A strip from Pearls before Swine by Stephan Pastis:
Remember that 27% of Americans—and 38% of white evangelical Protestants—believe that God plays a role in determining who wins sporting events. And 50% of Americans approve when athletes publicly thank God during a sporting event (only 8% disapprove). This strip merely shows what happens when you ask these millions of people how it works.
h/t: jsp
G*d doesn’t care about football; he/she/it is a hardcore NY Rangers fan.
Nah..ceiling cat loves the Tampa Bay Lightnings!
Well, if he really is a cat, he must root for Detroit Tigers and Carolina Panthers.
Satan must be a Leafs fan.
Not the Devils?
God knows I’m confused by American Football outright. The foot plays next to no part nor is there a ball. Now Association Football, that’s proper – foot and ball.
Seems to me the running game depends rather heavily on the feet.
True, it does, and every other part of the body. If you like a running game please look into Rugby Union and Rugby League, contact games played with a squashed sphere and NO armour.
+1!
Swimmers use their feet too, if not, they do not swim fast. And last I checked commuting to work on a bike requires pretty much both legs.
I love Pearls. Some Halloween I’m going to dress up as Danny Donkey and bring a collection of all the strips in which he appears. Don’t worry, I’ll avoid Yale – I don’t want to offend any Ass-Americans.
The referenced faction of the student population at Yale is only very minimally Ass-American. Indeed, there’s only a tiny little bit of Ass in them, and only from the back end of the Ass…and that particular bit is just an hole, anyway, so it’s not like there’s any there there.
So, really, I wouldn’t worry about giving offense under such circumstances. As they say, keep firing!
b&
Pears Before Swine – one of the best in the paper.
Similar – In the news today with the Business Jet that crashed in Akron, Ohio, killing all nine on board. This airplane crashed into an apartment building but no one was home. A neighbor said one of the tenants had just gone out to the store….thank g*d. So who’s to thank for the 9 in the plane sir?
They were probably atheists Randy.
Or God is testing their families. Maybe the people in the apartment just don’t have enough faith to deal with that kind of adversity, so they were saved.
One NFL player actually did blame God for a dropped pass once:
the strip is worth reading for Rat and Danny Donkey 🙂
In a sense, yes, God takes sides. Vince Lombardi is supposed to have said “God is on the side of the team with the better players” (or something like that). So, given that athletic ability is largely genetic, the team that has the players that have alleles that enhance football ability is the side that God has chosen.
If God is for the players, Satan must be on the side of the owners.
The ultimate UT – Texas A&M football game was decided by a field goal. I was amused by the camera panning across both team benches as the kick was lined up. Both teams were on their knees praying for all they were worth.
What we learned that day is that God is a Longhorn! I knew it!
And Bevo is his prophet …
I went to UT Austin graduate school and I had to Google what Bevo was.
God, football is such a waste. Weinberg said it many times; I feel obliged to repeat the message.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbyaHmfazSA what I think when I hear football
As far as I can see they have two choices: either admit that God does not influence football games; or plead guilty to match fixing.
Maybe God deflated those Patriots footballs.
I think that the cartoon, as well as statistics provided, really brings home the weakness of the “sophisticated theologians” idea of a god as compared to what a large number of people actually believe (maybe someone should write a book about that, they could call it “Faith vs. Fact” or something along those lines). Speaking strictly from personal experience, I have to say that U.S. football fans and players tend to lean heavily toward the “Jesus will give me a win” crowd.
Personally, as a baseball aficionado, I see the same things only they’re not as religious centered as it seems to be in football. But the superstitions among the players and the fans are pretty similar (players not changing their socks, fans wearing their hats a certain way, etc.) I think sports is a great example of people turning to superstition when there are a significant number of variables controlling an outcome that is out of their control.
Now to clear up one important fact: god does have a team and that team is Notre Dame (the only reason they occasionally lose to BC is because god gets confused). See, as a kid who grew up in the catholic tradition and is now atheist, I still call ND “god’s team.” I don’t think it’s only a sports thing, but sports seem to bring out the superstitions in both players and fans.
Generally agree, but not so sure that baseball is less ‘praise god’ than football. Can’t count all the times that a player points to the sky after a hit or when crossing home plate after going yard [I have yet to see the pitcher give the finger, but that would be priceless]. Also, since baseball players can wear jewelry, there seems to be an abundance of crosses, and there are a fair number of signs of the cross by both batters and pitchers.
