Some people sure know God’s thoughts ~ January 25, 2006

editor's note: This column is dated, at least the specifics are. The phenomena plays itself out over and over though, seems we hear about it every week. I thought it was worth sharing. 

David Heiller

I enjoyed reading a couple quotes from football players after the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Indianapolis Colts on January 15. (2006)

Colts kicker Mike Vanderiagt missed a field goal that would have tied the game with 21 seconds left. Vanderiagt commented, “I guess the Lord forgot about the football team.”

Just before that, Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis had fumbled the ball, almost costing his team the victory. His teammate Hines Wardsaid, “The Man above, He really looked down on Jerome and said, ‘I’m not going to let you end your career on a fumble like that’.”

So I guess football players know what God is thinking. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, does also. At a Martin Luther King Day speech in New Orleans on January 16, 2006, Nagin said “This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be.”

But Nagin and the jocks don’t hold a candle to televangelist Pat Robertson.

He thinks that God had a hand in the stroke that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered recently. “He was dividing God’s land,” Robertson said of Sharon. “And I would say, Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U., the United Nations, or the United States of’ America.”

Orlando, Florida, is in trouble from the Big Man too, Robertson feels. The city hosts an event called Gay Days, and that’s a no-no. “I would warn Orlando that you’re right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don’t think I’d be waving those flags in God’s face if I were you. This is not a message of hate—this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation, It’ll bring about terrorist bombs; it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.”

And then there are those chumps in Dover, Pennsylvania who had the gall to hold a democratic election to elect a school board that did not support teaching intelligent design in its science classrooms. Big mistake. “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city” Robertson said. “And don’t wonder why he hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because He might not be there.”

I’ll try my best to summarize God from all of these comments. He (not She) does not like homosexuals, Ariel Sharon, democratic school board elections, white people in New Orleans, or the Indianapolis Colts, And when He doesn’t like things, he reacts with crippling medical conditions, disasters, terrorist bombs, earthquakes, tornadoes, possibly meteors, and missed field goals.

I never knew God was such a racist Mean Cuss, or such a big football fan. But I’m still betting on the Steelers.