Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Thought of the day: God did it, not the doctors This is along similar lines to my previous posting about how religious "leaders" rationalize the tsunami, but more personal. A few days ago I attended a religious ceremony marking an important rite of passage for a young woman. At the banquet that followed, her father recounted a touching story of how she barely survived birth. Having been born prematurely, she was considered a desperate case by her doctors, until one of them suggested to use an experimental drug to rescue her. It worked, and eventually the infant girl became the beautiful and smart young woman I saw at the ceremony. Had her father left the story at that, it would have been very touching. But he had to go on and add that, while her survival may have had something to do with the doctors' actions, it surely was an example of a miracle! This is sad on several levels: the self-delusion of an otherwise intelligent human being who thinks that God is concerned with his family, personally; the illogical stand of attributing to God the solution but not the problem (why did the girl get sick to begin with?); and the unfairness to the doctors, the real heros of the situation, who get little or no credit for what they did. Why can't people just accept the idea that there is no Big Daddy looking after us up there, and that when we solve our own problems we ought to pat ourselves on the back? We deserve it, damn it! 3:47:41 PM    comment []