Ten Evangelical Pastors and Their Spouses Die in Plane Crash

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Easy enough to justify. Blame someone.
Liberals, gays, Hillary, Obama have made the skies unsafe for the Faithful.

Or celebrate it.
Trump is in power, Trump and Russia are settling the cold war, the work of these evangelicals is complete. God called them home.

OR someone will claim that they "like to think that as the plane went down, these couples all offered one last chance to be saved. That's why God put them on that flight, and why they died willingly...."

 

[J842P]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

The most pernicious part of these religions is that their adherents are convinced that they have immortal souls -- this life is just a brief test before your immortal soul will live forever in either eternal punishment or eternal happiness.

 

[Ford]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

Something, something "the Lord called them home." It wasn't just that their god allowed this to happen. No, he did it deliberately and that's okay because he must have had good reasons for all those people to die screaming. If the adherent questions the outcome, then the adherent must be wrong because the god is infallible. I mean, these are people for whom god decides the outcome of everything...from whether your plane slams into a mountain or your kid's Pop Warner football team wins the game.

Your friend Bob gets cancer? Pray for him to recover. If he does, then god answered your prayers. If he doesn't, then god "had other plans for Bob."

 

[Lion IRC]

Folks aren't evangelical in order to avoid plane crashes.
You see any cowards here...?

 

[steve_bank]

God's wrath. They must be gay. Christians have an infinite capacity to spin reality.

 

[bilby]

Folks aren't evangelical in order to avoid plane crashes.
You see any cowards here...?

View attachment 16618

Yes. All bar one of the characters in the foreground are cowering.

And it's a picture depicting a work of fiction, so it's not exactly compelling. Early Christian propaganda like this is best taken with a VERY large grain of salt. Particularly as it was inflated contrary to historical evidence in the 1890s, and then again in the 1950s.

Christians were not particularly singled out for persecution in pre-Christian Rome. And they certainly were not slaughtered in groups as public entertainment as depicted in your image above; That idea is only about 130 years old, and comes from the fevered imaginations of the Victorian Imperialists of the British Empire, whose objective was to justify their colonial excesses by the employment of a tu quoque fallacy.

The problem (or benefit, if you are the beneficiary) with propaganda is that useful idiots keep regurgitating it as though it were history, because wanting something to be true disinclines people to fact-checking.

https://theconversation.com/amp/mythbusting-ancient-rome-throwing-christians-to-the-lions-67365

 

[bilby]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

To the evangelical mind, it is exactly like they died in battle. Life is a constant battle against satanic forces that can manifest in almost any form - particularly as people who disagree with you; But also as worn aircraft parts, bad weather, or poorly trained Mexican pilots.

Religion can explain anything. That's why it's valueless as an explanation.

If the plane crashes and everyone dies, it was God's will. If anyone survives, it was God's will. If it doesn't crash, it was God's will. There's not much there to form a useful NTSB recommendation to avoid future crashes, is there?

 

[braces_for_impact]

This must be why evangelicals seem to always want their own planes. That way god can't take them all out in one fell swoop.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

110 died on impact ... 2 died later ... 1 survived ... wait, 1 survived?!?! It's a miracle!!!

 

[atrib]

Folks aren't evangelical in order to avoid plane crashes.
You see any cowards here...?

View attachment 16618

It is a picture that tells us a lot about Christians. They spend most of their lives on their knees, prostrating themselves before an imaginary god that nobody has seen, terrified that this creature will condemn them to an eternity of being roasted over a fire in a special playroom god has built for his human slaves deep, deep underground. They are so scared that they describe this sadistic god's behavior as love. Thank you for admitting that.

 

[phands]

Once again, Occam's razor suggests that there is no god, and these deaths were just random happenstance. While I'm sad that that there were deaths, the absence of some evangelism only improves the planet.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Folks aren't evangelical in order to avoid plane crashes.
You see any cowards here...?

View attachment 16618

Apparently they all ended up dead too. You may as well put up a picture of people jumping off a bridge, or maybe photos from Jonestown.

Is there a point?

I mean if the spaceman doesn't do anything, ever, except in fictional stories, shouldn't rational, intelligent people get the message that the spaceman is just pretend? It's like the Jesus fable where he made the storm go away because otherwise his apostles would have drowned. But the story comes to us that they did indeed drown and Jesus didn't save them because he drowned too. That's my point.

Could you explain yourself a bit more?

Were these pastors fated to be killed just like Jesus? Is that what you are saying?

 

[phands]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

If it was god's will to kill some of his most obnoxious adherents, then god is a sick, evil PoS. Thankfully gods don't exist. You could think of it as evolution chlorinating the gene-poll, but that's equally dumb...it was a random accident.

 

[Jobar]

If something like this happens, how does one rationally reconcile any advantage to being evangelically religious? Why did a god swat them out of the sky?

Cuba Plane Crash

I know that people die all the time, but I would think that their god would not allow this to happen. If I was of this religion I would immediately renounce, based on good evidence that I was doing the wrong thing.

It's not like they died in battle or were captured and murdered as soldiers.

Any further thoughts?

Most of the victims were Cuban, including 10 evangelical pastors and their spouses. Of the 113 people on board, 110 died on impact. Of the three initial survivors, two later died in hospital.

110 died on impact ... 2 died later ... 1 survived ... wait, 1 survived?!?! It's a miracle!!!

Dammit, you stole my line!

 

[Shake]

Folks aren't evangelical in order to avoid plane crashes.
You see any cowards here...?

View attachment 16618

I'm suddenly acutely aware that this is a painting, based off of stories. It certainly isn't a photograph, for obvious reasons. Even if it is based on eyewitness accounts we can't know its accuracy, so to portray it as some sort of proof is quite unfounded.

 

[ruby sparks]

Maybe they were really good christians and god may have loved them so much that he wanted to reward them and also to take them to his heavenly bosom sooner rather than later. This can't be ruled out.

 

[ruby sparks]

Folks aren't evangelical in order to avoid plane crashes.
You see any cowards here...?

View attachment 16618

I'm suddenly acutely aware that this is a painting, based off of stories. It certainly isn't a photograph, for obvious reasons. Even if it is based on eyewitness accounts we can't know its accuracy, so to portray it as some sort of proof is quite unfounded.

Agreed. Plus, what has a painting, showing people queuing (or not queuing I suppose) to give a beardy guy in a hotel bath towel a public blow job, got to do with the OP?

 

[lpetrich]

Which reminds me of:

Fronto at Early Christian Writings. After noting that some people believed taht the early Xians worshipped a donkey's head, he continued with "Some say that they worship the virilia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent."