As an atheist who survived being hit by a plane I say bring it on biyotch

Believing in the supernatural makes the supernatural real?

So can I believe I have a steak sandwich to eat and that will be real? Or do I need to believe in the supernatural FIRST, and then believe I have a steak sandwich?

I'm so confused. This is why I don't go to church and just buy the stuff to make a steak sandwich instead.

Roook: Believing in the supernatural makes the supernatural real?

So can I believe I have a steak sandwich to eat and that will be real? Or do I need to believe in the supernatural FIRST, and then believe I have a steak sandwich?

I'm so confused. This is why I don't go to church and just buy the stuff to make a steak sandwich instead.

King Something: CNN reporting that God gives followers super-powers to survive emergencies

You mean the same kinds of emergencies that your all-loving, all powerful God is either unwilling or unable to prevent?

Or he is unwilling AND unable, in which case - why does anyone call him a god?

Maybe it creates them, just to be a dick. I know I would, and they think I was created in its image.

King Something: Yeah, it's kinda like what that guy said in Brain Scratch - it wasn't God who created Man in His Image, it was Man who created God.

Dog is also 'God' spelled backwards.

Makes you think. It really really does.

King Something: Or he is unwilling AND unable, in which case - why does anyone call him a god?

I've had just about enough of your Philosophy 101 jibberish, young man. :P

El_Frijole_Blanco: As an atheist who survived being hit by a plane I say bring it on biyotch

I came off a motorcycle at 60 mph. For months everyone kept saying "God was really looking out for you!" I was all, "Maybe. Or maybe it was the $1100 in leather, body armor, and helmet I was wearing." Then I would mutter "dumbass" under my breath.

GaryPDX: AKA Adrenaline.

Yup.

Honestly if I was god I'd be farking with everyone too. I'd be bored as snot and so I'd make tsunamis and smite people and have loud parties late into the evening, sometimes as late as 11pm. No seriously I would, fark the neighbours I'm GOD!!

I'd give some people super powers in emergencies, but other people I'd just keep piling shiat on just to watch them fail.

I'd probably bone your wife too. Yeah I mean you. And no, not in that "immaculate conception" way, I mean I'd appear in human/penis form and really give it to her.

Yeah, if I was god, that's what I'd do.

Mmmm....steak sandwich.

SouthernManDunWrong: I was working in the oilfield in northern Wyoming in 1987. After working for about 3 days, I got a break to drive to town to reload the groceries. It was December 27th and I raced to beat the clock to the grocery store before it closed. It was 30 miles to town.

After shopping, I drove back. Sleep deprived, I started to doze at the wheel but pressed ahead back to the rig. It was after midnight on the last stretch when I hit a black angus cow. If you had drawn a target on it's side, that's where the hood ornament of the GMC Jimmy planted. I totaled the truck and hit so hard that the groceries stowed in the very back sailed over the seats and hit the windshield and exploded on impact.

The cow died instantly. I was not buckled and did not hit the windshield, the steering wheel and walked away without a scratch.

The first thing that came to my mind was asking God, "Who did you wake up to pray me out of this?". Approximately 20 minutes later, a co-worker from Michigan (I was based in Louisiana at the time) drove by. I had not seen him for over a year before this. He gave me a ride to the rig and the nearest telephone. If he had not driven up, I would have been stranded in the cold for a very long time.

While at the rig, I was talking to the directional driller. He had been with the rig for several months and told me that he was on a well that had a blowout. Bobbing in the evacuation capsule with other workers in rough seas, their probability of survival without sinking was iffy. It was there with puke swishing on the bottom of the capsule that he gave his life to Jesus. I learned this after he told me that the Holy Spirit had warned him that I would be in a wreck and that he needed to pray that I survive.

I did.

Now you can decide if this is a Ripley believe it or not, but this is what happened. If you are a scientist (I am a Petroleum Engineer by education) and wish to discuss this, I will reply to your theories.

I can only say that in the decades I have been a Christian, I have seen many things that science can not explain. I have seen elderly women with bad eyesight (cataracts) - see again (without medical assistance). I have seen a 15 year old girl that had consumed liquid drano as a 5 year old have her esophagus rebuilt (she could eat and swallow food again).

So when this woman says that people with faith have survived disasters more than atheists - and when I see skeptics here derp all over themselves attacking her, I feel compelled to give you my story.

