Seriously?

Prayer circle saved Sugarland from stage collapse.

Call it a twist of fate or luck.

Whatever it was, members of Sugarland can thank stage manager Hellen Rollens for saving their lives by making a spur-of-the-moment decision to hold a prayer circle just before the stage collapsed last Saturday at the Indiana State Fair.

Looks like God was listening. Here’s what happened.

Sugarland’s manager, Gail Gellman, credited Rollens with keeping the country pop duo from walking down the ramp at the last second, just as a 70 mph gust of wind from an approaching storm caused the stage to topple over onto the crowd, killing five fans and injuring dozens of others.

So, Rollens was listening closely enough to God to realize she should call a prayer circle right before a stage collapsed.  Too bad He didn’t inspire the five poor souls that perished to maybe spend their money on something besides a crappy country music concert at a state fair so they wouldn’t die.  God is either a huge Sugarland fan and was really pissed at those other five people, or, as the article suggests you could “Call it a twist of fate or luck”.   I vote for dumb fucking luck.

But this blog post is the part that – along with most responses to tragedy from religious people – I just can’t wrap my mind around:

“Our fans just came to see a show, and it ended in something terrible. My heart is totally broken for the families and friends of those who lost their lives. It’s broken for all the people who got hurt, for the people who were scared,” wrote Bush. “I thank God for every person who lifted a truss, who pushed against that metal to get it off someone; for every person who used a chair as a stretcher. I thank God for every fan and emergency responder, for everyone who ran to the trouble instead of away from it. The courage of those men and women will forever be with me.”

Believe me when I say, I appreciate the sentiment.  I realize that they only meant to console their fans and themselves with this post.  I really understand that.  The part I feel the need to point out though is an important one.  If you can mentally grasp the severity and tragedy of five people dying because of a freak accident at a concert, how can you at the same time thank God for the heroic response to the tragedy that He, in fact, not only “caused” but could have stopped from happening in the first place?  I get that people can hold two diametrically opposing views in one head, but come on, this is basic logic.  Easy critical thinking.  Thought processes like this make me “thank god” that I’ve left behind such simple and transparent means of grieving which a belief in God allows.  This sort of thinking actually takes away from the courageousness of some of the first responders there that night.  Thank God for those people?  How about we just thank the heroes themselves?  I’d much rather have heroic humans at my side than trust in any God that could let five people die while saving Sugarland.

Of course, if God saved Weezer or the Killers, I suppose I’d understand…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 at 11:23 PM and is filed under Atheism, Crazy, Moron, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.