Ship of Fools: This Morning

Thread: This Morning Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :

This morning I looked through the rain up at the clouds. I recognized them. They were the same clouds, the same front, that had just killed at least 91 people in Oklahoma.

I asked the clouds what they were thinking when they did that. The clouds answered that they are merely clouds and have no will of their own, ask the Boss.

So now Boss - God - I'm asking you. What was going through your omniscient mind when that tornado was tearing through those suburbs? What was going through your immanent presence when those school kids were panicking right before the tornado tore their lives from them? Huh?

God, I thought you liked us. Apparently not.

Because you see it was not some foreign looking terrorist who killed all those people. It was not some nut job with a high capacity magazine firing away at those school children. IT WAS YOU.

I look at the pictures and all I can do is cry. What the hell are you doing God?

Posted by geroff (# 3882) on :

For information go here for a report on this.

[ 21. May 2013, 13:03: Message edited by: geroff ]

Posted by Fuff (# 14655) on :

Shocking. [Votive]

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
It was not some nut job with a high capacity magazine firing away at those school children. IT WAS YOU.

Oh but was it?

According to St. Paul.....creation also waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.......

So we're rather screwed and creation is rather screwed.

If I took God to hell for anything, it would be for HURRY THE FUCK UP AND COME BACK LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

We like God when he allows good things. We don't like God when he does bad things.

In other words, news at eleven.

My major question is: this area has been struck, time and time again. It appears to me that shouldn't the authorities evacuate the area and leave it as wasteland? It's not an unknown procedure.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
We like God when he allows good things. We don't like God when he does bad things.

In other words, news at eleven.

My major question is: this area has been struck, time and time again. It appears to me that shouldn't the authorities evacuate the area and leave it as wasteland? It's not an unknown procedure.

Not unknown, but apparently impolitic. Why didn't they move New Orleans after Katrina, or Wall Street after Sandy? And how the hell can anybody with two brain cells to rub together consider it acceptable to set people up in large encampments (excuse me, developments) of, for pity's sake, mobile homes in an area routinely subject to F3, 4, and 5 windstorms?

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

While we're at it, let's move the millions and millions of people living at or near the west coast of the Americas so we don't get killed in earthquakes.

Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :

I heard some storm expert (who lives in Wichita, btw*) being interviewed this morning. He was talking about building design in tornado areas. Apparently unless there is underground shelter there is not much that can stand up to an F 5 tornado.

Even if you are not in tornado alley a tornado can strike. North Alabama and North Georgia were devastated a few years ago. Nashville has had two tornados in its downtown area.

Tornados are brutal, terrifying, things. There is no power on earth that can stop them once they are coming at you. The things we believe to be strong and sure are mere playthings to tornados.

I guess I know a small portion of what God might tell me if I felt like listening, but I'm not in the mood just yet.

______________
*For those of you not from North America, Wichita is also in the middle of tornado alley.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
While we're at it, let's move the millions and millions of people living at or near the west coast of the Americas so we don't get killed in earthquakes.

And everyone in the south and south-west USA that are in the way of hurricanes.

Many people live where they do because there are some advantages that, most of the time, outweigh the disadvantages. A fair proportion of the Netherlands has been recovered from the sea and lies well below sea level, so the Dutch spend huge sums on ensuring that the losses of the North Sea flood of 1953 are never repeated.

In many other parts of the world there just aren't the resources to protect people, property and livestock; look at the damage caused by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, mostly in poor and less developed countries. What we have seen in Oklahoma is in part a natural disaster, but also a reminder that disasters can be mitigated; the two schools worst affected didn't have emergency rooms, while over a hundred others in Oklahoma, one of the poorer states in the USA, do.

[ 21. May 2013, 22:18: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Tortuf:

quote:
God, I thought you liked us. Apparently not.

Westboro:

quote:
Tornados.
Hurricanes.
Earthquakes.
Blizzards.
Wars.
Terrorists.

Of course he doesn't like us. It's obvious. It's da gayz.

Seriously: [Votive]

for those who suffer from natural disaster. But until we ourselves can create a world where natural law gives us good things but no bad things, like Job, I have no useful complaints to make to God.