CSB

SouthernManDunWrong: words

The plural of anecdote is not data.

SouthernManDunWrong: Now you can decide if this is a Ripley believe it or not, but this is what happened. If you are a scientist (I am a Petroleum Engineer by education) and wish to discuss this, I will reply to your theories.

Fortuitous coincidences do not mean anything. As a guy in a technical field, you typically start with the most probable explanation when you approach a problem, right? Well, that's how many of us approach matters of religion. It's far, far, far more likely that you just got lucky in the crash, and a guy you know happened to be on the road than...some dude in the sky willed you a miracle (while denying millions of others).

I once ran into a guy I hadn't seen in years, 2400 miles away from where I had seen him last. Of all the cities - of all the streets in that city - of all the hours in the day - we happened to look up and see each other in passing. That's just an unlikely but entirely plausible coincidence. And people survive hellish accidents without a scratch all the time. Again, unlikely but plausible.

God? Well, if that's what you choose to believe, have at it bro. I prefer a more realistic approach, that's all.

My story:

I was traveling with my friend Bill way, way back in the day (it was around 1986, if I recall correctly). We had just hit the liquor store for some Wild Turkey, and the video store for a couple of porno VHS vids. We were driving down the road, it was pitch farking black, and we'd already tapped the bourbon. As we headed for another friend's house to drink and watch porn (yes, there were ladies there too -- hush and let me talk), we were joking about Stevie Wonder making drunk-driving commercials. We started singing "Don't...Drive...Blind...". As we did so, my friend took his eyes off of the road to hand the bottle to me. At that moment the road took an unlit, unmarked jog to the right, and we didn't. The car went into the ditch beside the road for about twenty feet, hit the edge of the culvert, and off of a 15 foot cliff. The Beetle had just enough time to nose completely down and we hit the shallow water bumper first. Bill broke his nose on the steering wheel. I took out the windshield with my face. We regained our senses moments later as the car tipped upside down in about a foot of water which immediately filled the bottom (top, actually) of the car. We both crawled/swam out of the car through the absent windshield which my nose had been kind enough to remove. Straggling to the top of the ditch, we looked down upon the undercarriage of the car. Realizing that it would probably be a bad idea to let the cops drag the car up and find a half-empty bottle of bourbon, we realized that one of us needed to go back down and find it in the pitch black, increasingly oil and gas-filled water. Since I hadn't broken my nose as badly, I was volunteered. Down I went. I found the bottle in about five seconds, brought it out, and disposed of it suitably far away from the vehicle. I then returned to the road. We then realized that the pornos were still down there, and this was back in the day when if you lost a porno tape, they charged you about $100 bucks to replace it. So I went back into the water, back into the flipped car, in the vain hope that we could dry the tapes out and return them without getting charged $200. I flailed my arms around in vain for a couple of minutes, but couldn't find them. On impulse, I raised my hands in the air and hit the bag. During the accident the bag had caught on the dashboard and had stayed above the water, keeping the pornos safe from any harm. I again exited the car with my precious cargo held high. The cops were called, reports were taken, a wrecker towed the carnage, and we went to my friend's house to drink and watch our pristine, unharmed porno tapes.
So yeah, I guess God wanted us to survive that crash without serious injury, not get a DUI, not even get a ticket, and still be able to watch porn flicks that evening. Right?

SouthernManDunWrong: While at the rig, I was talking to the directional driller. He had been with the rig for several months and told me that he was on a well that had a blowout. Bobbing in the evacuation capsule with other workers in rough seas, their probability of survival without sinking was iffy. It was there with puke swishing on the bottom of the capsule that he gave his life to Jesus. I learned this after he told me that the Holy Spirit had warned him that I would be in a wreck and that he needed to pray that I survive.

The Holy Spirit warned your friend that you would be in a wreck and he needed to pray so you could survive? And your friend told you this AFTER hearing about the wreck.

Now there are two possibilities I can think of:

One, an all-powerful God who apparently doesn't give a shiat about cows spoke directly to a single individual and told him to pray for you to survive an accident.

Two, your friend heard about your wreck and was looking for someone to convert, and/or was looking to seem like a hero to you, and/or or was just looking for a cool story to lie about to make his life seem more exciting and magical.

