Random Chance was so indifferent to the outcome of such endeavors that it bestowed upon us a pool of Amino Acids.
Some Republicans and many Democrats are treating Trump like some singular figure with magical powers. In reality, he is one of dozens of populist leaders across the west who are pushing back against a political class that has been consumed by luxury beliefs that have led to manifestly self-destructive policies like net zero, open borders and pandemic lockdowns. There is nothing magical about Trump. He’s not toppling democracy and he’s not suddenly going to lift America out of its stupor. He is shifting policy and debate so it better reflects the values and needs of all America, rather than the coastal elite that dominates the establishment today. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It’s pretty funny people would believe in things like the luxury beliefs you list. It’s almost like the human animal has a need for fairy tales. Looks like Biden is done with the guff. He’s maskless and Covid positive and looking for an overhead flag.
Another proud and preening atheist steps forward. You can bet he has a lot of opinions on other subjects as well.
Yes, it would be lovely it those were his actual intentions.
Hydroxychloroquine and bleach would have saved a lot of money too.
Yet another schmuck repeating the long debunked bleach claim. Ugh.
.
The entire text of the article should have been, “God didn’t save Trump”. It would have persuaded the same number of people and saved a bit of time.
Of course He did.
Whenever events serve up premium-grade drama like the recent attempt on Trump’s life, some gland in the bodies of media types (of all persuasions) secretes a methamphetamine-like substance that jacks them up into levels of hyperbole exceeding their usual fevered utterances. This rhapsody of intemperance, correctly flagged by Mr. O’Connor in Ms. Kelly’s recourse to her faith, is perfectly bookended by its opposite in Mr. O’Connor’s frantic reminder of the holy duty of atheism to ever and always condemn faith-based utterances. As a born-again agnostic who looks at the cosmos and shrugs my shoulders, I find both extremes infantile.
I’m a believer, and I agree with your take here.
Can I ask where your agnosticism was born again from?
Was the bullet that nicked Trump the same one that killed Corey Comperatore? I have so far seen no assertion that it was or was not (there were 8 rounds fired). Until that’s clear theological or utilitarian arguments are distasteful. They will still be crass even if the story is true. An innocent man who protected his family is dead. Donald Trump is alive. There is no moral or consequential connection. Enough of this stuff!
Or a good man was given the gift of dying courageously in the act of protecting his loved ones, who lived. They’ll remember him and venerate his memory for as long as they live, as will their children and on through the succeeding generations of that family. Considering that most of us will die wasting away in a hospital bed at the end of it confused, diminished, and in pain, this seems glorious. If given the choice between the two, I’d take what Corey was given with no complaints.
I’d rather have my old boy alive than him being a dead hero, as I’ll wager so would his wife and kids
I’ll wager you’re right. But that’s not what happened. What would you recommend, that his wife and kids spend the rest of their lives bitter, cursing God or vainly believing they had bad luck, or thanking God their dad was there to protect them, as he surely would have preferred, and that they’ll see him again?
That is what they would have.
I’d curse the pr1ck upstairs for taking my dad away personally, even if I was proud of the old boy for taking the bullet. I certainly wouldn’t thank him for saving an 80 year old crook and murdering my old man instead
You seem to believe that God owes you something. I’m afraid you are very mistaken.
I don’t believe he owes me anything, but if he is all powerful and has the ability to shape life and affect events yet chooses to let bad things happen to good people for no reason then I think he is an absolute w@nker
Methinks you’re scratching around in an obscure corner of a painting by a Great Master, Billy Bob, and totally missing the great sweep of the composition.
God is Almighty. Sadly we have managed to shrink him to insignificance. God is. Mr Trump is alive. A brave man died. The ultimate outcome of God’s great rescue plan for humanity has not changed. Be wary of belittling the Lifebelt.
So, just as “a painting by a Great Master” was entirely a work of human hand, mind and spirit, so is the concept of “God” which you rattle on about, but actually have no clue about human spirituality.
Nobody understands “human spirituality.” It’s an abstraction of turning what anthropologists and psychologists term the “religious impulse” into utilitarian principles like “empathy” or “cooperation.”
It’s a set of principles unattached to any value system. It can’t be reproduced to be anything other than Existentialism and eventually Nihilism when the futility of the mindset is realized.
People should be aware of Nietzsche’s final years. The Ubermensch is not a psychologically sustainable outline for life.
