I’m going with your last option there - God doesn’t exist, but basic scientific laws involving electrical charges do exist.

I find this one most amusing. “God isn’t pissed but enjoys fucking with people’s heads by pretending he is pissed.”

Les, I swear to God you make me laugh out loud!

I am ducking right now to avoid the lightning!

Last choice for me—the rules of physics win out.

And the God of the OT and NT isn’t the sky god with the lightning bolts—that was Zeus.  Sheesh.

...strange how no one was injured…

Not really. People get struck by lightening without injury quite regularly around the world. There’s an old guy in the Guinness Book of Records for having been struck by lightening something like 37 times in his life, mostly without injury.

The implication of your statement, of course, is that God was protecting them. You’d think that if that were the case the lightening never would’ve hit them in the first place, but only would’ve struck nearby or not at all.

I always find it amusing when lightening strikes a church and it ends up being unharmed how the congregation will credit God for protecting the church (as opposed to those little lightening rods most of them have), but if lightening strikes a church and does major damage or destroys it you never hear the congregation saying something like “I wonder what we did to piss God off??” Worse, if lightening strikes a church, does major damage and actually kills a person or two you’ll often hear the congregation say something like “It’s only by God’s protection that more people didn’t die.”

That last one always cracks me up as it implies the folks that did die were unworthy of God’s protection and may have been so bad that God was willing to destroy a church and risk other people’s lives just to take out the couple of bad apples in their midst. You’d think he’d wait till after church and just nail them in the parking lot or something…

For an attempt to take the intellectual or logical high ground, that was amazingly small minded.

Only a fool believes that God does not exist.

Who said I was trying to take the either the intellectual or logical high ground? I was just telling it like I see it.

As for being a fool, well, at least I’m in good company.

Thanks for showing up and contributing nothing to the discussion. Your simplistic and snotty comments are always appreciated.

I wasn’t talking to you les. Snotty comments?

My comments are simplistic? “As for being a fool, well, at least I’m in good company.”

You find those antics of the church going amusing? You understand nothing. They’re just people. Many of them as small minded as you are. If they are able to behave in any other fashion then that would be a miracle. But then I fault you for what I’m also guilty of. Judging the people in the pews for their own hypocrisy! HA! And yet also I know that according to their bible, God chooses the very weakest and most screwed up from among humanity to believe in him, thus being “saved”. This certainly seems to be the case since the people that fill the church are some of the most screwed up that I know. According to them, God does this to put the strong and the intelligent to shame. If you follow me… that the proud and smart cant save themselves with their strengths. Understand that their deal is that God saves you, not that you do anything to become saved except believe.

When you look at them in this context, it makes much more sense.

-T

You find those antics of the church going amusing?

Yes, actually, I do. At least I do when I don’t find them to be appalling.

Yeah, I’ve heard a similar explanation from believers as well. The whole “the meek shall inherit the Earth” deal. I don’t claim to completely understand anything, but I have a fairly good grasp of human nature.

Oh, and if you weren’t talking to me then perhaps you would do well to identify whom you’re addressing when you reply.

There is another option that is missing… God is reminding them to be careful when filming this movie because it is about God’s love for people and how they can live forever. Nothing is more important than living or dying.

I usually don’t respond to message boards, but I saw a need to do so in this case. 

Thought #1:  It is possible to get hit by lightning and live, even multiple times, BUT, how many times have you heard of such strange circumstances on a movie set?  I don’t recall it happening before, not even w/ the other Christian movies that were filmed in that part of the country.

Thought #2:  All the message boards I am stumbling on keep giving God the credit for the lightning.  What about Satan?  Are we forgetting about him?  He is powerful too, very powerful...just look at our world and you can see how powerful he is.  Why couldn’t it have been him that was trying to sabotage the movie and scare them from continuing forward? 

In summary, my guess is that it didn’t happen in the other Christian movies that were filmed in some of the same areas, probably during the same weather because Satan did not see those movies as threats to his reign....99% of them go straight to video.  But this movie is going to be powerful and is getting a ton of publicity and Mel has the Devil shaking in his boots!!

