There’s a story in the news today about some folks who collected some rocks off a beach. Turns out there’s something about the rocks that caused them to literally burst out in flames. The wife and husband were badly burned. So that’s the story. They seem like good people, and it’s really nasty that this happened to them. But here’s the kicker. In the news story they were quoted as saying “We’re grateful that things weren’t worse and God just continues to provide for us in this situation”.
Whenever I hear something like I think to myself, come on, if there was a god why did she let that happen to you in the first place?! I just don’t get that mentality. Is it pure defense mechanism or something?
Dunno, but I’d agree with you: chalk it up to a kind of defense mechanism. Presumably these people feel that God is good, and yet something egregiously bad has happened to them out of the blue. That causes cognitive dissonance. One way to block the dissonance is to think of yourself as somehow in fact lucky. That allows you to preserve the fiction of a morally perfect deity in the face of egregious pain and suffering.
Of course, it only works to the extent you don’t think about it too hard. It’s that way with all self-delusions.
I love the way they never blame god for the rock blowing up in their face in the first place. Its even worse when there is some disaster like a plane crash and the lone survivor thanks god for saving them. What about the 200 people who didnt make it? Should they thank god too?
You people can joke all you want, but what’s really upsetting to me is that they also live in Southern California. It was a beach in SoCal about 80 miles south of me. Hey, maybe they were out-of-staters vacationing here. Yeah, that’s it, so I don’t have to take reesponsibility for them.
As an ex-believer, their “logic” is real familiar to me. I was raised to believe that all good things come from God, and to praise him whenever he does something good for you or allows something good to happen to you. Since God embodies goodness though, all bad things must come from elsewhere (basically one’s own failings or, in extreme cases, Satan or his demons). By this reasoning, while God never actually causes bad things to happen, he allows certain bad things to happen to you and others from time to time, for reasons that only he understands, as part of his “divine plan”. This whole arrangement creates the kind of double standards you see from the folks in the article, where God gets all of the credit (in this case or being merciful and not killing them or injuring them even worse) and none of the blame (for them getting burnt in the first place).
And yeah, I think you’re right, it’s a sort of defense mechanism. In this case, they’re protecting their faith in a just god from what might otherwise be a faith-shaking experience. There’s a lot of research on this type of cognitive bias in the just-world hypothesis literature that explains how some of this works.
White phosphorus, one of the allotropes of the element, is a white or light yellow solid with a waxlike appearance. It’s moderately stable at low temperatures, but will spontaneously catch fire at about 80 degrees F. The woman’s pocket was probably just below average body temperature of 98.6 degrees.
There’s a large military training area just east of the beach they were visiting, and one of the weapons the Marines fire is thermite bombs which, I believe, uses a starter of white phosphorus. Since the bombs are shot from helicopters, possibly some were fired over the ocean in years past. The metal would have corroded so the white phosphorus could be freed. Another possibility is that it was released from unexploded anti-personnel bombs loaded with white phosphorus that when exploded sprays it onto the enemy soldiers causing severe burns. Nah, we wouldn’t use anything like that, would we?
Shortly after reading about this incident something struck me about the “spontaneous” combustion in the women’s pocket and I thought of white phosphorus material, possibly from a weapon. I know about this from Dad who not only witnessed its effects but how it kills. One of his best friends was struck by a fragment that burned through him and he literally died in Dad’s lap. Once this stuff is exposed to air it becomes white hot; no pun intended. I hope she survives.
As an ex-believer, their “logic” is real familiar to me. I was raised to believe that all good things come from God, and to praise him whenever he does something good for you or allows something good to happen to you. Since God embodies goodness though, all bad things must come from elsewhere (basically one’s own failings or, in extreme cases, Satan or his demons). By this reasoning, while God never actually causes bad things to happen, he allows certain bad things to happen to you and others from time to time, for reasons that only he understands, as part of his “divine plan”. This whole arrangement creates the kind of double standards you see from the folks in the article, where God gets all of the credit (in this case or being merciful and not killing them or injuring them even worse) and none of the blame (for them getting burnt in the first place).
And yeah, I think you’re right, it’s a sort of defense mechanism. In this case, they’re protecting their faith in a just god from what might otherwise be a faith-shaking experience. There’s a lot of research on this type of cognitive bias in the just-world hypothesis literature that explains how some of this works.
Been there, done that, got all the T-shirts.
To add yet another layer of complexity: what happens when things occur which might be good or bad, but at the moment are unknown? I used to hear people grapple with this all the time. My car broke down on the way to church. It was probably Satan trying to steal my blessing! But wait—it could be a test from God, to see how determined I am to get to church! Or—yikes!—- what if it’s God trying to keep my away from this church because the preacher is teaching lies! No wonder churches are full of neurotic people.
To add yet another layer of complexity: what happens when things occur which might be good or bad, but at the moment are unknown? I used to hear people grapple with this all the time. My car broke down on the way to church. It was probably Satan trying to steal my blessing! But wait—it could be a test from God, to see how determined I am to get to church! Or—yikes!—- what if it’s God trying to keep my away from this church because the preacher is teaching lies! No wonder churches are full of neurotic people.
Awesome…
Neurotics, you say? You shoulda seen me 15 years ago! (Or the rest of my family right now, for that matter.)
My upbringing was heavy on guilt & shame, so there usually wasn’t much ambiguity when something went wrong; it was always your fault somehow…
