Monday, July 23, 2012

An Open Letter to Brad Strait - Miracles

The following is my response to a blog post by Brad Strait about the aftermath of the our most recent mass shooting, in Aurora, Colorado.

Yesterday, you posted your story of a young woman you know, Petra
Petra was hit four times with a shot-gun blast, three shots into her arm and one bullet which entered her brain. This a bit of Petra’s miracle story.
You think this situation was a miracle.  Please allow me to share another perspective.

I am unable to see a young woman getting shot 4 times as a miracle, no matter the details of her survival.  I find it incredibly arrogant when someone thinks their god saved the person they knew when 12 others in the same incident died.

What was it about those 12 that kept them from being worthy of the miracle you say saved Petra?  Were they not Christian enough?  Did their family not pray enough or in the correct manner?

You detail all the effort the doctors put into saving Petra's life, but then you follow it with this.
Thank you, Lord, for every little thing. We sit. We pray.
Instead of thanking a god, who I presume you believe had the power to prevent the entire tragedy, my choice would have been to give appropriate credit to the doctors who worked tirelessly to save Petra.  You clearly understand the human effort that went into saving her life.  
Nurses, like quiet soldiers posted on guard, come in, march attentively through the machines, and go out.  These men and women really care. Finally, one of the surgeons comes in to check on Petra. He has had some sleep, and looks more like a movie star this time. As Petra sleeps, he retells the story of the surgery, and we ask questions.  The doctor reads the perfect script, as if he is on Hallmark Hall of Fame. He fills us in on the miracle. Honestly, he doesn’t call it that, he just uses words like “happily” and “wonderfully” and “in a very fortunate way” and “luckily” and “we were really surprised by that.”  Kim and I know a miracle when we see it.
But then, when you ultimately wrote something about the incident, you gave all the credit to your god.  I am unable to see this as anything but a slap in the face of the doctors who did the real work.  If not for those doctors, she'd be dead.

You say your god gave Petra a brain defect in order to save her life later when he let her get shot.  I say your god could have prevented her (and the dozens of others) from getting shot in the first place.  Then he could have given her a defect-free brain.

It’s just like the God I follow to plan the route of a bullet through a brain long before Batman ever rises.
There is much ahead. More surgerys. Facial reconstruction, perhaps.

If this nightmare is your idea of a miracle, I pity you for worshiping such a pathetically useless god.  Show me a god who prevents massacres like this & doesn't give nice young girl's mothers cancer.  Then we can talk about miracles.  Until then, your talk of miracles disgusts me.

You spit on the probably-not-even-dug-yet graves of the 12 who died.  You disregard the real work real people did to save her life in favor of crediting your god, who appears, from my perspective, to have had absolutely nothing to do with how these events have played out.

I'm all for you keeping your faith in your god, but please use your brain after the next tragedy before speaking of miracles.  Unless, of course, you're so selfish that you only care of the well being of yourself and the people you know personally and are fine with 12 people dying so your friend can be the recipient of a miracle.  I suspect you're better than that, but that's ultimately up to you.

No comments:

Post a Comment