God, miracles, miners and gender feminists

[Born Free]

As I read this story in today's Sydney Morning Herald, I was in shock at what some humans find helpful in moments of shock and powerlessness.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rescued-miners-are-found-dead/2006/01/04/1136050496875.html

When I first saw this news story on TV, I was struck by the amount of "God' in the story. We went from God being invoked to perform miracles, God apprently having performed miracles, a screwed up communication, then wrath unleashed at mining company officials. Notice that nowhere did God get balled out for not having come to teh party. When we want miracles, we ask God. When it turns to shit, we vent on some human. All seems a bit childish to me!

I found particularly sad the paragraph 'The families reacted angrily when the information was corrected three hours later, yelling "hypocrites" and "liars" to the mine company representatives. They left the church in tears.'

Step back from the immediate tragedy here. Why would company officials lie? They had eveything to lose, and nothing to gain. These distressed people wanted miracles, so when an ambiguous communication came through, and the first person misinterpreted that, away went the euphoria. Until, whoops!

Then, instead of seeing how the error occurred and that it came by accident, then someone has been be the baddy for the false hope.

I despair at the human capacity for reason and reasonableness sometimes.

All the above said, I feel for the families and loved ones involved.

As an aside, you might notice there aren't any gender-feminists arguing that women should have had 50% of these jobs. Such dangerous jobs are traditonally filled by men, and some feminists find no hypocricy in not demanding equal access to these 'death jobs'.

Daryl

[helemon]

As I read this story in today's Sydney Morning Herald, I was in shock at what some humans find helpful in moments of shock and powerlessness.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rescued-miners-are-found-dead/2006/01/04/1136050496875.html

When I first saw this news story on TV, I was struck by the amount of "God' in the story. [/B]

It's West Virginia, what do you expect? Even if is wasn't, it is understandable that the family members would cling tenatiously to any scrap of hope they might receive and feel bitterness and anger if that information proved false. As PoMos we of all people should be sensitive to how easy it is to "Believe in Miracles" against reason, especially in a desperate situation.

What I hope is that the govenor will create a task force to investigate why this explosion occurred and invest tax dollars and corporate funding into efforts aimed at prevent similar events from occurring in the future. It is a shame that because of the nations demand for cheap fuel some human beings have to endure such hellish working conditions.

[bobcat]

Notice that nowhere did God get balled out for not having come to teh party. When we want miracles, we ask God. When it turns to shit, we vent on some human. All seems a bit childish to me!

I also noticed this, and was bothered by it. Seeing God as the ONLY source of good shows that some people have no faith in humanity and its capacity to do good. Even if there IS a god guiding rescuers to do great deeds, the rescuers deserve some credit for being there, learning the skills, doing the training, etc. I find it's makes life seem all the better when good things are attributed to good people, with maybe a little nudge from a higher power.

Hopefully reason will prevail in the end, and people will figure out that the mine bosses (or the world) aren't out to get them, and that it's better to spend time and money on prevention and study than in pointing fingers and blaming people for everything.

[dogzilla]

These are the people who voted for Bush because they were told that Kerry would ban the bible and would MAKE men marry men. :eek:

Let's cut 'em a break for about five minutes, shall we? They don't appear to have the same powers of discernment that we do.

Hey! What happened to our crazy drooling smilie?

[helemon]

I was watching CNN and they were talking about this tragedy. They said that the mine had 3 times the reported accidents as other mines in the area and had 200 serious safety violations during a recent inspection. So the families of these miners should be angry at the mine owners not God.

[Born Free]

I was watching CNN and they were talking about this tragedy. They said that the mine had 3 times the reported accidents as other mines in the area and had 200 serious safety violations during a recent inspection. So the families of these miners should be angry at the mine owners not God.

My point was that when requests and thanks for miracles were flowing, they went to God, but anger went to man. That was my discomfort.

The anger I heard reported was specific to the reversal of news, which seemed nonsensical.

Daryl

[helemon]

My point was that when requests and thanks for miracles were flowing, they went to God, but anger went to man. That was my discomfort.

The anger I heard reported was specific to the reversal of news, which seemed nonsensical.

Daryl

I am not discounting your observation about the families anger. Perhaps if they had not had soo much trust in God and miracles to keep their men safe they would have been more alarmed earlier on and tried to force some changes. But I would bet that the owners of the mine probably kept the workers in the dark about the safety of their working conditions.