We have had some bizarre religious injuries this week among both the Christian and Muslim faithful. In Newburgh, New York, David Jimenez was grateful to God for curing his wife of cancer, particularly he believed due to his devotion of a large crucifix outside the Church of St. Patrick in Newburgh. So he received permission to paint the crucifix to show his thanks, but it proceeded to fall and crush his leg in a rather mixed message. In the meantime, Muslims have reported a spate of injuries and deaths from people being trampled by animals during annual sacrifice Islamic rituals this week.
Jimenez’s leg had to be amputated after the crucifix collapsed. For months, the 45-year-old pizza worker prayed before the crucifix to cure his wife of ovarian cancer.
Notably, Jimenez now has a lawyer who has publicly stated that the 600-pound statue was improperly secured by a single screw in the base “The screw was useless. The screw is useless. It supported no anchoring system.”
His client has decided to sue after the archdiocese and its insurance company failed to pony up for the accident. While Jimenez still credits the crucifix with curing his wife, he does not view the accident as divine judgment but simply negligence. That could create a rather bruising trial. While the Church cannot argue the Will of God defense, the most likely defense is contributory or comparative negligence his cleaning and working on the crucifix as well as possibly assuming such risks. The question is whether he saw the limited support or indications of the precarious nature of his work before being injured.
A similar claim could be made with the slaughter ritual injuries this week, though they are occurring in countries with little tort liability. In the Gaza strip, a Palestinian man who was trying to slaughter a cow this weekend for Eid al-Adha when it killed him. The holiday commemorates the sacrifice by the Prophet Ibrahim (known to Christians and Jews as Abraham).
The 52-year-old man was trampled to death, and another three people were seriously injured by the cow. Some 150 people were hospitalized in the Palestinian territory with knife wounds or other injuries caused by animals trying to break away. Pakistan also reported such injuries, including a rampaging bull which did not like its role in the religious ceremonies.
Notably, as with the crucifix case, these rituals are often done in conjunction with local mosques and with their approval. The question is one of liability. The Muslim cases may offer greater defenses given the assumption of risk in dealing with animals as opposed to a standard construction or building case. However, in the U.S., there would be likely liability for any mosque organizing such events and allowing unskilled persons to participate. Indeed, it could be negligent per se in light of statutes limiting the butchering of animals.
Notably, in 1993, the Supreme Court overturned a Florida law barring the slaughtering of animals. In Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993), the Court struck down a law in Hialeah, Florida that prohibited the “unnecessar[y]” killing of “an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption.” The Court ruled that the law targeted Santeria — a religion requiring animal sacrifice.
Source: CBS
I write to the world. if you can’t see that then go kiss the antichrist ass because I don’t care. revelations reads not to change anything. just look at what you claim to be true. they are all revised editions.
you are now known as impatient, with no sense of humor.
over the years you must have heard that MY SON is coming in the clouds. would that be a metaphor? if so, did your clergy tell you that, or did you hear it here first.
I get sick and tired of writing, IT IS WRITTEN.
there are so many versions of the bible, that I write THE BIBLE. they all do have that in them one way or the other. I will do as I please. it is even in the quran as such. so for over 73 years and you never were told that? oh brian!
there are so many people out there claiming to be doctors of this and that, how do people know if your not just another crack pot. I have people claiming to be ordained by god and using MY name which is GOD. perhaps they say to you that they are doctors.
RE:
THE LIVING GOD
1, October 30, 2012 at 2:51 pm
frankly it’s like the kid that had his friends over…
…THE BIBLE says…
…THE BIBLE says GOD is love…
…THE BIBLE says…
* * * * * * * * *
Three times, you, “THE LIVING GOD,” have told me, in your posting, that the “THE BIBLE” says something.
You have provided me with what I find, as a Wisconsin Registered Professional Engineer (No. 34106-6), to be a hypothesis worthy of being scientifically tested.
So, I tested the hypothesis you have promoted on this blog thread, the hypothesis that THE BIBLE says what you say it says.
To do this test in a proper scientific manner, I used the method of null-hypothesis/alternate hypothesis. This method has been around among qualified scientists for a rather long time. Indeed, it is the method Galileo evidently used to to refute Aristotelian physics.
From the Google Play eBook version of James Reston, Jr., Galileo: A Life,
{begin fair use quotation}
He [Galileo – jbh] entered into a world of his own, exhibiting the enormous confidence of an original mind. “If you’re going to find the truth, you have to employ fantasy,” he mused. “You have to play at invention and guess a little. When I’m looking for truth, I always look for the opposite, because great good and great evil are always there together like chickens at the market.” As the balls thudded simultaneously at the base of the tower, Aristotle’s formula made a thud as well.
{end fair use quotation}
To test whether or not THE BIBLE says anything to me, I set a BIBLE on the table close to me and listened attentively to it. I never heard it say a word.