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
My major question is: this area has been struck, time and time again. It appears to me that shouldn't the authorities evacuate the area and leave it as wasteland? It's not an unknown procedure.

The problem is that if that is your way of looking at it, then close to the entire state of Oklahoma should be evacuated. Not going to happen.

What can happen is for people to learn how to predict tornadoes better - which they have. When I was a child we would only know that a tornado was around if someone spotted it. We might know there was a possibility, but not where exactly where it was from us. Now they can look at radar, see exactly where the tornado is and warn people. The people of Moore had a 16 minute warning of a tornado being formed before it hit the ground. When I was little, a 5 minute warning was considered a good thing.

Schools do need to look at how they were built and their tornado plans, but the revised death toll (which is at 24) is now at 9 children, 7 of which were at a school. And an F4-5 tornado wants to destroy everything above ground, so schools have to look at whether or not they can have shelter below ground. (FYI - which REALLY SUCKS GOD, is that at least 3 of those children were in the schools basement and drowned when water came in.)

24 people died out of a population of 55,000. Percentage wise for an F4 tornado that was 2 miles wide, that's not bad. 0 would be better, but we're getting there.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

Wait, 24? So where did the reports saying over 90 had died come from?

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

They believe that they have counted people twice in the confusion. They were at 51 confirmed dead, 40 missing, including 20 children.

They have revised the 51 down to 24, and have found the missing, many of whom were in underground storm shelters.

Many of the children who were missing and presumed dead were found with parents or relatives (as school was dismissing at the time of the tornado).

At this point the whole town has been searched twice, and they have started a third search and hope to have 100% certainty by Wednesday.

Revised Death Toll

[ 21. May 2013, 22:28: Message edited by: PataLeBon ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Today's death toll is -27. Good going, God!

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Today's death toll is -27. Good going, God!

Actually more like 150,000. And roughly the same tomorrow, and every day thereafter. We are all mortal. Deal with it.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Spoilsport.

Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Actually more like 150,000. And roughly the same tomorrow, and every day thereafter. We are all mortal. Deal with it.

Oh l'horreur*

We are all mortal is not the equivalent of young school children dying in fear and horror while separated from their parents. It is not the equivalent of multiple families having their home and life expectations ripped away from them in a moment.

___________
*"Oh the horror", or "no shit Sherlock" in French. Take your pick.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Free will. Check it out. It's how the whole shebang and hebang works. From weather to rapists to Jesus to satan to molecules to asteroids to drones and drone makers to ants to elephants to evolution and tinpot popes in the bible belt. Pray or bawl up a drainspout, it's for you to feel better, with freewill governing even who you're pray-bawling. It gets easier when you start to get it.

Posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg (# 17687) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
This morning I looked through the rain up at the clouds. I recognized them. They were the same clouds, the same front, that had just killed at least 91 people in Oklahoma.

I asked the clouds what they were thinking when they did that. The clouds answered that they are merely clouds and have no will of their own, ask the Boss.

So now Boss - God - I'm asking you. What was going through your omniscient mind when that tornado was tearing through those suburbs? What was going through your immanent presence when those school kids were panicking right before the tornado tore their lives from them? Huh?

God, I thought you liked us. Apparently not.

Because you see it was not some foreign looking terrorist who killed all those people. It was not some nut job with a high capacity magazine firing away at those school children. IT WAS YOU.

I look at the pictures and all I can do is cry. What the hell are you doing God?

This is not about God.

This is about corporate interests messing with meteorological elements to the detriment of humanity ...

like Monsanto ... like Dupont ... like British Petroleum ... corporate interests without accountability ...

They flaunt their technologies in God's FACE ... no thanks to Annunaki belief in Autonomy.

EEWC

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:

This is about corporate interests messing with meteorological elements to the detriment of humanity ...

Because Monsanto causes tornadoes?

It's certainly possible that climate change could alter the frequency and/or severity of tornadoes. (In general, climate change will cause more warm, moist air, which acts as an engine for tornadoes, but less wind shear, so tornadoes are less likely to form. It could be that the result is fewer, bigger tornadoes, but there's a whole bunch of speculation in there, and weather is hard, so we can't really be certain.) There is, however, no evidence that tornadoes have got worse over the last 3 decades (see here) so we can say with reasonable certainty that climate change is not currently having a significant effect on tornadoes.

