Religion and the Chilean Miners

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Religion and the Chilean Miners

The miners in Chile had some religious stuff sent down to them during the days they were trapped. What if this was going on in the USA and the government sent down religious pamphlets and other resources? Would this be a violation of church and state? Does the government have an obligation to meet the "religious" needs (wants?) of individuals in a situation like this?

 

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/14/the-story-behind-the-chilean-miners-jesus-t-shirts/

 

The story behind the Chilean miners' Jesus T-Shirts

As miners were being pulled from Chile's San Jose mine Wednesday, most were wearing tan T-shirts over their coveralls. The Chilean government told reporters the green coveralls were designed to help absorb the sweat as they ascended to the top.

But Wes Little, a CNN editor/producer in Atlanta, wondered why the miners were wearing the T-shirt over their coveralls. He noticed a logo on the T-shirt's left sleeve for the Jesus Film Project.

 

The Jesus Film Project is a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International, the massive Orlando, Florida-based evangelical ministry.

The Jesus Film Project tells us they have translated the film into 1,105 languages and that it has been seen in every country. You can watch or listen to over a 1,000 of the translations here.

The main goal of TJFP's ministry is to create and distribute effective media in every language, says Berry Fiess, the group's director of field information services.

Seventeen days into the mine accident, CCCI country director for Chile, Christian Maureira, started contacting public officials to see if they could send the miners a copy of the film. Fiess said Maureira was able to reach a daughter and a brother of miner Jose Henriquez.

Through that family contact, the group was able to send an MP3 audio version of the Jesus film and an MP3 audio version of the New Testament in Spanish to Henriquez down in the mine.

The Jesus film explains that the New Testament tells how Jesus is laid in a tomb-like cave after his crucifixion. Three days later, Jesus is said to have risen from the dead. In the Jesus film, women come to the tomb and find the stone that blocked the entrance has been rolled away, the cave empty.

It is unclear if the miners saw the resurrection story as a parallel for their hoped-for rescue, but Jose Henriquez passed along a letter to CCCI's Maureira from inside the mine. Fiess shared the English translation with CNN:

Thank you for this tremendous blessing for me and my coworkers. It will be good for our spiritual edification. I am fine because Christ lives in me.

We have prayer services at 12 noon and 6 pm.

"At the end of the letter," Fiess said, "(Henriquez) said goodbye with Psalm 95:4, which says, 'In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him.'"

A few days later, Henriquez asked Maureira to get them special T-shirts.

"The T-shirts were a gift from Campus Crusade for Christ Chile," Fiess said. "In the front you can read, 'Gracias Senor' – 'Thank you Lord.'"

And on the back, Psalm 95:4.

"Apparently, all the miners liked them," Fiess said. "It kind of solidified them."


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 Well, there would be no

 

Well, there would be no violation of church and state here. Two reasons:

 

The major one is that church and state is not in the Constitution. That is only in the private letters of Thomas Jefferson. Sure, the government can't get involved in religion. However, that has no real bearing on giving some dudes stuff that will make life stuck two miles underground bearable.

 

Second, if it happened in the USA, it would be a question of a private corporation doing whatever they wanted to do.

 

There is also a matter of being a reasonable human being here.

 

So, we have a bunch of guys stuck a couple of miles underground and it is going to take a couple of months to get them out. Well, if someone says “please drop a bible down the hole” then I am dropping a bible down the hole.

 

Don't get me wrong, dropping food and water down the hole comes first. But we are still dealing with dudes stuck a couple of miles underground. Yet if dropping a bible down the hole is going to make life a hair more tolerable, the down the hole it goes.

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I'll be sending those "Fuck

I'll be sending those "Fuck You Jesus" t-shirts to the families of the 21 dead Chineese miners from this week's collapse...


Atheistextremist
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Yah

 

Well - there was that one miner who emerged - the first one - proclaiming that god and satan had fought for him underground and god had won.

It's obviously subjective confirmation bias at work. If the miners had died, that shit would have been god's plan, too, and greatly to be desired.

All that work that humans did to save the miners, you'd think they would get some credit. But no. They don't even rate a mention.

 

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They contacted NASA and

They contacted NASA and other scientists to find out the best thing to do to keep them alive. I'm not sure if there has ever been a study done on the effects of religious belief on survival rates in difficult circumstances. There may be a limited benefit with some people, but I would suspect science has much better answers. The scientists should have objected unless there was evidence.

