Erin Finn on injury, mental health, and Religion

The gods from the Old Kingdom Egypt, Mesopotamia and even the Classical Civilizations fit one major theme that you hinted at. I would say it served vicarious needs of human interest and in the same way New Yorkers root for the Yankees or Mets people formed cults around certain gods. According to the Egyptians the God of Chaos embodied the hippo. For the greeks, the wind blew for a reason, the sun and moon exchanged for a reason, the planet held up and also rotated because of some type of Divine Intervention. This was a very enchanted outlook and there was an explanation for everything.

Better than believing in God A or God B is living a virtuous life aimed at human or moral excellence. Quick google:

If you do that and happen to not believe in a God (and there is a God) you'll be given the nod to whatever heaven you seek.

threadbare wrote:

It is no coincidence that the anti-God people on these boards are angry, nasty, and have little understanding of what faith is. I feel sorry for you. I really do, because you cannot truly feel joy or love without God. God is love. Life on earth is the snap of a finger. Heaven and hell are for eternity. Read Imagine Heaven by John Burke and never doubt again. Your eternal soul could depend on it.

Of course you'll trash me for this but I hope to God you find some peace in your unhappy life.

I actually have quite a happy and joyful life, thank you very much... on the contrary, some of the angriest people I see personally are religious people who are apoplectic that everyone else doesn't bow down to their god and who cannot STAND that everyone doesn't live the way they think they should..

If I'm depressed about anything, it is that in a modern technical society in the year 2018, so many homo sapiens still insist on substituting a belief in the supernatural for gaps in their knowledge of the physical universe and need to find spiritual solace in what amounts to adult fairy tales, and in fact prefer this to evidence based knowledge.

If I'm angry about anything, it is that these same people want to govern me based on what I consider to be mythologies; these people brainwash little kids before they've had a chance to form their own minds, think a good and generous person like myself is going to eternal torture in hell because I don't bow down in homage to your made up super-being (and in fact are looking forward to it) while also believing a priest who has butt fuc*ked a dozen little boys is going to heaven just for 'confessing' his sins. It is people like you who insist no one else can feel love or joy or spirituality because we don't believe in 'your' god, while at the same time rejecting all the other gods and goddess and faiths created by other homo sapiens because, OF COURSE, you're the chosen ones and isn't it a shame about all those other poor souls who aren't as enlightened as you oh so special people.

You would believe NONE of what you believe if it hadn't been drilled into you as a child; if some ill adult had gotten hold of you on a deserted island somewhere when you were two he could have had you believing in a deity with red skin and the head of an elephant... and if you think this is ridiculous, then you think every Hindu on the planet is ridiculous because I have just described Ganesha, a deity worshiped by far more home sapiens than worship your particular chosen supernatural being.

I don't apologize for being angry about people who thank god for helping them find their car keys while at the same time utterly ignoring the 5 year old kids dying horrible deaths from bone cancer, all the kids starving and in poverty, kids molested by representatives of the church and instead of being arrested are sent to other diocese to molest yet more kids, and on and on and on. I don't apologize for being angry about people who would deny others their basic human rights because of what was written in some story book centuries ago by violent, homophobic, misogynistic, sexually frustrated men. T

The narcissism, self absorption, myopia, and sheer willful ignorance of religious people really does never cease to amaze me.

This is a fantastic post; thank you.

Because sprinters have everything come down to a lot of luck, heat of the moment, etc. while distance runners put in all the miles (sprinters put in a ton of work too, but their races are much shorter) and then get to a race and say "alright, training is nice, but what really counts now is my belief in jesus"

backing away slowly wrote:

The narcissism, self absorption, myopia, and sheer willful ignorance of religious people really does never cease to amaze me.

You might have been more persuasive, though not very persuasive overall, had you brushed up on subject-verb agreement before spouting off about the ignorance of others.

@thejeff wrote:

theJeff wrote:

Yes, we all saw your poor sentence structure and lack of capitalization.

Way to go.

pedantic much?

Nah, just literate.

God's Wisdom is Greater than Man's Wisdom wrote:

athletes who are athiests wrote:

Jonathan Edwards, Bill Rodgers, Gaston Roelants, Emil Zátopek. Perhaps they never got injured, or perhaps they made use of science and common sense to get healed.

All wisdom comes from God, even science and common sense.

Erin is very courageous.

How courageous? She seems like a great person, but courageous? I spent 34 years in the U.S. Foreign Service in some desperate parts of planet earth. I some courageous living among the struggling people. I have seen courageous among emergency workers and law enforcement folks, and the men and women of Doctors Without Borders. What is your notion of courage? Saying you believe in magical deities? Very strange.

The maven wrote:

backing away slowly wrote:

The narcissism, self absorption, myopia, and sheer willful ignorance of religious people really does never cease to amaze me.

You might have been more persuasive, though not very persuasive overall, had you brushed up on subject-verb agreement before spouting off about the ignorance of others.

Because finding the grammatical issue is so much easier than actually responding to the substance of what I posted, yes? If I am, as you say, 'not very persuasive overall', how about responding with something of substance yourself? I'll be waiting.

theJeff wrote:

@thejeff wrote:

pedantic much?

Nah, just literate.

Not very though.

backing away slowly wrote:

The maven wrote:

You might have been more persuasive, though not very persuasive overall, had you brushed up on subject-verb agreement before spouting off about the ignorance of others.