The tornado that hit Oklahoma was a pretty classic tornado of the kind that has happened on a regular basis since we started recording the weather.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Actually more like 150,000. And roughly the same tomorrow, and every day thereafter. We are all mortal. Deal with it.

Everyone dies eventually therefore it doesn't matter where, when, how or why it happens?

Kinda makes me wonder why God bothered putting "thou shalt not kill" in the Commandments if untimely death is in the "deal with it" category...

[Roll Eyes]

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Free will. Check it out. It's how the whole shebang and hebang works. From weather to rapists to Jesus to satan to molecules to asteroids to drones and drone makers to ants to elephants to evolution and tinpot popes in the bible belt. Pray or bawl up a drainspout, it's for you to feel better, with freewill governing even who you're pray-bawling. It gets easier when you start to get it.

I'm not sure how free will figures into the creation of an F5 tornado. It comes out of nature's mix of factors that lead of supercell thunderstorms, that then spin out massive tornadoes. This has been going on for centuries, so I'm not sure how our free will creates natures massive storms.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Religion: the history of humanity's attempts to communicate with the weather.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:

quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
This morning I looked through the rain up at the clouds. I recognized them. They were the same clouds, the same front, that had just killed at least 91 people in Oklahoma.

I asked the clouds what they were thinking when they did that. The clouds answered that they are merely clouds and have no will of their own, ask the Boss.

So now Boss - God - I'm asking you. What was going through your omniscient mind when that tornado was tearing through those suburbs? What was going through your immanent presence when those school kids were panicking right before the tornado tore their lives from them? Huh?

God, I thought you liked us. Apparently not.

Because you see it was not some foreign looking terrorist who killed all those people. It was not some nut job with a high capacity magazine firing away at those school children. IT WAS YOU.

I look at the pictures and all I can do is cry. What the hell are you doing God?
This is not about God.

This is about corporate interests messing with meteorological elements to the detriment of humanity ...

like Monsanto ... like Dupont ... like British Petroleum ... corporate interests without accountability ...

They flaunt their technologies in God's FACE ... no thanks to Annunaki belief in Autonomy.

EEWC

Well, if someone or something has to take the blame its much easier to pin the tail on a corporate donkey rather than consider than human beings just could, conceivably, be responsible for their own actions.

Corporate interests remember have their roots in human greed and a desire for power without responsibility.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Free will. Check it out. It's how the whole shebang and hebang works. From weather to rapists to Jesus to satan to molecules to asteroids to drones and drone makers to ants to elephants to evolution and tinpot popes in the bible belt. Pray or bawl up a drainspout, it's for you to feel better, with freewill governing even who you're pray-bawling. It gets easier when you start to get it.
I'm not sure how free will figures into the creation of an F5 tornado. It comes out of nature's mix of factors that lead of supercell thunderstorms, that then spin out massive tornadoes. This has been going on for centuries, so I'm not sure how our free will creates natures massive storms.

With the lack of a better term, 'free will' is used here to describe the fact that, in addition to human consciousness, the properties of the physical universe include being as they are, subject to both physical laws and the random chaos that occurs in any complex system. Thus, the storm has the freedom to be a storm without any interference from deity. And there will not be interference, because God doesn't interfere. The storm formed, touched down where it did due to the specifics of how storms naturally form, and little bits of influence from many different factors, some of which we can predict, and many which are not predictable. It has the freedom or free will to do whatever according to all this.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

God allows all things and stops nothing.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

If humanity was truly of an opinion that goes --- Something horrible has happened, therefore God doesn't love us , or better still, doesn't even exist at all -- ?
Then I think His Name would have ceased to pass our lips many many Centuries ago.

In fact I would say the very opposite is nearer to true , when something horrible happens many will think about God where previously they hadn't.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
If humanity was truly of an opinion that goes --- Something horrible has happened, therefore God doesn't love us , or better still, doesn't even exist at all -- ?
Then I think His Name would have ceased to pass our lips many many Centuries ago.

