This kind of story is now so common that it hardly merits mention. Still, it’s one of the best ways to drive home the insanity of faith.
As Right Wing Watch reports, Pastor Kevin Swanson, director of the “Generation with Vision Ministry” (a pro-homeschooling group), has sussed out the reason for the recent disastrous flooding in Colorado. The proximal cause, of course, is the physical configuration of the Earth’s atmosphere, but the ultimate cause was God’s abhorrence of dope, gays, and abortion. Here’s Swanson talking with a fellow loon, Generations Radio co-host Dave Buehner (you can hear the original at the first link above):
Swanson: Let me ask you this: is it a coincidence that this was the worst year politically in the history of Colorado, at least if you use God’s law as a means of determining human ethics, our legislators did the worst possible things this year than I have ever witnessed in the twenty years I’ve been in Colorado. Our legislators committed homosexual acts on the front page of the Denver Post, do you remember that? [JAC: Really, they did that on pieces of newspaper? Couldn’t they have used a bed?] So here we have the very worst year in Colorado’s year in terms of let’s kill as many babies as possible, let’s make sure we encourage as much decadent homosexual activity as possible, let’s break God’s law with impudence at every single level, at every single level let’s make sure that we offend whoever wrote the Bible, so we have the worst year possible politically in the state of Colorado and it happens to be the worst year ever in terms of flood and fire damage in Colorado’s history. That is a weird coincidence; interesting to say the least.
Buehner: It is. Allow me a little freedom here with 1 Peter. In Colorado this last year we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties—
Swanson: Marijuana.
Buehner: And abominable idolatries and they think it’s strange down at that Gold Dome that we are not running with them in the same flood of dissipation. Sometimes when you’re in a flood of dissipation, God might bring a real flood to show you the consequences of the flood of your dissipation.
Sometimes I wonder if people like Swanson and Buehner really believe what they say. For surely they realize that there are many disasters that don’t follow on the heels of sodomy and weed, and that many innocent people have to die when God visits his wrath on a sinful land. Is that a benevolent God? And can they always find a reason why God does this kind of stuff?
Maybe the latter is the case, for here’s an earlier audio clip of Swanson blaming Hurricane Sandy on gay. He seems to be the Christian expert at identifying the sins that bring disasters.
I should add that this is a testable hypothesis: weather patterns should track legislation involving Christian “morality” (i.e., things dealing with sex, drugs, and abortion). Clearly, Scandinavia should be the most disaster-afflicted region on the planet.
h/t: Lori and Cameron, who, after sending me this link, added this bit with a picture of their cat:
(After this news, Peanut has gone back to bed…)
He left out Obamacare.
And evolution.
And Heavy Metal.
God is so passive-aggressive. Couldn’t he just wipe out gays, potheads and those who have had abortion in one motion? Didn’t heaven computerize at some point?
They say g
oops
They say god has terrible aim.
And, suspiciously, pedophiles.
Oh no, wait, sorry, those were catholic priests …
Not a problem; fundagelicals don’t think that catholics are christians at all.
Indeed, these silly cum hoc fallacies are becoming so commonplace that my first thought was, “huh, the feminists & socialists got off scott free this time”.
Now, don’t give ‘m any ideas!
I wonder if their wrongness even rises to the level of a cum hoc fallacy. In an abstract sense he is committing that fallacy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if disaster rates have remained steady over the last, well, pick a good, long time-span. If there really isn’t a recent increase in the rate, then there is nothing for the alleged sins to be happening “with”.
In which case, he’s got a problem with selection bias as well.
Yeah, I thought that too. If we accept his perception that more gays, pot users, etc correlate with more disasters we can then say it is a cum hoc fallacy, but I suspect his perception is also wrong so there is confirmation bias in there too. I wonder what you call a double whammy fallacy?
I wonder what you call a double whammy fallacy?
Evangelical theology? (Just a guess…)
I wonder what you call a double whammy fallacy?
Gary Goodyear
//
“…whoever wrote the Bible…”? This guy’s a back-sliding, mealy-mouthed liberal.
Whenever some natural disaster happens, you can set your watch …
Ooooo! He used “macro”! Must be a smart guy! Quick, send him some money, Maude!
Politicians everywhere in the world will say whatever they think will get them elected. What comes out of their mouths reflects what they think their electorate will want to hear. The ones that come out with extra-crazy stuff seem to have nothing but contempt for the voters around them.
Not always, I really think some of them actually believe this stuff.
