When did you become such a bitter asshole?

I know getting old is not the most fun thing in the world, but damn.

@2: I could not give two shits about the Jesus myth, but mocking people who just lost their homes to a disaster simply because of their chosen faith is a huge dick move.

Would Dan have made this post if it were a Muslim family/place of worship that was destroyed? Or would that be too insensitive?

@4: Dan's writing used to show a love of life, or at least some kind of joy.

Now he just comes off as a bitchy, joyless, and privileged crank.

That's kind of like how Jesus hates people who get amputations or have incurable conditions. He 'saves' plenty of people who come down with diseases that are often misdiagnosed or have a potential for remission, but folks unlucky enough to lose a leg will never see any divine grace restoring their ability to walk.

Hmmm...seems to me that Dan is making fun of the media.

@6: Oh, I had no idea you knew the family personally and now for a fact they thought a Jesus statue was magical. What did this family do exactly that made them dipshits, since you know them so well? I guess Dan knew them personally as well. Small world!

Or are you just claiming they are stupid dipshits because they believe things you do not?

Because if you read the actual piece, you may have seen the only people calling it a miracle were the dumbass news crew looking for views/clicks, and a bunch of nameless Facebook commenters.

But you know whatever. Isn't this "punching down" anyway since Dan is a privileged wealthy white guy with a sizeable media presence? I thought that was unacceptable.

Because if God was real nothing bad would happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime, EVER! We wouldn't live in any kind of real world at all I guess.

i miss Ansel

@10:

Believers point out these "miracles" all the time, because - what more proof of divine intervention does one need than a lone religious statue magically spared from the rampant destruction all around it?

What a tradgedy, it was on our news and my FB feed. We've had fires like that. Many people lost.
My heart goes out to those people.

Jesus, an American Jesus , just saving himself. If only they would stop pretending they are Christians. These situations are going to test trump. He wanted to oversee this great land of yours.

*tragedy

I've read Obama is going to do nothing about Standing Rock. Hopes the parties can work it out.
Wow. Right at the last stretch his legacy takes a hit. This is inexcusable Obama.

Wow, heartless fucking prick. So much hate in his veins.

@Theodore Gorath,

Did you read the linked news post? Dan's not mocking any single person, he's mocking those who think a Jesus statue means this is some sort of sign from God, after 7 people lost their lives.

All the girls love Jesus 'cuz they know he'll come again.
Jesus saves
Jesus saves
Jesus saves

And Aleppo. What's trump's or Obama's take on the massacre going on there? The worst human catastrophe since WWII.

Whhaaaattttt? Granite, or marble, or concrete, or what the fuck ever non-flammable material it's made out of DIDN'T BURN?!

This is Divine retribution. If Tennessee had gone for Clinton, this wouldn't have happened.

All the girls hate Jesus 'cuz he takes three days to rise.
Jesus saves
Jesus saves
Jesus saves

Wow only slog post on the fires is to mock the people who live there.

@12 ansel's no longer at the stranger ?!?!?!?

Actually, you know what's really funny. Having prayer meetings didn't keep a bunch of Christians from being murdered in South Carolina last year. But the church saved itself. Maybe Dan can make fun of that one, too.

@28

Yeah. I found out yesterday when someone mentioned it. Ansel tweeted that he was no longer working at the Stranger Tuesday. Just google his name and his Twitter account should come up. Like with Paul and Goldy and Dominic, there's no announcement at all from the Stranger, nothing polite or classy, maybe just thanking him for his work and wishing him well.

@30, no, I think Dominic announced his on Slog.

Never heard anything from Brendan Kiley, though.

@31

Thanks, I think you are right. I thought I had typed a maybe for Dominic. A number of current Stranger reporters tweeted support to Ansel, so I feel bad about the atmosphere at their jobs at a paper that won't make any public acknowledgments of Ansel's work.

I wonder what it's like at the Seattle Weekly. I would totally start reading them regularly if they picked up former Stranger writers like Ansel and Paul.

Eh, I think its caustic of Dan, but seriously, its hardly a miracle with a concrete statue survives but people don't. To look at this for divine evidence simply indicates the massive gap that exists in this United States between subsets of our population. The Giza Pyramids are still standing and so is the sphinx... and for a lot longer than that concrete statute. Does that mean that the Egyptian gods exist or the pharaoh really was divine? I admit, I used to think that it wasn't my business to apply the hammer of logic to these people - if it gives them comfort, what do I care? - but after this election.....

I am going to be donating blood at a local church for no other reason that then American Red Cross loves me because I am 0 negative and have some special I don't know that is for premies... so they say. The blood suckers certainly call me enough. Out of curiosity I pulled the church's website. Its a very nice website. Clean, stylish, a great deal of effort.... But then I clicked the link of their core tenets - they don't believe in evolution. Flat out.

So, you know, "yeah science" when it gives us a special awesome website, but "boo science" when it challenges our "beliefs."