To preclude my having chosen to listen to what THE BIBLE might say to me, I deemed it wise not not use a defective translation of THE BIBLE. The one I chose to learn whether or not it would say anything to me is “THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE,”
The title page reads as follows, in center-justified text::
THE NEW
AMERICAN BIBLE
Translated form the Original Languages
with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources
with
THE REVISED BOOK OF PSALMS
and
THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT
AUTHORIZED BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
of the
CONFRATERNITY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
and
APPROVED BY THE ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE BOARD
of the
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
and the
UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
On the reverse side of the title page, I observe that the OLD TESTAMENT and THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT both have the NIHIL OBSTAT and the IMPRIMATUR; and that the REVISED PSALMS have the IMPRIMATUR. Given the presence of the NIHIL OBSTAT and the IMPRIMATUR, and the comparatively recent copyright dates of this BIBLE, 1970, 1986, and 1990, it is my personal prejudice to regard it as being the best candidate in my library for being at least as as authoritative as any BIBLE in my library.
For the whole of my life, over 73 years, having been exposed to THE BIBLE starting on the first Sunday after I was out of St. James Hospital, in Butte, Montana after being born there (according to what my parents told me), I can stipulate without equivocation that I have never heard any BIBLE say anything to me.
I happen to have, among my engineering laboratory apparatus, a Western Electric 6BP Audiometer, and I have sound level measurement and calibration apparatus, and I have verified the accuracy of the sound levels of the 6BP Audiometer, and find it decently within what i understand to be the manufacturer’s original specifications, even though it was manufactured many decades ago.
Well, for the sake of truthyness, I decided to again measure my threshold of audibility with that 6BP Audiometer. I found, to provide two representative measurement results, at nominally 2048 Hertz, the threshold of audibility for my left ear scored 0 deciBels, and for my right ear -5 deciBels. So, I guess that, if the aforementioned BIBLE had been saying anything any person with reasonably “normal” hearing could hear, I would likely have heard it.
My conclusion, having made the necessary and sufficient scientific experiment?
I find that “THE BIBLE DOES NOT SAY ANYTHING!”
Therefore, absent scientific disproof of my experiment and its experimental results, I shall consider any and every proposition of the form, “THE BIBLE says,” to have been scientifically falsified.
It came to into my thoughts to wonder what Galileo’s approach might also falsify. Curiosity is itself a curiosity?
A Google Advanced Search for “the Bible says” resulted in a score of about 38,000,000 results. Is there a reason why curiosity is said to be life-threatening for cats? Google Advanced Search for, “the law says” resulted in score of about 12,500,000 results.
What if the same principle about “the Bible says” is equanimitously applicable to “the law says”?
Oh, No, no no no no. Heretical Apostasy, as the bogeyman, has got me in more than one cultural domain?
Is aught left for me to do save weep in life-transcendent sorrow?
RE:
Frankly
1, October 29, 2012 at 7:08 am
So if you luck out & things get better thats Gods doing but if you get hurt well thats mans fault.
* * * * * *
Frankly:
As I have studied social psychology, your posting is a restatement of the reversal of the self-serving bias.
Central to my understanding of the self-serving bias is an understanding of attribution theory, and, in particular the “fundamental attribution error” which I regard as closely akin to correspondence bias.
frankly it’s like the kid that had his friends over to help him butcher a bull after school. the kids didn’t know that that you hit the animal in the forehead with a sledgehammer, in the slaughter room. so the bull must have been psychic and seen that hammer comin cuz the bull turned his head and took the hit and got hit in the shoulder with an eight pound sledge. then suddenly the whole barn got to small to hold that psychic bull. they call the town el krapids after the yellow and brown streaks running down the walls of the barn.
I do hunt and when camping I don’t care how the game dies as long as I can cook it. rabbits and doves will do.
THE BIBLE says that sacrifice will come back, it fits a bar-b-que. but if the bar-b-queer finds that the bull has a mind of their own you might as well be hunting t-rex with a tablespoon, because your gonna have a bad, bad karma day. and he that lives by the cross will die by the cross.
you could be giving t-rex a circumcision so you can call the pricks, pricks in a book that will last thousand years or more so someone does not remove it or change it so much. you have phoenix, az. in there by code.
THE BIBLE says GOD is love. have you ever herd about the story about the boy who cried wolf. how about the boy who went to church to see other people that were not like his parents that are always in the dark. for some reason parents are really nice if they are not your parents.
I had people put up a billboard that read dyslexics untie (unite). then some one else puts out tee shirts that say the same. that is theft. the other part is that I know that they don’t know why GOD would have a bill board put up that he can’t pay for. so who put up the bill board when THE BIBLE says that HE (THE PROPHET) will break the host. so some one else stole from GOD, and the judges and police officers allowed it. I even performed a miracle in their jail which scared the shit out of them that saw it. the world has been told many things, and deny even more.