Without denying the possibility of a God (I'm agnostic and feel these things are unknowable at this time,) I'm going to go with option two.

SouthernManDunWrong: /the elderly woman healed of cataracts would contradict your opinion.

[citation needed]

The NHTSA reports that God either failed or was an uncaring asshole to people in automobiles 30797 times in 2009.

Obscure Login: BinkyBoy: As someone that has looked through survivor statistics and factors that increase survivability of disaster, I'm going to say that this Wendy Walsh chick is a bimbo that blew her way to a PhD.

Before saying that, you may want to read her thesis, "Religions Fighting Religions: Why That's Not Good". It may just change your mind about the life, the universe and Wendy Walsh.

I bet if you posted a link 95% more people would actually do so.

Obscure Login: BinkyBoy: As someone that has looked through survivor statistics and factors that increase survivability of disaster, I'm going to say that this Wendy Walsh chick is a bimbo that blew her way to a PhD.

Before saying that, you may want to read her thesis, "Religions Fighting Religions: Why That's Not Good". It may just change your mind about the life, the universe and Wendy Walsh.

I bow down to your incredible trolling skills. I put on my flame retardant clothing, cracked my knuckles and prepared to blast you with repeated demands for a true citation, when I realized you were the master, and I, but the student.

All you need to do to prove the power of prayer is watch any team sport. Prayer works exactly 50% of the time.

DemonEater: /atheist
//skeptic
///can't explain it, but don't read much into it either

Confirmation bias. We tend to remember the "hits" and forget the "misses". On any given day, you might have a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Most of the time, nothing remarkable happen. It stands to reason, though, that one of those "bad feelings" will coincide with a catastrophic event, either personal or on a much larger scale.

The reality of superhuman survivability is more a testament to what persistent farkers we are, crafted by billions of years of evolution to be the biggest bad-asses we can be, than it is a statement about faith.

Also: I think pretty much every atheist believes in "something greater than themselves". Like gravity. Or the Earth. The Sun. And so on. These are real things, things that exist, and things that dwarf anything any of us can ever achieve. We live at the mercy of their caprice, and it's only because our universe is just capricious enough that we exist at all. Too random, too uncontrolled, and humanity would never have arisen. Too static, and the dynamic forces that allow us to live wouldn't exist either.

Tyrone Slothrop: Actually, it's been shown that prayer doesn't change anything.

IIR, the latest study indicated that it made things worse, but not to a statistically significant degree.

Barfmaker: Honestly if I was god I'd be farking with everyone too. I'd be bored as snot and so I'd make tsunamis and smite people and have loud parties late into the evening, sometimes as late as 11pm. No seriously I would, fark the neighbours I'm GOD!!

I'd give some people super powers in emergencies, but other people I'd just keep piling shiat on just to watch them fail.

I'd probably bone your wife too. Yeah I mean you. And no, not in that "immaculate conception" way, I mean I'd appear in human/penis form and really give it to her.

Yeah, if I was god, that's what I'd do.

In fact, it's pretty much this argument that I use to explain why I am a militant apatheist (which is to say, if there is a God, he plain doesn't give a shiat about us and considers us as insignificant as, say, humans consider soil bacteria):

If there was a God, we wouldn't be around. Aforementioned deity would have wiped us out for any number of reasons:

a) Humans tearing up too much of the planet, including all the OTHER lifeforms that aforementioned deity might well be trying to culture (see: pretty much anyone who's dealt with weeds or ant infestations)
b) For the lulz (see: pretty much ANYONE playing SimCity)
c) For the lulz and because said deity is a dick (see: anyone who's ever created an "Amontillado Room" in The Sims and allowed the Sims to starve to death whilst wallowing in their own waste)

And no, I don't buy the "loving God" scenario, either; too much destruction, and even the most loving parent tends to give up on their destructive kids. Hell, I like bunnies, I think bunnies are adorable, I am still amused at how one neighbour got pissed off because OH NO WE HAVE BUNNIES IN OUR YARD, but I don't want the bunnies in my garden eating my tomato plants (hence chicken wire is used to make the garden bunny-resistant).

Thrashersk: Short answer? Yes.

More exactly, belief in the supernatural doesn't make the supernatural itself real, it makes belief in the supernatural real.

The map is not the territory.