Did an Angel Save Her Daughter’s Life?

I’m very happy for the girl.

But the angel? Look at it carefully. The fact that the light spot straddles the doorway is what gives it the appearance of wings. (And, by the way, angels aren’t really supposed to have wings, anyway.) In fact, it looks like a square blotch of light coming from across the hallway, through, perhaps, a window.

As to the “miracle”? Well, if the story’s told at all accurately, it is an impressive recovery. What a wonderful thing! But in the first place, I don’t have much confidence that we’re getting it without pious adornment. Secondly, what have they done to rule out more prosaic causes? From what I’ve seen and read, natural possibilities are never even considered.

Yes, it’s sad that the mother is so deluded, some may say, “Whatever makes her happy”, but then when happens if she then dies? Was that Satan? or God’s will?

I have an associate at work who preached to everyone that God saved his sister from cancer… last year she died – from cancer.

He now believes that God let her live a little longer to fulfill some higher purpose and then called her to him.

It really is mind boggling.

“Within an hour, the dying girl began a recovery that doctors are at a loss to explain.” (From the article.)

This kind of statement always annoys me. The faithful somehow take that as an admission that something supernatural is going on.

Well, in the first place, I’d like to hear it from the doctors themselves. In the second place, I don’t expect doctors to know everything. As well trained as they might be, there are cases that stump them for a long time, and maybe indefinitely. Basically, “I don’t know how it happened” isn’t the same as “God did it.”

angle, angel, it’s just a typo

People like miracles at Christmas, and they love to drop all critical thought at this time of year and look for them. As long as they don’t teach Angelic Design in the science class, I’m not inclined to care.

The news is just out that Lance Armstrong and his girlfriend are expecting a child (the old fashioned way, without any kind of medical tinkering) despite his bout with testicular cancer and its treatment, which should have made that impossible. I LOVE how there is no mention of it being any kind of ‘miracle’. Go, reason!

I find the absurdity doubled simply by looking at the reflection in the floor beneath the “angel.” It clearly shows some reflecting lights, which were probably bright enough to make the surveillance camera go a bit buggy.

I’m even more disturbed that they were treating it as if it was something seriously newsworthy.

postsimian said:

*forehead smack*

*facepalm*

Honestly, what is it with the big belief in Miracles at this time of the year? On Jesus’ birthday no less! Don’t you think, if they really existed, God and his boy would have better things to do right now?

This is how the rest of the story might go if it had been fully reported:

“The hospital security personnel continued to watch the image on the security monitor but no one went to the camera’s location to investigate it. Over the course of two hours the angel seemed to miraculously slide down the wall onto the floor, and then to slide across the floor in a miraculously un-angel like way, distorting into what looked kinda like two hot dogs and a lopsided square thing. Then the weather got cloudy outside, and miraculously, just at that moment, the hot-dog-lopsided-square-thing/angel disappeared.”

Apropos to Art’s comment above, this part of the story particularly stands out:

Chelsea had been born five weeks prematurely with developmental disabilities and had battled serious health problems all her life. She is particularly susceptible to the types of pneumonia infections that had taken her to death’s door.

So, these people believe that God let her (or, caused her) for his Great Unfathomable Purposes be born prematurely, have developmental disabilities, & battle health problems all of her 14 yrs so far. But then it’s a “miracle” when she pulls through a latest & worst-so-far of her recurrent bouts with pneumonia. (While on oxygen, a ventilator, and presumably high-potency antibiotics – to combat those evolving bacterial pathogens.)

Then, from the commentary, there’s this unbelievable gem:

Cook was joined by Rabbi Irwin Kula, who looked at angels as more of a metaphor for the unexplained wonders that life brings. “Albert Einstein said there are two ways to look at the world: as if everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle,” he said.

Did you just hear Einstein turn in his grave? This is not what he meant by “miracle” – he was talking about the entire frigging universe & the beauty of its physics.

I feel like this is a joke America is pulling on me. What the F?!? You can see the reflection in the floor that it’s another light source. Either a window or a set of lights.

Why is it so hard to marvel in what the human body can do?

Sure it might be from a movie but “Life finds a way” is such an important idea. I wish people would talk on the Today show for 6 minutes about that.