Agreed. Nietzsche took his philosophy seriously and stared manfully into the godless void and wound up psychologically wrecked, babbling with his arms around the neck of a dead horse in a street in Turin. The ubermensch is a myth. There is no man born who can be the judge and jury at his own trial or create his own morality. Nietzsche was under no illusions as to what deicide would entail. He wrote that he who would kill God must become like a god himself to be great enough to withstand the consequences. There have been plenty of philosophical hucksters and frauds who’ve promulgated this philosophy but those who attempted to live as if it were true ended up wrecked on the rocks.
God is man-made.
Oh PLEeeze!!!!
As Dostoevsky so piercingly observed in The Grand Inquisitor, blasphemy is an expression of misery and helplessness that compounds exponentially leading only to darker and more hopeless places. Human nature recoils against it and takes its own revenge against the blasphemer. Faith is humility and acceptance and is the only way, as Milton said, out of hell and up towards light.
The key here is “…for no reason…”. I choose to think there’s a reason for everything that happens even if that reason isn’t clear to me. If you want to waste your time pointlessly raging against someone you claim isn’t there, that’s a choice too but I think there are better choices available.
Starts off as a theological squib and then turns into a Biden vs Trump assessment. Authorial ADHD?
”It would take a utilitarian theology of incomprehensible proportions, however, to convince the family of Corey Comperatore, who did catch a bullet that day, that our providential father was controlling its trajectory.”
In Matthew 10:28 it says:
”Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. ”
You sure He didn’t take care of two sparrows that day?
Drivel.
I don’t have a particular comment on your post, but I respect the use of an umlaut in your name.
If you believe in an all-seeing, all-knowing omniscient divinity then surely it was God’s work. The bullet missing Trump was an act of God, just as much as Crooks pulling the trigger was.
You skipped the chapter on free will.
And you on predestination apparently. Not that I believe in that balderdash…
I’m a Catholic. We don’t believe in pre-destination in a Calvinist sense. God permits evil; He does not actively will it to happen. Everyone who is saved or damned reaches that end because of his or her own beliefs and actions.
In other words, he created us (if you believe that he did) to play an absolute fools game for…what? His amusement in casting some into the “saved” box and others into the “damned” box?
God be damned!
He created us so that He can love us and we can choose to love Him and each other. Love can not be compelled, it must be freely chosen.
It’s a straightforward “game” that’s played for eternal happiness, and it’s fairly easy to win. We just have to let go of our pride and our ego, and stop believing that the world resolves around us.
God loves you even as you damn Him, and will always accept your repentence as long as you live.
And if we don’t repent? Will we burn in eternal flame?
You will be separated from God, and deeply regret that decision. The pains of Hell are self-inflicted.
That’s logic. Belief in god isn’t logical.
Bullet wasn’t redirected, trump moved. A bit of tds and probably not being able to sleep seems to be this guys muse.
Well thank God somebody finally thought about the problem of evil and free will and providence seriously for us. Not like that hack Aquinas.
I’m always struck when atheist columnists are all, “Ah ha! What about this?” as though they’ve discovered something new and I’m thinking, “Come on, cleverer men than you were thinking about this 1,500 years ago”.
They’ve been thinking about this from the dawn of time. Most out of the desire to understand and in a spirit of humility. But there’s always been a few doing so out of arrogance to r to win an argument or something crass.
Make that 2,500 years, minimum. (Cf. the Book of Job, c. 6th century BC)
“Cleverer men” didn’t allow women (such as Kate) to have any input into written scriptures. It seems you’re still of the mindset to deny them agency. Just what are you afraid of, hmm?
“It seems…” No it doesn’t. You clearly haven’t understood what Matt was saying. Try reading his comment again. (Hint: he was agreeing with Kate.)
I know one thing. If Trump had been assassinated, America would have been mortally wounded. Make up your own mind on one side of politics versus the other, but removing by violence the right for one side to vote for their deeply favored candidate would have been catastrophic. As it is, the performance of the Secret Service appears to be gross incompetence, if Trump had died it would have quickly construed as intentional, and hell would open its gates. You can call it dumb luck and no one can prove you wrong, but the scale of the calamity avoided makes many of us instinctively grateful to a higher power, regardless of said power’s method of performance and alleged inconsistency of effort.
Perhaps the great god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster extended his noodly appendages to influence events that day? Or the God of War, Mars, was having an off day. Or perhaps Saint Thomas a Becket was on form?
Once you open the supernatural floodgates a lot of alternatives flood out.