I expect to catch on fire as soon as I go in. I hope they don't use this as an attempt to proselytize me. I will call them out on their hypocrisy if they do.

On the other hand, I went to Kilauea to watch it in the night every time I visit the Big Island. One year, it was during some special time and the native Hawaiian population was up there giving thanks their deity in the cauldren. One of the kids actually spent some time giving me the run down. Another one called me Auntie (term of respect). I was flattered. And I kept my big fat Hoale mouth shut.

So really, maybe its rude to pick at people. But I can't promise.

#1 and outraged others, click link and read what Dan is referring to. Ridiculous magical thinking, even when your home is in ashes.

Dan, why is link in your update going to snopes?

Yeah, clearly it's making fun of the TV station falsely pandering to Christian mythologies: "a TV crew with CNN affiliate WVLT spotted something of a miracle" ... never mind that the house once surrounding this 'miraculous' Jesus statue is in cinders. Pretty devastating to lose everything you have, to say nothing of 7 people burning to death. I hope everyone gets help and assistance.

So wait, let me try to understand this:
If a hurricane is "retribution" for all the sin that gays create.
Why would God send a forest fire to burn a bunch of good Christian homes?
This Lord, God being is preeetty wily and mysterious. I can't find a pattern to the smiting.

Is He using the "random reward reinforcement" function of mammal psychology? That would make some sort of sense.

True treacle. He's a vengeful bastard, never took to God myself. No word from trump about the fire then? Hasn't jumped his plane to go give out supplies. Got his work cut out for him, attending to some real world at home issues. People will notice if he doesn't.

35 - God's just a "tough love" kind of guy... like so many of his followers.

@30 damn thats too bad! I like Ansel, he was one of the few reporters at the stranger who actually reported :(.

Sydney does a great job, but more and more slog is just unverified rants by Charles, Dan and Christopher.

@34 oh i agree on that. But i think its fucking stupid the only time the stranger mentions the fire is in this context. No info on how to help or what's happening, just mockery.

Dan is in shock you guys. Don't you realise the work ahead? And for those of us who lived thru intense social times in the sixties, seventies then the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s, its heartbreaking to see it all has to be fought for again. Only maybe worse.

If it was the home owner who'd taken the picture as a personal statement of hope, I wouldn't mock it. But this is a reporter ignoring the tragedy of that family's destroyed home to coo over the "miracle" of concrete not burning. That's bullshit.

@1.

Dan went to a seminary school as a kid. The best arguments in favor of atheism come to mind when one actually reads the Bible.

It's telling that the most fervid believers in christianity have no real idea what that book says. When asked about quotes drawn from Shakespeare (e.g. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"), they attribute them to the Bible. When asked about passages taken directly from the Bible (Pick anything from Song of Solomon) they denounce it as pornographic trash.

If that's too literalist an approach for you, then try asking them about the meanings of the text. Is genocide acceptable? Certainly not. What about the slaughter of the Amalekitss? Oh, that's different. Is incest okay? No, never! What if Lot's daughters got him drunk and then had an orgy with him? Is it acceptable to be nasty and rude to your mother? No? Jesus did it all the time to Mary.

Those who've never read the thing have the luxury of picking and choosing whatever passages they like, usually at the behest of whatever troglodyte preacher leading their aptly named flock (with the minds of sheep) tells them is the part they need to focus upon.

The biblical endorsements of slavery are mentioned by pastors of the Christian Identity movement, but certainly not by the AME Church. Scriptural praise of alcoholic beverages such as wine are treated as euphemisms by the denominations that are more teetotal. Pornographic segments are discussed widely by the Children of God, but not by the Catholics. Violent segments enjoyed heavy airplay at Mars Hill Church, which might as well have dressed their crucified jesus with a bandolero. These same endorsements of bloodshed are omitted by the Church of England. The homophobic injunctions are oft repeated across Africa, and ignored by the MCC.

However, anyone looking at the text in total, ignoring none of it and thinking critically about what they read, will come to the conclusion that this is something worse than nonsense. This goes far beyond mere bullshit, and is in fact an endorsement of the very worst behaviors exhibited by the human species.

And yet it is held up as a basis for morality.

Those who have studied the text without leaving their critical mind at the door often come to reject it. Dan is just one such example. His decision to express the obvious flaws and contradictions in christianity, such as seen here, where an inert sculpture is revered for having survived a disaster in ways an inert coffee cup or similar object might not be, especially since that very statue's existence ignores the religion that inspired it's injunction against graven images, is not assholery.

@42 - Amen!

@42 That's all well and good, but any Catholic seminarian (which is what, IIRC, Dan was considering) would be able to pick out the theological flaws in his post in a heartbeat.

Strawman arguments don't suddenly become valid when they're made against someone we dislike.

Incidentally, the mere existence of contradictions doesn't necessarily invalidate one's philosophical framework as a practical matter.

General relativity and quantum mechanics are contradictory (although we're trying to find ways to reconcile them); that doesn't mean that they aren't both useful concepts.