I'm new to the site (and atheism) but I came in hopes of finding some guidance. I'm hoping I am posting this in the right place but I'm not sure how to handle guardian angels and god's special favor.
We had a run of terrible storms and a story was posted on Facebook about how some stranger saved this young girl during a storm. Apparently she got caught out in a tornado, with nowhere to find shelter, he helped her when it could have cost him his life. Debris flying around and they hudled in a ditch or something. Nice story (sounds alot like twister but whatever.)
Then the invocation began. She and others said he must have been her guardian angel and began saying god is looking out for her. As I said before I'm new to atheism but it's something that bothers me the most. The easiness in which they forget the carnage. She could have easily been one of the numbers killed or wounded. "She was in gods favor & shes so special God sent a guardian angel." Bullshit. That guy saved your life and she doesn't even recognize it. It also seems to correlate with the devil being at work in the way the supernatural is active on earth. Which I have also been accused of doing the devils work. How can I better demonstrate that point. Ideas?
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Hi, and welcome.
It's a good question.
This is a part of the conflicting viewpoints between atheist and theists where I still haven't figured out my standpoint. It can get my blood boiling without myself fully understanding why, and I'm not sure how to react.
Partially, I think it angers me because they don't give credit where credit is due. If something good happened, it was their god (or angels or magic fairys), but if something bad happened, the victims brought it on themselves or it was "the devil".
If, for example, someone's life is saved at a hospital, thank the medical staff not a personal imaginary entity! Be grateful that science and medical research has reached a point where it could be done! But no, their imaginary friend did it...
At the same time it's also saddening to see grown people live in their fantasy worlds. They think they share that worldview with a collective of others. However, if they were to discuss the details of how and why their god intervened, they probably wouldn't agree with eachother.
Another large part of why it angers me, is the hypothetical question "what about everyone else?", that they don't seem to ask themselves at all. Why on Earth did their god intervene and save that specific person, but let an arbitrary number of others die/suffer?
I debated a person who knew his god existed because he had seen his god work a miracle. Someone close to him was dying at a hospital but made "a miraculous recovery, and the doctors were amazed and baffled". I asked him why his god didn't save all the children that was dying at the hospital at the same time, since "he" was already there performing miracles. Not surprising, he neglected to answer.
I just want to shake these people and yell "It's time to grow up now!"