“Aint that the truth!
“….if Trump had died it would have quickly construed as intentional….” Hard to imagine it would be construed as anything else, given that a guy deliberately shot in his direction.
Thank you Alex for an interesting shot at theology and prediction. Young Mr. Biden reminds me of “Are you Being Served” and Young Mr. Grace. A doddery old impotent lecher “in charge” of self correcting mayhem. Please do not interfere in this good example of chaos theory in action. All politicians are muppets and we similarly for electing them.
Biden is a professed Catholic and would have more likely referred to divine intervention. He is always talking about he and his wife praying for someone or something. The evangelicals do see Trump as quasi Messianic mostly because they see the Dems as doing the work of Satan, RINOs the same.
I believe few Trump supporters of faith see him as a Messianic figure. Most are alive to the reality of an end times spiritual battle for world domination. The great divide today is no longer Left and Right but for God or against God, Christ or Antichrist.
Mr Trump, like me, is a seriously flawed individual, great material to work with.
The “great divide” of which you speak exists only in your own head. It’s just utter nonsense, and there is no “divide”, just the random chance of our existence, with which i’m perfectly happy and at peace. Only those who’re psychologically insecure need to believe in something to justify being here.
I agree. If I were casting a movie in which the Antichrist was a character, I’d definitely give Trump’s agent a call.
At the end of the day we don’t know if God saved Trump or not. God does not excuse us from suffering and death and unfortunately it was the time for the poor man who was shot and killed. Maybe God needs to use Trump for the good. There many cases throughout the bible of God using very flawed people to advance his plans.
If God wants to use a very flawed person to advance His plans, Trump is a good choice.
It is not God’s intention to ensure that evil happens in order to bring about good, but God’s creativity that sometimes enables good to come out of evil, usually unexpectedly ,as far as we humans are concerned.
It’s unreasonable to be proud of being an unbeliever…
The author has such an infantile view of God. It appears that the author seeks to squeeze down God to fit his own thoughts about reality, that apparently good things happen to those he has estimated as “good people” and bad things happen to those he estimates as “bad people”. He also appears to assume a sort of deistic view of reality, that God has sort of set the universe in motion, and yet only His direct hand causes things to happen, and that God therefore can’t use or direct ordinary means, but only acts in a sort of “all on it’s own” reality when he sees one of his favorites in trouble. In short, if the author can’t see the direct logic of something with his limited scope view of reality and the way things should happen, then well, it’s just crazy and random stuff!
Basically, you wind up stupider after reading this man’s thoughts, because you might in a fit of narcissism think that all that matters in reality starts and ends between our own ears, and that nothing makes sense unless it makes sense in there. But it doesn’t help that what’s going on in between the authors ears is really not a lot. If this is supposed to be where we have arrived intellectually, post-enlightenment, then I can see why things are going down the drain.
Young Master O’Connor’s effort, in this brief and shallow article, to exclude any possibility of a divine hand in human affairs, strikes me as a little over keen. I suggest his wish is father to the thought. The earliest videos on his YouTube channel may hold a clue.
I’m not an atheist, but I agree with this take. Many believers seem to have a concept of God as an incompetent super hero, one who can do some things, but poorly, such as saving Trump by moving his head, but allowing an innocent bystander to die. I mean, why not take out the shooter altogether? or does God’s super power only allow for head swiveling?
This reminds me of when people thank God for saving them for some disaster where scores of others died, as if God just liked them a whole lot better than all those other undeserving people.
Yes, isn’t that annoying.
….but entirely Christian.
God loves me, he’s proven on multiple occasions…. It’s called success theory.
Yes. As a believer myself I find this tendency among the faithful to attribute fortunate coincidences to miraculous interventions lazy and annoying. I once heard a preacher credit the Almighty with finding him a convenient parking space in a busy city centre at a particularly challenging time. Humility, wonder and silence in the presence of God is our correct response. My father, an agnostic, advised that politics and religion were a man’s private business. I agree with him.
The “parking space” thing was the least he could do for one of his preachers.
Hitler survived attempt to kill him. Was this then God’s doing as well ?
Could always have been the devil taking care of his own.
So… it was the Other Guy?
Almost certainly.
“Unthinking theological sloppiness” describes every instance of people thanking God for saving them or loved ones, while others perish. Not sure that’s really worth an article, though the headline made me laugh, as this is just what we need: definitive statements about what God is and isn’t doing. Clarity at last!