+1
Many people really believe this, in many countries. In imperial China, it was believed that natural disasters were a sign that the current emperor had his “mandate from heaven” removed, and therefore shall be ousted(usually with violence).
Yesterday evening, I was in a baptist Church here in France, and the pastor said that fathers shall beat their children, as well as love them – because God of the Bible behaves so : he punishes the ones he loves to strengthen the love. But he is always just.
For whoever believes in the Bible(I didn’t say God, I specifically target the Bible now), as Everything comes from God, and God is just, wether he’s love or punishment, the punishment has to be fair. Therefore, they’re trying to make sense of what has not(besides meteorolgy, those disasters don’t have a lot of signification). Conclusion is perfectly logic. Once you accept the Bible as your only guide to life(and sometimes pastors can be VERY convincing), the rest flows naturally.
OK, then, Swanson, ‘splain to me why the cathedral collapsed on the Archbishop of Haiti during their earthquake.
I imagine they were the wrong type of Christians (Catholic).
Quantum denium mechanics of scripture resulted in Dome crushing dome, obviously. Give him a tough one next time.
To fundamentalists Catholics are hardly better than atheists.
“… and it happens to be the worst year ever in terms of flood and fire damage in Colorado’s history.”
Nope, there have been FAR more drastic events in Colorado’s history .. all happening without homosexual acts on newspapers, smoking pot, and excessive alcohol consumption to upset whoever wrote the Bible!
See:
http://ituna.org/colorado.jpg
We’re doing fine out here in Seattle. We have gay marriage, legal marijuana, and lots of Planned Parenthood. Hell, we ever have a volcano right next door that’s just *begging* to be used for some old fashioned fire and brimstone smiting!
Yeah, but if Mt. Rainier erupts it will be Tacoma that gets smitten, and mostly by snow-melt mudslides rather than by fire and brimstone.
Their irrational god certainly has not only utterly inconsistent and illogical standards, he doesn’t have very good aim. For someone whose eye is supposedly on the sparrow (because, after all, sparrows are f*ckers!), you think he’d be able to just give a heart attack or stroke or very unique disease to those exact individuals at whom he is angry. Now THAT would send a message!
Facepalm…
For that matter, there are whole countries where Christians are not the majority*. One would think God would be a bit more concerned about the secularization of Europe or the fact India and China contain billions of people who are mostly ignoring Him than that a state where people still give folks like Buehner radio gigs (which implies an audience).
* I mean, actually not the majority, not the sort of double-bookkeeping you see in America where any decision that goes their way is ‘majority rules!’/’Christian nation’ and ones that don’t are ‘stop persecuting us’, and the number of people who ID as Christian doesn’t actually matter.
If you ask me Swanson is all wet.
you are correct…And its not from baptism either………………….
If it was one of those full immersion
baptisms, maybe he got water on the brain?
LOL……..
This is why our Atheist community needs to stay on the heals of these government officials. There are many of them. And they wil. Turn this country into a religious country if they get their way.
I know what you mean, but in reality, I think the more common bigotry and idiocy is, the more it merits mention.
Poor Peanut. Depressed by the foolishness of the human species.
So even if you abstain from gay sex, drugs, and abortion you might still end up killed or injured by bad weather?
Not much of a selling point is it?
ha!
No, no, no. The real cause of the flooding in Colorado is that San Antonio, Texas just passed laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. So when the punishment came down it was deflected by the Gay Shield. However, this time it landed in Colorado rather than Kansas.
I’m loving “The Gay Shield”; im visualizing a whole new DC Comics franchise!
For all that, it is somewhat unusual for these punishments to get to Colorado. Even though this weather event is called the Boulder floods, much of the damage occurred in one of our Republican representatives district. He’s now bending over for his colleagues that he voted against for Sandy relief.
That being said, most of these deflections end up in Kansas.
(With apologies for the length of this post)
If you go to Swanson’s website, it is easy to e-mail him. I just sent the following (I doubt it will do any good, but I just had to, and it’s something I’ve been meaning to write for a while anyway).
*
Mr. Swanson:
I just read, at http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/pastor-blames-colorado-flooding-on-gays-dope-and-abortion/ your comments linking the flooding in Colorado to certain activities that you consider to be sins, and which, you have decided, your particular god was punishing.
If you read Dr. Coyne’s post, as well as the comments, you will see certain weaknesses in your analysis. For example, rates of abortion and homosexuality are higher in other areas of the world where there were no floods.