Given the influx of Latin American players, baseball’s religiosity isn’t going anywhere. Seemingly every red blooded American kid who makes the big leagues is some kind of outspoken Christian as well. Then there’s Curt Schilling and his creationist antics…
What I wouldn’t give:
“I have yet to see the pitcher give the finger, but that would be priceless”
I have actually seen catchers flip “that particular sign.” But catchers are a definitely a specific breed, for a pitcher to do it, it would be priceless!
Right on about catchers! And kudos to Nolan A from the Rockies – it is a pleasure to watch him play.
Nolan A is a great player. Being a Tribe fan (yes I accept everyone’s sympathy), I only got to see him when the Rockies were on national prime time. However, based on my limited knowledge, CO was smart to start him 3b rather than behind the plate. He has a great arm but I’m not sure he has the temperament to be a great catcher.
As a side note, I never thought I would I get into a baseball discussion on WEIT. I think that is pretty cool in and of itself.
I recall making a similar comment here some time ago. There’s a few baseball fans around here though. It’s been awhile since there’s been a conversation about Stephen Jay Gould’s penchant for baseball references that are often wholly lost on foreigners.
Speaking of which, and this is drifting from the topic of Arenado (who did incident help me greatly with one of my fantasy teams this year), I ran across this book review by Stephen Jay Gould when I decided to Google his writings on baseball. It’s baseball related and right in the wheelhouse for WEIT.
Excellent book review. Thanks!
There are good number of sportscasters that should read it. I almost pull my hair out when I hear commentator state something along the lines of, “You know Jones has a .360 average with runners on first and second and one out on Tuesday nights.”
Nolan just added a Silver Slugger to his Golden Glove. He and DJ LeMahieu are about the only bright spots for the Rockies.
That large % of people think that God intervenes in sports is yet another example that religion is a source of comedy gold.
But it is also a source of lots of very not funny material too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZegQYgygdw
yup
I never expected the Spanish inquisition
North America is lesser known oddly enough
For the many years before the game existed he found he was bored on Sunday afternoons. Years went by without anyone thinking anything of football. Therefore he invented football. He then realized he made a mistake as people kept getting hurt, so he decided to evolve (macro evolution, not real evolution) the sport to what it is today where it’s slightly safer (he forgot to Intelligently Design™ it from the beginning).
Then he missed the old days where he would kill and destroy his creation that he decided he no longer liked, so he decided to start taking sides in the competition between two football teams. He missed taking sides with in/out groups.
Interestingly enough, all of the winners and losers will thank him when they win (but rarely do they blame The Devil™ when they lose). He did, after all, intervene in space and time to help them win (while ignoring the innocent men, women, and children who are suffering or dying) because sports are a very high priority on his list.
He enjoyed all of this so much, that he decided to create more sports to give him something to do throughout the week!
q: “since god wanted your team to win, there really wasn’t anything that anybody else could’ve done to stop that, right?”
a: [trying to stay humble] “well, maybe if we didn’t pray hard enough. but, obviously we did — harder than the other guys.”
q: “but doesn’t god already know that — whether you prayed and how much — before the game starts? how could you have changed that?”
a: “…”
cares about sports games, but not about starving children. nice god they got, eh?
Aidan and Riley were lifelong friends and fans of the Boston Red Sox. After 86 long torturous years in New England, they thanked God for breaking the The Curse of the Bambino in 2004.
Being in their mid-thirties, the prime of their lives, they attended the World Series parade in a state of euphoria, wondering how many more Red Sox championship seasons they’d see now that the curse was lifted. “You know Aidan, my dear grandfather who passed away just last year lived 85 long years without seeing this…we’re truly blessed.”
Just as Aidan was about to reply, out of nowhere a car careened out of control, striking Aidan and killing him instantly. Riley’s euphoria turned instantly to despair. Falling to his knees, he asked God why this had to happen; was this the price of the Red Sox winning? Receiving no answer, he went home and drank himself to sleep, wondering about baseball, God, and the meaning of life.
No sooner was he asleep, Aidan came to him in a dream. “Aidan, are you okay?” Riley inquired. “Yes, yes I am” Aidan responded, “I made it to Heaven.” “That’s fantastic!” Riley replied. “I have just one question, is there baseball in Heaven?”
Aidan replied, “I have good news, yes there is baseball in Heaven. The bad news is, you’re pitching tomorrow…”
Few (if any) of my close religious friends/family think that God intervenes in the outcomes of specific games. They regard that as silly. They do, however, approve of athletes thanking God for their victories not because they think God intervened directly in the game but on the same premise that they thank God for their dinner… in some sense every thing you have is supposed to come from God, if only because he created everything to begin with.