Because finding the grammatical issue is so much easier than actually responding to the substance of what I posted, yes? If I am, as you say, 'not very persuasive overall', how about responding with something of substance yourself? I'll be waiting.

Sorry to interject, but it IS hard to have an intellectual debate with someone who doesn't present themselves intelligently.

Carry on, and all the best.

Actually the Founding Fathers were Deists, which is anything but a "religious nutjob". They saw "God" as a disinterested prime mover, in contrast to evangelical delusionists who walk every step holding hands and French-kissing with their Lord and Savior Jesus H Christ. Notice how often Jesus is mentioned in writings of the time? He was about as instrumental in the founding of our country as Thor or Icarus.[/quote]

Actually, quite a few of them were what you might consider orthodox Christians. And deism back then was probably closer to orthodox Christianity than our modern take on deism two centuries removed. Classical deism did not openly deny the miraculous (it had to allow for the 'creation' of man by a Creator), but seemed to say God wasn't as interested in the affairs of men as much as we think (which may or may not be true).

One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was my Great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Dr. Benjamin Harrison of Pennsylvania who was a surgeon and doctor in the First Continental Army, and very good friends with both Washington and Jefferson and Adams, etc.. He was a very devout Christian, fought for women to have access to schooling, stayed in Philadelphia during a yellow fever outbreak (and postulated it was from native mosquitoes or native mosquitoes that had bred with non-native mosquitoes) and saved lives (despite the limited medical knowledge of the day) and helped resolve the disputes between Jefferson and Adams by pleading to them both to forgive each other before they died. He also helped many poor people in Pennsylvania find work and recover from the Revolutionary War. So, definitely not a 'deist'. You could say it was his 'faith' that motivated him to do good to and for a lot of people.

My point is let the athlete in question have her say and speak her mind. If she offends you 'unbelievers', so what? You would probably offend her, so the feeling is mutual. If she chooses to believe, what difference is it to those of us who may not feel/believe the same? Her 'faith' that develops during personal crisis may motivate her to help people later on who go through similar things.

LibetarianMind wrote:

My point is let the athlete in question have her say and speak her mind. If she offends you 'unbelievers', so what? You would probably offend her, so the feeling is mutual. If she chooses to believe, what difference is it to those of us who may not feel/believe the same? Her 'faith' that develops during personal crisis may motivate her to help people later on who go through similar things.

Hear, hear! As long as people don't try to enlist the power of government to impose their beliefs or unbelief on others, I have no problem!

But to back up what somebody posted above: She doesn't "choose" to believe. Belief is not a choice. If a proposition matches your personal standards for believability--which may be largely or wholly unconscious--it compels your belief.

And if it does not match those standards, it is impossible to believe it.

Now, you might be able to choose to speak and act as though you have or don't have a particular belief, but that of course is not the same thing. Your words and actions might be a matter of choice; your actual beliefs are not.

theJeff wrote:

backing away slowly wrote:

Because finding the grammatical issue is so much easier than actually responding to the substance of what I posted, yes? If I am, as you say, 'not very persuasive overall', how about responding with something of substance yourself? I'll be waiting.

Sorry to interject, but it IS hard to have an intellectual debate with someone who doesn't present themselves intelligently.

Carry on, and all the best.

so now u know what its like talking to u

theJeff wrote:

Sorry to interject, but it IS hard to have an intellectual debate with someone who doesn't present themselves intelligently.

"One" is singular; "someone" is singular. A singular noun or pronoun takes a singular, not plural, referent:

"It IS hard to have an intellectual debate with someone who doesn't present himself (or herself) intelligently."

Yeah, you got that one right, pal.

what evidence do you have that all of those accomplishments have anything to do with his fate? Deism back then was not close to orthodox Christianity. Thomas Jefferson, who's views are most influential in our country today, was firmly against the concept of priests. Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin most definitely did not seriously attend church. Thomas Paine wrote a book on the inconsistencies of the Bible and refused to accept the beliefs of any organized Christian church. James Madison believed that there shouldn't be chaplains in Congress or the military. If someone attempted to remove those positions today, the religious groups would go crazy.

Yes I’m going wrote:

Somehow, sprinters can talk about their faith in God all the time and it’s completely normal, but one distance runner starts talking about religion and everyone goes crazy.

Pre Officer wrote:

It's because everyone feels bad for those uneducated poor bastards. Like "let'em have their imaginary best friend, they don't got much else." But distance athletes should know better.

theJeff wrote:

Sorry to interject, but it IS hard to have an intellectual debate with someone who doesn't present themselves intelligently.

I wasn't having difficulty with your density, but as you wish.

George Hirsch wrote:

The notion that a deity would deign to concern its-self with the tweaked hamstring and the bruised navicular, or even the ruptured gastrocnemius, while children are burning from phosphorus bombs in other regions shows us the conceit and myopia of the brand of monotheism that is peddled about these days. Sport and competition are fun and even noble, but let us not pretend that it is deified.

The beauty of our living God is that He can actually do more than one thing! Imagine that?

What kind of God would He be if he couldn't respond to my reaching out to Him for help in my time of need, whether it's a running injury or as you say, a grave life-threatening injury?

Do your own parents only care for you when you're seriously hurt? Or do they show love and concern for you no matter what?

I'm glad that the living God is faithful to love and care for me, even if a bomb is not exploding nearby,

threadbare wrote:

because you cannot truly feel joy or love without God. God is love.

If "God" is short for "Amygdala" then yes this is correct.