I was an evangelical christian for many years, 15 of which I spent as a foreign missionary; my wife and I homeschooled our children. I am now an atheist. The direct cause of this deconversion was the complete and abject failure of god to act in any manner concerning my life and his supposed work in the world. However, since leaving the christian religion, I have come to understand the immense evil it produces in the world, with its scapegoating of minorities (Jews and blacks in the past, homosexuals and atheists nowadays), its unhealthy obsession with what one commentator has referred to as “in-your-underwear politics”, its impenetrable and wilful ignorance, and its leaders’ willingness to use all of the above to obtain political and cultural power for themselves.
To blame the floods on homosexual activity or on abortion is to commit a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy; so much happens in the world that it is always not only possible, but easy, to invent an imaginary cause and effect relation between any two events whatsoever. Since the reasoning given is clearly not valid, it becomes necessary to look behind the words, at the possible motives of those proffering such shabby logic and indefensible theology.
Perhaps this is you, perhaps not—but it is most certainly the thinking of any number of public religious figures who make judgments like the one you have. Let’s look at the evils I mentioned above:
1) Scapegoating of minorities. I’m sure you know 1 Peter 4.17, so I will not quote it to you, but don’t you think it might be time for some public christian figures to start talking about the necessity of the church cleaning up its act (right now, the evangelical church in America is little more than the religious wing of the neo-conservative political movement), and to stop complaining so much about other people exercising some freedom? When I look at the leadership in the christian subculture nowadays, I am very happy for them that no such god as the one in the bible exists—can you imagine what would happen if the Jesus of new testament, yes, the one who chased the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip, actually did return to earth and saw what they did and taught in his name? It would not be pretty.
2) In-your-underwear politics. You might want to reread the gospels three times. The first time through, count the number of times that Jesus mentions homosexuality. The second time, count his mentions of abortion, and the third time his mentions of the dangers of money and riches. Since you claim to follow Jesus, you might then want to align your preaching a bit more with what were apparently his priorities. See http://www.jimrigby.org/ten-things-i-wish-the-church-knew-about-homosexuality/ for some useful ideas. By the way, I know what you’re thinking—this guy is trying to cover up his gay lifestyle—but in actuality I’m happily straight, and faithfully married to the same woman for going on 37 years.
3) Wilful ignorance. The bible is a collection of myths, traditional histories, and musings of a pre-scientific group of people, and in that is similar to other ancient books such as a good collection of the Greek myths. However, for the last 400 years a different method of obtaining knowledge about the world, science, has established that it is a far more reliable method. Yet, christian preachers continue to propagate known errors, even while hypocritically availing themselves of the fruits of science, such as medicine and technology. As Robert Silverberg once wrote, “Ignorance can’t be pardoned, only cured.” A good place to start is the eponymous book of the web site referred to above, “Why Evolution is True” by Dr. Jerry Coyne.
4) The will to power. This is a moral decision that every public figure has to make. Find and follow what is true? Or use whatever works, including lying, grandstanding, pandering, and hypocrisy in order to obtain power and a comfortable lifestyle? I have concerns that a large number of public christian figures are more than willing to sell themselves out, not only with respect to a healthy and decent secular standard of morality, but even with respect to any moral system that could plausibly claim to be based on the teachings of Jesus. I’m sorely tempted here to cite “Physician, heal thyself,” but instead will limit myself to a question: What do you think would become of an evangelical preacher who stood up and blamed the flooding in Colorado on the steadily increasing income inequality in America?
I recommend Luke 14.33 for your meditation.
Regards,
Mark Joseph
Nice! Well written!
+1
Great post.
Well said, Mark, and don’t apologise about the length: though I disagree with you about Jesus’ moral rectitude. If you’re an eschatologist, can any of your ethical prescriptions be taken seriously?
DP sorry.
I suck at wordpress today, sorry.
Aren’t we all to a certain extent?
Thanks to Diana, Jesper and musical beef (is there a story behind the unusual moniker?) for the support.
@Dermot C:
If you’re an eschatologist, can any of your ethical prescriptions be taken seriously?
Of course not. In fact, I not only agree with you, but even more so, think that much of Jesus’ supposed moral teaching is abhorrent (“hate your family and follow me” being the source of all cult activity ever since) and, a fortiori, tend to agree with the analyses of Ben Goren and others who point out that the evidence that Jesus even existed is not at all compelling, or even convincing (though I still allow the outside possibility that Jesus, perhaps like King Arthur, was a just-barely historical figure around whom a huge mass of legendary material accreted).