Of course, this principle never seems to extend to tumors and other horrific occurrences.
From those players that point and look upward to the sky (rugby-player Brian Habana being a typical example) after scoring, one can deduct they assume God to be a kind of geostationary satellite (albeit not directly above the equator).
If not, if they played 6 hours later or earlier, they should have pointed and looked in a somewhat horizontal direction (east or west), or 12 hours later to their toes (which in football (soccer) actually might make some more sense anyway}.
Many of these Christians are ambiguous about matters like these. They will swear by their belief in freewill, yet does not the concept of a “God’s Will” eliminate free will? If you are just a puppet and not really making your own choices but rather “God” is sending you down different paths despite you being aware of (until after the fact, they’ll claim). This, I think, is obviously not the same type of determinism or “fate” that many of us here think is true, but rather the supernatural concept of “fate”: that there is some force at work guiding you in different directions, careers, meeting new people, etc.. Instead of a natural and blind (almost) infinite number of variables influencing and distributing pressures on each of us, or nature/nurture, etc..
These are all good points and it doesn’t even begin to take into account the futility of free will if exercising that freedom leads to eternal torture. God would like you to “freely” embrace him, under threat of unceasing pain.
…and how can a sane and rational person be meaningfully “free” to embrace the gods when the evidence for them is limited to ancient superstition and the hucksterism of conmen?
If the gods want us to be free to embrace them on their own terms, then they can bloody well show up and present the case for doing so themselves. We don’t have to embrace our political candidates on faith; why should the almighty gods need such an handicap?
b&
I equate this with a comment I fielded from an Xtian the other day who said, “More people in this world need to pray.” I asked her if this was a, “numbers-game”, where God democratically answers the prayers prayed by the most people? How many people does it take? What the percentage “tipping point” where one can be assured He will listen?
That’s a good point. It reminds me of a great George Carlin bit about the futility of prayer. It pointed out some great things that maybe most people never think of. Like for example, what’s the point of praying if God has an almighty plan. It was supposed to be a perfect plan. Is he going to change it, just for you? And if he’s going to do whatever he wants anyway, why bother praying in the first place?
Many of us are familiar with the contradictions in the Bible, but many Christians believe their god is unchanging. “God’s the same today as he was 1000 years ago”, they’ll say. This belief has some serious problems under scrutiny. If God doesn’t change his mind, prayer is useless. If he DOES change his mind, at least randomly and without good reason, not only does it make him largely untrustworthy, but also ceases to make him an all powerful all knowing God. If you already know everything and every possible outcome, you wouldn’t ever need to change your mind because you would already know the best answer and again, it eliminates a good deal of prayer.
Of course, the prayer success rate is increased dramatically when you, as Carlin did, pray to Joe Pesci!
http://comics.rudism.com/?cectic&/190 Many, Many skeptical takedowns and zingers in this series of comics, but that one is on topic.
God is oblivious to US football – he likes cricket, being an Englishman! 😉
W.G. Grace was clearly god. He had the beard and everything, and the name is an obvious clue.
Which means Don Bradman must be Jesus.
Struth. Although here he’s thought of as South African -or possibly All Black ;).
At any rate the unsophisticated theologians win here by an innings and 77 runs!
Look at the comments on the article
Oh my eyes…
To take the aggressive deist’s POV,
Of course God ALWAYS takes MY side. No matter what my position is, or who I’m against, God is ALWAYS on MY side. No “ifs,” “buts,” or “maybes.”
Every time someone brings that up, that God takes sides in sporting events, I always ask them, “Why does God hate Cleveland so much, they never win anything.”
An interesting bind I just thought of:
A “sophisticated theologian” will claim that god is not a person in the usual sense but is a ground of being, right? But the usual interpretation of that is the nonsense about sustaining everything. So that includes the footballs in use all over the universe.
(This is why the “ground of being” nonsense should have been regarded as heretical – because it makes even further nonsense of the problem of evil.)
So paradoxically, the more anthropomorphic gods of the masses are actually better off here – one can more plausibly claim that they are not doing anything with football …
It’s more amazing the lucrative contracts guys get handed out based on being “clutch” because of a playoff performance. It’s one thing for announcers to make a big deal out of random streaks, but for owners to shell out extra money due to the small sample size of the playoffs? The same principle applies as to DiMaggio’s hitting streak. The clutch performers are going to be the guys who consistently do better in the first place. Sure, you see some random hot streaks by soft hitting shortstops and it makes for great drama, but you wouldn’t construct your team out of 9 soft hitting shortstops who are “clutch” and expect to get to the playoffs in the first place.