How come some were warned, some weren't?

[raccoon]

Yesterday at a local church, at the beginning of the service they showed a video clip. The man in the video clip told how when he was a boy, he and his brother were supposed to go to a wrestling competition. Both parents had a dream that the boys would die on the way to the competition. A grandparent also had this dream.

The boys didn’t go, and sure enough, there was a bad accident on the way to the competition, and many students were injured. The implication was that God sent them the warning dreams.

The problem I always have with this sort of story is, why didn’t God send these warning dreams to all the parents? Were those two boys more worthy than the others? :grr:

Anyone else see this video clip?

[Lerkfish]

1. its the downfall of magical thinking

I believe in God, but not the concept that somehow religious people are more protected or less susceptible to hardship.

This is what I call "magical thinking", where any good turn of events is viewed as divine intervention, and any bad turn of events is viewed as god's judgement.

This way of thinking runs counter to christ's teachings, where he points out that the rain falls on both the just and the unjust.

The real question to be asked is why the PARENTS of the two boys did not call all the other parents.

[dmallind]

2. The problem of modern miracles

is that for a miracle to be touted, it must involve something horrendous happening to others. If nobody died on the way to a wrestling tournament, those "warned" could claim no miracle. So to demonstrate proof of positive divine intervention, it is necessary to demonstrate some divine intervention causing harm to others (OR the lack of intervention in saving others, which is essentially a divine sin of omission rather than commission).

Essentially to claim their own salvation, they have to worship a psychopathic tyrant of a god who would be unworthy of worship if he acted as they describe.

It's the problem of evil and of elective salvation wrapped up into a nice glurge story even barely-literate trash can feel good about. They are destroying their own faith to any right-thinking member of their audience in attempting to trumpet their own special pet status with the Almighty.

[elocs]

3. The assumption that God sent any warning dreams may be wrong.

That is certainly worthy of consideration.

[damntexdem]

4. Shit happens.

And I'm sure some parents had a dream of disaster, so kept their child home, and a plane crashed on the house and killed them all. But they hadn't told anyone else about the dream, and then they were dead, so no video could be made about it.

;-)

[Laura902]

5. I had a dream my aunt was going to die

when I was 11 or 12, she died a few days afterward. I'm not sure why, however, I dont believe it was a god that sent the message.

[brendan120678]

6. Did you know that she was ill?

Was it your subconscious preparing you for the inevitable?

[Laura902]

8. I had no idea, thats why it scared me at the time. n/t

[LAGC]

13. I had a premonition about my great aunt.

I was maybe 10-years-old. We got a phone call one night, and for some reason, before my mom even picked up the phone, I knew that something bad had happened, and it involved my great aunt.

Sure enough, it was word from a relative that my great aunt had passed away.

I never attributed the premonition to God, although I did think I was psychic for some time afterward.

These days, I just chalk it up to coincidence.

[Wickerman]

7. I always gotta wonder

how many other events did those kids stay home from when their parents had "visions?"

[Quasimodem]

9. The Lord works in mysterious ways . . .

. . . now STOP THINKING or you won't get to Heaven.

[d_r]

10. Or maybe

Maybe the one of the kids will grow up to have a kid that will go in to invent a machine with artificial intelligence that will become self aware and take over the world - that the parents thought was a dream sent by God was actually some sort of mental brain message beamed from the robot overlords of the future. Moreover, the rise of the robot revolution may be funded by time-traveling informed gambling on football games, and hence the reason why "God" blesses some teams with victory. Or something like that.

[Indi Guy]

11. Nah...

If this were true there would be a sign in the sky -- like a spacecraft following a comet ;)

[Igel]

12. Ever observe a class?

It's fascinating. The teacher makes a lot of decisions. Some kids get by with more than others. Others get more help than others. Some are possibly kicked out, others are allowed extra time, others are cut no slack.

Now, there are two assumptions that you can make. One is that the teacher is being egregiously biased, openly having favorite students and letting them get by with a lot while others are treated like crap.

This was the assumption I had the first couple of hours I observed teachers doing their job.

The second assumption is that the teacher has formed varying expectations and has come to certain conclusions about students. The kid ignoring her during new material isn't harrassed because he's done it in the past, is a good student, and learns the stuff just fine. The kid who's mind wanders for a moment is called to attention because invariably he needs to pay close attention or else he won't learn it. The kid who's been good can get by with more than the kid whose bad behavior will only escalate. The kid who's said he wants 71% for his final grade because he's happy with a C, hates the material, and intends to do something entirely different is cut more slack than the kid who's unfocused and underachieving, and expectations are higher for the gifted kid whose said that he intends to study that teacher's subject but is momentarily off-task. By midterms, the teacher usually knows her kids.

Shifting from one assumption to the other requires more information, but mostly it requires adopting a different perspective. One in which the outside observer has far less information than the teacher and actually has to commit the nearly unconscionable sin of trusting the teacher.

The same two assumptions are also possible for parents with several kids. The kids aren't treated the same because they're not the same. It drives younger kids crazy, mostly because that's cognitively where they are.

On edit: Hampering showing trust to teachers is the fact that sometimes they *do* openly show favoritism or treat a student or two like crap. Thing is, the students' conclusions aren't always valid and neither are observers' because they leave out information or don't have information.

[dmallind]

14. Did the teacher make all the children and have the power to make them any way he chose?

Do the kids he doesn't pay attention to die horrible deaths because of that?

Is the teacher omnipotent and omniscient?

No? Then it's not really an analogy is it?