I wrote as I did because I was sending this to Mr. Swanson, and hence attempting to speak to him from within his point of view; obviously if I had approached it from a secular/atheist point of view there would be no chance of him reading it or, if he did, of understanding it.
Eschatology appears to me to be a
form of paranoid theological scat
singing about the allegedly ominous
future.
Historically, eschatological thinking emerged in the Maccabean era as a non-official form of Judaism, in dissent at the foreign domination of Israel and their quisling substitutes. Mass Judaistic martyrdom first appears in this period. God’s kingdom would come soon to vanquish these demons of the age. Essenes, early Pharisees and early Christians all had expectations of a Messiah to lead the way. It was informed by some degree of dissent against the corruption of their rulers, and represented the vengeful wishes of the disenfranchised for their emancipation.
Fair enough; good for you. No sarkyness intended at all.
Cheers.
Ha. Yes. As I searched for interesting music blogs, I became increasingly dissapointed by the content on offer. Music qua music was rarely discussed, in favor of all sorts of other topics: cultural, philosophical, historical, etc. Which is all fine and dandy, except that much of the time, the author(s) were under the impression that they in fact were discussing the music. An example: Alex Ross (New Yorker music critic) purported to analyze Wagner’s music by describing Norse mythology and the philosophy of Nietzsche.
I found myself asking, like the old ladies in the Wendy’s commercials from decades back: “Where’s the beef”?
So I started a blog called “musical beef”.
Very nice. I had actually been wondering if the phrase “where’s the beef?” had had anything to do with it.
Great stuff.
I wish I felt like this letter had a decent chance of getting through to him.
Perhaps they’ve got it all wrong, and their god is sitting … wherever he sits … saying to himself “don’t they get it? I’m sending all these things because I hate the religious right and I just want them to shut the hell up!”
That’s what I wanted to say. I just used way too many words.
As Diana pointed out in a comment to #2 above, you have both post hoc (or cum hoc) and confirmation bias fallacies here. It is easy to do, hence the watch-setting comment by quine001 at #5 above.
My own opinion is that confirmation bias, taken past the understandable (if not forgivable) point to which we are all subject, becomes ethically questionable. That is, it turns into self-satisfied smugness, which is pretty much the moral outlook of huge numbers of evangelical christians (and I know a lot of them).
Aren’t we all to a certain extent?
Why the hell should I care about offending the people who wrote the bible? What a bizarre statement.
It’s because he cares more about
the invisible pink unicornhis particular interpretation of the western sky-god motif than he does about the poverty-stricken child down the street, or, for that matter, the guy who just lost his home in the flood.Matthew 19:12. Jesus says:
And Origen, one of the Church Fathers, did. At the tender age of 18; now that’s faith. According to Eusebius; the sac of Rome. This absolutely undermines the contemporary Jewish worship of the extended family structure – inheritance, respect for ancestors, retention of the land in one’s family, in a literal cutting-off of one’s descendants. Think not of the morrow. A charismatic confirmation of the irrelevance of planning for the long-term future.
There is the further well-known recommendation by Jesus to leave one’s family behind, now, because time is short.
says Jesus. Mark 9:1.
I think there’s a bit of a time difference between our eschatology, Jesper, and that of Jesus!
Cheers.
Ours is the heat death of the universe; his was flat out wrong (Matthew 16.28). You’d think omniscience could have done a bit better than that…
Aye, I always find it funny when the doomsday fixated homo sapiens speak of our imminent demise. It’s a persistant and odd obsession that extends through history and across religions.
Today it sells newspapers and Hollywood loves a good end-of-days action flick….
“Clearly, Scandinavia should be the most disaster-afflicted region on the planet.”
Ah, but you’re forgetting that god disciplines his children. Those places have left the fold entirely and god has given them over to their sins, but since there is still hope for god’s favorite country, USA, he smites us with these disasters to try to get our attention while we still have a chance to repent.
This is not an attempt at humorous commentary, though it is humorous, but what I’ve been actually told as an explanation for this discrepancy. You just can’t make up stuff that is more stupid than what people actually embrace.
Here is something for you
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/353342/description/Tiger_lion_and_domestic_cat_genes_not_so_different
Tiger, lion and domestic cat genes not so different
Genomes of big felines provide insight into their evolution
As someone pointed out elsewhere in the virtual world, the floods actually coincide most directly with the recall of two legislators who voted for stricter gun control. The two counties hardest hit were the ones that did the recalls. So maybe the Almighty’s punishment is for refusing to put away our weapons.