In fact I would say the very opposite is nearer to true , when something horrible happens many will think about God where previously they hadn't.

Yes. This. It's our response that is vital. Will people respond by trying to ensure better protection in the future, if they insist on building homes and schools in danger areas? Will people respond by turning to God in their distress and finding in their hearts a deposit of strength and comfort which help them to rebuild their lives? If so, the horror of the events might eventually make way for new life. The cross comes to mind.

We might swear at God for not giving us heaven yet (your imaginations can add the words which make it suitable for a hell thread), and/or get on with the world knowing that the norm is that God doesn't intervene when bad things happen. If it were any other way, a miracle wouldn't be a miracle, it wouldn't show us God, nothing bad could happen, and we wouldn't have free will.

[Votive]

For all affected by the disaster.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

Yes, let's swear at God because folks don't have the sense to build adequate storm shelters in tornado country. They had epic destruction in 1999, and they're still building things the same way they did before 1999.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Actually more like 150,000. And roughly the same tomorrow, and every day thereafter. We are all mortal. Deal with it.
Oh l'horreur*

We are all mortal is not the equivalent of young school children dying in fear and horror while separated from their parents. It is not the equivalent of multiple families having their home and life expectations ripped away from them in a moment.

___________
*"Oh the horror", or "no shit Sherlock" in French. Take your pick.

Actually, it is equivalent. It just isn't newsworthy. But if it's your child who is suddenly killed, it doesn't much matter whether it was part of a larger natural or unnatural disaster where dozens of children were killed, or merely your own personal disaster. It will be just as heart-wrenching, just as tragic, just as horrific. It just won't make the news.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

We are all mortal, but some of us get to live long and happy lives before we die, and some of us don't. Many deaths are not the least bit tragic. One of my grandmothers, 93 years old but not at all ill, simply passed out one evening and quietly died 20 minutes later. Saying "we are all mortal" the way Hawk did lumps her death in with these children's deaths, so it's bullshit.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Actually, it is equivalent. It just isn't newsworthy. But if it's your child who is suddenly killed, it doesn't much matter whether it was part of a larger natural or unnatural disaster where dozens of children were killed, or merely your own personal disaster. It will be just as heart-wrenching, just as tragic, just as horrific. It just won't make the news.

I can't comment on the impact of having a child killed, but I have been attacked and was in fear for my life and have also survived an earthquake where I was in fear for my life (and over 100 were killed). I know the personal attack has been much more difficult to deal with than the earthquake because it was aimed specifically at me, and was the result of the perp's malice toward me, whereas the earthquake is a force of nature and impersonal.

Huia

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I do however think that we are all mortal means something else as well as we die. It means we are all not in control of what happens to us. We do not like that, when it is in your face, i.e. close to you and not someone else, we like it even less. We can minimize but not loose risks.

The change of the question for "why me?" to "why not me?" is a profound one. The fact that it is equally unanswerable does not mean that it is ineffective.

Let me say now I hope we never ever learn how to totally control the weather and the teutonic plates beneath earth's surface. We are almost bound to make a mistake and wipe out the whole of life given our past record.

Jengie

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

This is particularly sad to us for the same reason that the Newtown shootings were. Little children. It just hurts more.

We can't really forsee everything though. I was living about four miles from Xenia Ohio when it's huge tornado hit in the 70's and lots of people left the area, never to return. Maybe some of them moved to Oklahoma. Or the coast where hurricanes and earthquakes came or forest fire and flood paths.

We watched a house go up behind us last year. The basement and walls seemed to be all concrete about three feet thick. Solar panels, bamboo floors, metal roof. We kept joking, "Does he know something we don't know?" The poor guy is doing everything he can to keep his family safe but there are still a thousand things that might get them.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
and the teutonic plates beneath earth's surface.

I don't think we can blame the Germans for everything.

The planet is simply not all about us.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

Late to this, but [Big Grin]

to Firenze.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

The planet is simply not all about us.

Oh I think it is.

But the penguins come a close second.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
and the teutonic plates beneath earth's surface.
I don't think we can blame the Germans for everything.

this made my morning. I've been cackling like a raven for 20 minutes.

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