Some of these responses are way more amusing than I expected. The simple truth is these folks were standing on high spots holding metal objects that made them into the equivalent of lightening rods. It doesn’t take an act of God or Satan to explain this and the only reason it was newsworthy is because of the movie they were working on.

Hey Tom....
Just to let you know, there are some people out there that do not believe in God, for the sole reason that he was never there for them, and therefore they should not believe in him.  I personally am not like this, but I a lot of my friends are.  In fact, I am atheist, because I would rather believe in myself, rather than in some entity that I do not know that exists.  Just wondering though… do you think that people should be forced to go to church, even if they chose not to?
Les - I like your site, but do not respond very often.  I will try to more.  I agree with your feelings that the only reason of why this act, action, call it what you will, happened was because they were stupid enough to stand up on a hill with metal in their hands during a lightning storm.  Here is another thought for those of you who believe in God… maybe He cared so much for them that he was attempting to warn them to not do such a stupid thing any more.  Obviously it didn’t work - at least not yet.  You never can tell how long it will take some people.
Ian

Hey Les and Ian… God says we don’t know him because we were born evil… and perfect love cannot accept stupidevilbastards like us. I hate reality buy I cannot deny what God says.I do not know him but he says that the wisdom of man( you and I) is foolishness to him. He says most of us will spend eternity in pain and sorrow because we did not seek him out and do what he says which is to love ( his unconditional kind not our convenient kind). So believe in yourselves ... you can accomplish great things,impress many people including yourselves,make lots of money and do anything you want until you die and become eternally seperated from God who is the unfailing love that each of us desires.I believe you won’t seek him or find him for your heart is even harder that my own.Anyway I wish we could all be happy forever but were stupidevilbastards so we won’t.

Oh , and God did make the lightning hit those guys but whether it means anything or not only he knows.

Chris, god spoke to you? Did he mention the election of 2004? You need to tell him/her/it to come over here with a whole lot of explanations for the people before the people put you in one of those nifty little white jackets that tie in the back.

Chris, did God say all of that or was it some really old book someone claims God wrote? Not that I should doubt you have some secret hotline to God as it seems to be fairly common these days between the Pope and Pat Robertson, among others.

And how the hell do you have any idea of what I really want or how hard my heart is? Honestly I’d love to suddenly have good reason to believe in the idea of god(s) out there looking over us and helping with the tough aspects of life, but until I have some reason to believe in such an idea it’s not going to happen. This makes my heart hard?

I always find it amazing how the same tired arguments are parroted repeatedly by those who would claim to want to save my soul.

Covie and Les, I said I did not know him. His spirit is here and our concience bears witness for us or against us if we allow him in. God did not speak to me. He does reveal things to those who are not wise in their own eyes and I am not. I am the worst of sinners. The reason I know what you want and how hard your heart is Les is because that is what he said in the Bible...I’m not trying to save your soul and I am not saved But I wish that we all were.I have no hotline to God. God is Love and Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude , it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. God says he is meek and humble. I look at people and myself and see that we are not like this. I just wish we were. God is spirit and spirit is eternal. we are just flesh waiting to die and rot unless we Love God and each other this way. I won’t write again… I really do wish you well Les and Covie.

Well considering you’re not saying anything we’ve not heard before (read: standard ‘god-is-love’ claptrap) then that’s probably for the best. Thanks for wishing us well and have fun doing whatever it is you do when you’re not posting tired retreads of religious feel-good cliches on various websites.

I love the way that religious nuts tout humility as the ultimate virtue.

Humility, when overdone, is as bad as arrogance.  Know yourself.  That means your strengths as well as your weaknesses.  Or you can sit around gazing at your navel and agonizing over your inability to “know” anything.

It is fun to roll in your own filth while weeping about your utter uselessness to yourself and others, but at some point it’s time to get up and clean the house.

or not.

Plus the truly humble would not point out their own humility since in doing so they are looking for the reward of recognition. Actual humility is all in how you live and only slightly rarer than seeing a Leprechaun building a perpetual motion machine on the back of a three legged Unicorn.

I try to maintain at least some humility about myself, but I’ll be the first to note that there are aspects of myself I do take pride in.

TO LES: WHAT ASPECT? SORRY, WHAT ASPECTS?

Well, there’s my ruggedly handsome good looks for a start.