God responding to violence with violence, eh? I’m guessing he now understands that violence is bad, but he’s so used to using it to solve all his problems, he just can’t control himself.
He really wants to be the god of love that liberal christians talk about, but every time people don’t do what he says, he can’t help but toss around a few floods or hurricanes.
These idiots do not know their own book:
Matthew 5:45
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
The good reverend should come to Boulder and explain to the good Christian folks why their places got wiped out while many heathens did not.
“The rain,it raineth on the just,and also on the unjust fella;but chiefly on the just,because the unjust hath the just’s umbrella!”
Regarding the rain, most urban folks [and vacationers] take the reference to rain as a bad thing while agrarian folks think of it as a good thing. Why did that SOB down at CR 46 and 25 get two inches of rain for his corn while ours is burning? 🙂
Of course it is due to Colorado’s attacks on the Second Amendment. 😉
Sorry unfamiliar computer
God will smite thee for a whole bunch of reasons including burning incense, working on Sunday (or is it Saturday), or complaining about how much smiting he does – why not for these things – he just can’t resist handing out a good dose of smiting!
The god business just seems to grow dumber every year. Is there a ‘Drops of Ignorance Elixir’ being added to the water out there, or what?
As people wise up to their tricks, or get educated, or just realize that there is no one behind the curtain, they resort to ever-shriller and sillier tactics, the better to keep the few remaining sheep smugly self-satisfied and happy (“we are the faithful remnant; the chosen few”). It’s all marketing. If you can’t sell the fake, sell the fizzle.
So very true! If it’s not religion, then it’s the self-appointed new age ‘teachers’ and ‘gurus’ telling the world to believe in their made up bunk.
Arthur Findlay was right – humanity really is afflicted with “The Curse of Ignorance” – by choice, these days.
So, Colorado kills a bunch of babies, and this understandably pisses god off. What’s his solution? Killing babies.
Given that this is the god of substitutionary atonement, who thinks the reason reaction to “Humans are commiting crimes?” is “Welp, better torture a perfectly sinless person!” this is hardly out of character.
The gay capital of the UK is generally considered to be Brighton, a town on the south coast. Brighton does not appear to be particularly susceptible to natural (God-sent) diasters. Perhaps He has just not got around to it yet.
Ah, but _New_ Brighton in New Zealand was among the suburbs worst hit by the Christchurch earthquake. Maybe G*d just types the name into Googlemaps and takes the first entry that come sup…
comes up…
(Arrgh. I wanna Edit function in WP).
He has his own map. it’s called Goddlemap.
I didn’t realize my partner and I had so much power. If it’s any consolation to the esteemed pastor, the next time we plan to travel to Colorado, we will give the Colorado Weather Bureau advanced warning.
So… register GAYS not GUNS?
Marriage registry?
So are we to attribute the lack of flooding in London these many years to our godliness or the Thames flood barrier?
The Big G smites but misses, you think? No, no, no, heathens. You read Him wrong. Your sins result in whacking of innocents, including Christian innocents, and it is simply Motivational Strategy 101.
It is. by code, beneath Big G to compel adoration by His own personal direct interaction with the heathen, which would also put the lie to the original sin/free will story He dictated to Moses re the interaction between Eve and the serpent. Ain’t gonna happen.
For this reason it is often Christians — and Christian beacon-on-the-hill nations –which are smited with natural disasters, diseases, and mass murder events, all to motivate Christians to persecute society’s sinners. You heathen types, for example.
If you non-believers would only straighten up and fly right (into church at least once a week, and exchange your liberal secular ways for True Belief while you’re at it), Pastor Swanson and host Buehnor can have programs about miracle limb regeneration, saved souls, and milk and cookies. But no! Because of y’all, and intercourse for pleasure instead of progeny and other stuff like that, Christian leaders are required to spend so much time and energy frothing up the flock. Repent. Dammit.
JC:/Sometimes I wonder if people like Swanson and Buehner really believe what they say. /
I can hardly believe it is possible. It’s at least impossible to tell the extent to which they really believe it, or to which they are trying to appeal to a certain audience for political gain. They themselves would probably not be able to tell you.
Conservatives always feel as if they’re being excluded. They’re not exactly what it is that they’re missing out on, but because they don’t get it, it’s not fair that anyone else does. If the game can’t be played their way, they’ll always take the ball and go home.