"Grateful for God's Protection"

by Scully 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Scully

  I just unsubscribed from a crafting newsletter that I have been receiving for a couple of years. All along, I have been willing to overlook the "uber-Christian" leanings because they offered some neat things like free fonts and cute scrapbooking ideas. But today they had a feature called "Customer Spotlight" that just irked the heck out of me:

  Customer Spotlight Name: [edit] From: Houston, TX
  
  About: My name is [edit] and I am from Houston, TX. As you see in my photo, my family came together and "rode out" the Hurricane Rita storm. Though we did not receive near the damage that Beaumont and surrounding communities did, we were hit hard with wind and rain. Logistics of outbound traffic, loss of power, closed food stores and gas stations, and loss of life occurred. We were indeed thankful that we "survived". My son and his wife, 3 grandchildren, daughter in law's parents, and daughter in law's grandparents stayed with us. We shared the experience of a lifetime. I kept a journal of those 3 days, and am writing my grandchildren each a letter, expressing my feelings about being with them during the storm. I am including funny little things that each one of them did. Of course, I am including the photo of all of us, but I am also including clips from my HugWare collection that seem to portray each child. Thank you to any of you who prayed for the Gulf Coast communities. We are grateful for God's protection.

  Maybe I just don't "get it". Why, out of the millions of people affected by the recent hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, did "God" choose to "protect" her and her family? Why did "God" choose to not "protect" other families who prayed just as much for "God's protection" through these catastrophes? Was "God" only listening to this person's prayers? Were all the prayers that were uttered in regard to those hurricanes ONLY for her protection? Didn't "God" care about Beaumont as much as he did this little "Christian" family?

  Am I the only person who finds it offensive when a tragedy strikes of this magnitude, and the survivors thank "God" for his "protection", as though they were somehow more deserving of it than people whose lives were destroyed?
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  JH

  She should have said "Grateful for luck".

  Me too I find it offensive when a Witness says that they were blessed and right next to them other witnesses aren't blessed.

  It has nothing to do with God, it's just luck.

  Personally, I think that God will bless mankind in the new system, not before.
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  nicolaou

  No Scully, you're not the only one. And isn't it weird that anyone would want to thank God after such an event? But it happens all the time, tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorist attacks - it seems the survivors cannot accept plain good luck, fortitude or resillience as a good enough reason for their 'miraculous' escape.

  Sometimes I think that people subconsciously 'thank God' because it makes them feel special. "Well he might have let those others drown but he spared me!"
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  JamesThomas

  Yes, it seems a hallmark which often comes with owning a personal god is our sense of specialness which has little to do with others. Just another way in which removing Divinity from the universe and distilling it down to a deity, severs and disunites us.

  j
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  Soledad

  I often wonder about this too. I don't understand exactly what the mindset of the person that says those things really is, but I do know that natural disasters--earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes--are really really scary. It was after a monster flood where I nearly drowned that I realized how little and vulnerable we all really are. Once it was over I thanked each and every deity I could think of----Jehovah, Budda, Krishna, Satan------you name the god, I made sure that I thanked them personally!
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  tetrapod.sapien

  oh yes scully, i find it offensive too. people are so dumb.

  everything that happens must be for a reason. if it's bad, it's because god was making something good somewhere else. if it is good, it was god making something good right there.

  with this hypothesis, it could be my appendix actually doing all these good things.

  from now on, every time something good happens, i am going to write my local newspapers thanking my appendix for the fortunate turn of events. if people laugh at me, then perhaps they are also laughing at themselves.

  and when i get my appendix removed, i will be an atheist again... ;)

  TS
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  Scully

  And another thing.....

  In thanking "God" for "His" protection, do these people even stop to consider that 50 years ago, before weather was being predicted using Doppler technology and other storm tracking technology, "God" would have left people to fend for themselves without any advance warning?

  Why are these people neglecting to thank meteorologists who told them the storm was coming, giving them enough advance warning and appropriate information to move to safety, and the local authorities who determined that it was necessary to evacuate?

  Oh, and t.s. ~ maybe when you get your appendix removed, you can ask the surgeon to give it to you in a jar of formaldehyde so you can enshrine it appropriately.
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  Finally-Free

  I remember a JW woman who was talking about her daughter who, at a young age fell into a swimming pool. She was rescued and was fine. Years later the mother was going on, and on, and on about how "Jehovah blessed her" by saving the child. Her brother-in-law immediately began giving her shit, saying, "By saying that your daughter had Jehovah's blessing becuase she survived you're implying that all children who don't survive accidents are cursed by Jehovah." As I later learned, another woman who was present had lost a child to a tragic accident - can you imagine how she felt when she heard this first woman go on and on?

  JWs are notorious for this kind of stupidity. If things go well it's "Jehovah's blessing". If things don't go well "Jehovah is allowing you to be tested". Jehovah always seems to have a way out. He's never responsible. He is the great creator of loopholes.

  I wish I could cause so much shit (or allow so much shit to take place) and still live without consequences.

  W
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  RunningMan

  My mother told me that something bad would happen to my family because we no longer have God's protection. Unfortunately for her, we have been on a pretty strong roll of good luck for the last few years. I guess it's because Satan wants to keep us happy in our sinful condition.
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  Elsewhere

  We are grateful for God's protection.

  Too bad gawd didn't think of making the hurricane spontaneously dissipate before it hit the coast.

  Even more impressive would have been for gawd to cause the hurricane to pass overhead while on the ground everything was peaceful.

  I wonder why gawd never performs miracles like that?

  Sometimes I hear people relate a story about how their kid fell from a tree and broke his arm. The parents inevitably say: "It's a miracle he was not killed!"

  No... a "miracle" would have been for gawd to have prevented the fall to begin with. The fact that he did fall and get hurt is evidence against any miracles.