I do not need to micromanage anything but I do have a family member who’s mother was told that she would be involved in miracles years before they even happened, and that I am GOD. her son now has a terminal brain tumor that showed up quickly after she did some thing else that was against ME.
the other side of the coin is I create jobs. just don’t get in the way of a hurricane bulldozer. many of the same politicians spoke on the news today spoke against ME in the past. they will deny it has meaning. others will say differently. it all depends on which way the bulls looking.
as far as the screw in the crucifix who screwed who. you decide! should the pope declare this a miracle to destroy the cross like THE BIBLE said. the cross will be vindicated. when the cross fell upon a satan worshiper someone in the goverenment should get the clue. don’t screw with the crucifix because it is a murder weapon that killed MY SON. it is the mark that people place upon their forehead and hands at easter. and JESUS was killed on HIS birthday.
the world was told that the cross will not be worshiped. nor will you worship MY SON. fools are easily entertained by fools, and by those who fool them.
what the antichrists call MY SON is called blasphemy in other countries. you will read it you know where. trust GOD, never trust a layman. or someone who can’t say their son is JESUS. there are many false teachers and all roads lead to roam.
it’s almost miller time. and I’M gonna grind his stones to make MY bread.
So God gives cancer to a woman so her husband will spend hours praying to a crucifix. Woman gets well so God punishes husband for praying to an idol.
i would hope that God would have bigger things to do than micro-manage all the myriad details of all the people in all the world…. In my opinion, people are too quick to ascribe to God ordinary or explainable events.
Had to make my atheist community on FB aware of this folly.
OK somebody told me a story a couple of weeks ago; the story was designed to make me believe in god and become a religious person. The story was that two parents had a kid who was hopelessly and mysteriously sick and the doctors could not help him. They received religious instruction to obey all the laws of their religion so they tried that and the boy of course miraculously recovered. Then the mother, however, found the demands of religion too much for her so she declared an end to the period of obedience and she departed from all that ritual. Immediately the kid got sick again, but then the father divorced her, took the kid, and re-enlisted in the total immersion/obedience program, and the kid was saved. I sat there for a minute stunned by the sheer madness of the fact that the story-teller thought that would “bring me in,” and while I was in that speechless state (imagine, ME, speechless!), the most religious woman in the group immediately said, “If my son [name omitted] were here he would say he did not believe that story.” I immediately said, “I have no problem believing that story!” Everyone looked at me aghast. I added quickly, “There are what, three billion people in the world? Who am I to say that that could NOT have happened, maybe it did.”
It doesn’t make me believe in anything but the bizarre laws of probability, and the very inadequate criminal punishments put in place for the violation of those bizarre laws.
disdain is not protection
A crucifix that cured the wife but the hubby had to give his leg as a payment. Why did the crucifix give the ovarian cancer in the first place? This question should be asked. Like the legend goes that Jesus cured people with the diseases but he was impotent to eradicate them. What a wuss!
Secondly, why would this imaginary god need animal sacrifices and circumcisions only from males which shows that in the former he is arrogantly egotistic full of Me-ism and in the latter he shows his bias and bigotry.
Nice job done god!!.
Cause and effect was the reason these events happened.
“In the Gaza strip, a Palestinian man who was trying to slaughter a cow this weekend for Eid al-Adha when it killed him. The holiday commemorates the sacrifice by the Prophet Ibrahim (known to Christians and Jews as Abraham).
The 52-year-old man was trampled to death, and another three people were seriously injured by the cow.”
*****************
Eric, would you call that “cow-ma”?
Last comment was a little harsh. My apologies. I typed before letting the emotion die down. No one likes to see anyone suffer, however, animal cruelty is one of the most frustrating things to me — and it seems to be the only type of cruelty that we allow. You can hideously torture an animal and suffer only a misdemeanor — or be back playing professional football after torturing hundreds of animals.
Once again, my apologies for allowing “my shadow” out. It caught me by surprise today. I am usually watching for him.
Karma affect us all, if we believe in it or not. The 52 year old man in the Gaza strip got exactly what he deserved – its nice to see. Perhaps when we no longer see other sentient beings – this includes animals and other people – as ours to use and abuse as we please, this world will be a better place.
Oh, the laughter…way to begin the week. Apparently, some of these folks never heard the phrase “Pay the piper.”
Thank you, Professor, you brought a moment of pure joy to me this morning..
Frankly,
Exactly….
This offering of things in payment for re-payment is peculiar. As the fixation of offering lives, whether it be animals, first born boys, or whatever your religion prescribes is also peculiar.
And with a wry twist I’ll add that offering a baby is safer than a grown cow. Kerstin, the farmer’s daughter, would never enter a pasture where cows were grazing when we were stroving the landscape, which “allesmansrätt” allows in Sweden. It provides no protection from aggressive cows.
So if you luck out & things get better thats Gods doing but if you get hurt well thats mans fault.