I have been neglecting the blog recently, for which - to my loyal reader - I am sorry. Mainly due to getting very enthused over Cheltenham Races next week. More of that later on. But down to more mundane stuff. On Thursday there were two stories on Yahoo news with the word "miracle" in the headline - on a guy who had survived two days on his upturned boat and a Turk whose "miracle" has to be seen (below in the link).
The survival of Nick Schuyler, who endured almost two days at sea after a boating accident that probably cost two National Football League players and another person their lives, was nothing short of a miracle, his doctor said.
“To stay in the water for 46 hours and be alive afterwards is a miracle,” Dr. Mark Rumbak, who is treating Schuyler at Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Florida, said at a televised news conference.
Then there was this:
The tiny Turkish man shown in the videos escaped with only scratches and bruises... another miracle!
In my time I have covered several "miracles." Just getting out the paper most nights almost fell into that bracket.
But I especially remember the Quecreek Mine Miracle. Nine coal miners were trapped by rising water deep under Western Pennsylvania during the summer of 2002. They were down in a hole for 77 hours and dozens of very determined, smart and dedicated people managed to get them all out alive. It was a marvel of hope and engineering. But who got the credit? God, of course. It was, as practically everyone cried, "A miracle!"
It is very rare that mining accidents turn out well. The next one in Pennsylvania ended as usual, with all the poor buggers dead. Pennsylvania mine safety officials say that 20,000 bituminous coal miners have died in accidents since the commonwealth began keeping records in 1877. Did we hear, "All dead! It´s a miracle!"
We did not.
If there is a god who gives a damn - which I personally doubt - when he´s not getting away with miracles, he´s getting away with murder.
TODAY´S THOUGHT
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
-- David Hume
And if I come away from Cheltenham Races showing a profit, it will be a miracle.
2 comments:
I think you´re being pedantic and semantic. "Miracle" don´t always mean God is involved, or the speaker is making a religious statement. It just means somebody came out on top of some tremendously bad odds.
Lay off God, fer Chrissakes.
I think that God can take it. She has broad shoulders.
That was some train/lorry crash.
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