I believe in God, but I find it dangerous to associate political figures with Him in any way. The same goes for the democrats comparing Trump to Satan. Applying religious fervor to political figures simply obliterates any objectivity (the bit that remains, anyway), which leads to blind worship or violence (both of which we’ve seen, sadly).
What qualifications does Alex O’Connor have to discuss theological claims?
If “CosmicSkeptic” just doesn’t believe in the biblical God, he should just say so, politely, perhaps with a comment about finding it incoherent.
But here’s a person calling his position “Within Reason.” Yet he cannot venture far enough inside a tradition of thought, occupied by some of the best minds in human history, to see how they might answer the question? Instead he offers sophomoric objections off the cuff?
And then what’s the rant at the end about Biden? What does that have to do with anything?
I miss the old atheists. Bertrand Russell et al were serious thinkers.
Notwithstanding the somewhat sneering tone, I thank you for inadvertently highlighting the elusive and ultimately subjective nature of Christian faith. The idea of God guiding the bullets is indeed questionable, but not so the notion that God uses such occasions — which are human-induced according to our free will — for greater purposes.
I may belong to a vanishingly small minority but I believe the divine intervention speculation is bad faith of the highest order: magical, not theological “thinking”.
A reductive materialist atheist writing about God. It seems Unherd will lift the lid from any garbage can to show the bredth of its toleration. Just because Justin Welby is the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t mean there is no God.
As I say above, if there is a God, He undoubtedly has a sense of humour!
I am a christian but would agree with this article, i appreciate a rational view from many secular intellectuals as God gave as a mind to think and its true that many Evangelicals put more emphasis on feelings and experience and have been over the decades declining in scriptural – sola scriptura, like many of our forbearers. Christian Nationalism will be a problem sooner or later, I believe Government can remain Secular and also live by Christian principles on an individual Family level, like Charles Spurgeon said: Christ wants no help from Caesar! Religious Institutions have no need to depend or Parliament to enact Laws needful for Society, not top down morality but bottom up! Other wise we will decent into the Darkness of Popery or as Henry VIII with His Anglican Church. Revelation 13 says as much and warns of a Christian dispensation but with Worldly ambitions in disguise of Christianity!
God moves in mysterious ways. Why else would there be no evidence that could be presented to a court?
A lawyer, then? You have my sympathy.
Well, I mean, of course God could have intervened directly to save the life of Donald Trump.
Exactly! He obviously has a sense of humour!
Your article seems to boil down to the objection: Trump was spared but Corey was not.
At the root of this objection is the question, why are some people more favored than others? Especially the unrighteous? While it is very apparent with this incident, the same question would apply to one person getting cancer and another not. Or one having a car accident and another not. The Psalms are filled with this very question being asked.
The first thing to be said is that, if we take the entirety of the Christian worldview, perfect justice does not have to be achieved in this life because it will be in the next. Additionally, there are many examples of God using the unrighteous to achieve His plan (Joseph’s brothers delivering him to Egypt, God using Babylon to punish Israel, etc) so there isn’t anything in principle preventing God from saving someone unrighteous.
With all that being said, am I definitively saying that God intervened to save Trump that day? No. But when the man who is on track to become the most powerful man on the planet escapes death by mere inches, I do think that warrants us pausing to consider it.
Back in the late 1990s, a friend of mine used to rail against the injustice of the world by shouting “John Lennon, dead! Phil Collins, alive!”
“Such is the unthinking theological sloppiness of those who think that God was guiding those bullets…”
I am always amazed at how ignorant atheists are about what theology and religion are – that is, what they purport to say and do. Theology does not claim to occupy the same explanatory ground as physics – the former’s comments on the arc of the bullet exist in a parallel but not mutually exclusive intellectual framework as the latter’s.
This strange shortsightedness has been observed and rebutted by numerous non-religious intellectuals for many many decades (centuries, perhaps). (Wittgenstein’s “On Frazer’s Golden Bough” comes to mind, or Terry Eagleton humiliating Richard Dawkins for a more recent example.)
What their persistence tells you is that there are just as many unintelligent, credulous atheists as there are unintelligent, credulous believers. And so the market continues to demand and supply this kind of ‘analysis’ that in reality just repeats the same old ignorant falsehoods.
You stand guilty of false equivalence.
July 13 is the anniversary of the 3rd Marian apparition at Fatima. The one where she shows the children a vision of hell and imparts the 3rd secret.