The problem with religion is that is creates a moral hazard where people are sent into dangerous jobs and religion is essentially the opiate to help people endure these difficult and dangerous places. It's no coincidence that West Virginia miners are highly religious. With religion, there is no incentive to make the conditions safe because religion tells them not to complain and to fix the problem. God helps you when you suffer, you go to heaven if you die.

When the miners get trapped, the governor prays for a miracle rescue. Instead of doing his fucking job in the first place of not allowing dangerous mines to operate. When the men are killed and injured by black lung, religion is an opiate for the families, so there are no angry family members demanding and end to dangerous mining conditions.

So there is a synergy between religion and dangerous jobs(i.e police military). Just as there is a synergy between religion and poverty, religion and war. Where there is human misery, there is religion and vise-versa.

 

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EXC wrote:They contacted

EXC wrote:

They contacted NASA and other scientists to find out the best thing to do to keep them alive. I'm not sure if there has ever been a study done on the effects of religious belief on survival rates in difficult circumstances. There may be a limited benefit with some people, but I would suspect science has much better answers. The scientists should have objected unless there was evidence.

The problem with religion is that is creates a moral hazard where people are sent into dangerous jobs and religion is essentially the opiate to help people endure these difficult and dangerous places. It's no coincidence that West Virginia miners are highly religious. With religion, there is no incentive to make the conditions safe because religion tells them not to complain and to fix the problem. God helps you when you suffer, you go to heaven if you die.

When the miners get trapped, the governor prays for a miracle rescue. Instead of doing his fucking job in the first place of not allowing dangerous mines to operate. When the men are killed and injured by black lung, religion is an opiate for the families, so there are no angry family members demanding and end to dangerous mining conditions.

So there is a synergy between religion and dangerous jobs(i.e police military). Just as there is a synergy between religion and poverty, religion and war. Where there is human misery, there is religion and vise-versa.

 

You know I don't often agree with you, but this time I do.  Religion is the opiate of the masses.  I think it is also why religious beliefs are so strong among the ex-slave populations.  Often worked when there were serfs.  If you can get people to be complacent about their current conditions, you can treat them like shit in the here and now.

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I think the former slave thing

cj wrote:

EXC wrote:

They contacted NASA and other scientists to find out the best thing to do to keep them alive. I'm not sure if there has ever been a study done on the effects of religious belief on survival rates in difficult circumstances. There may be a limited benefit with some people, but I would suspect science has much better answers. The scientists should have objected unless there was evidence.

The problem with religion is that is creates a moral hazard where people are sent into dangerous jobs and religion is essentially the opiate to help people endure these difficult and dangerous places. It's no coincidence that West Virginia miners are highly religious. With religion, there is no incentive to make the conditions safe because religion tells them not to complain and to fix the problem. God helps you when you suffer, you go to heaven if you die.

When the miners get trapped, the governor prays for a miracle rescue. Instead of doing his fucking job in the first place of not allowing dangerous mines to operate. When the men are killed and injured by black lung, religion is an opiate for the families, so there are no angry family members demanding and end to dangerous mining conditions.

So there is a synergy between religion and dangerous jobs(i.e police military). Just as there is a synergy between religion and poverty, religion and war. Where there is human misery, there is religion and vise-versa.

 

You know I don't often agree with you, but this time I do.  Religion is the opiate of the masses.  I think it is also why religious beliefs are so strong among the ex-slave populations.  Often worked when there were serfs.  If you can get people to be complacent about their current conditions, you can treat them like shit in the here and now.

 

also relates to the integral slave story of the israelites. I like a bit of rocksteady and reggae and those early bands from the mid and late 60s, including funky outfits like the Maytals, have a tendency to talk about god and the israelites and 'nowhere to hide on that wondrous day' in a manner that's more than slightly fast forward-worthy. Admittedly Toots was a preacher's son, so maybe in the case of the Maytals it's no great surprise.

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Answers in Gene Simmons

Answers in Gene Simmons wrote:

 

Well, there would be no violation of church and state here. Two reasons:

 

The major one is that church and state is not in the Constitution. That is only in the private letters of Thomas Jefferson. Sure, the government can't get involved in religion. However, that has no real bearing on giving some dudes stuff that will make life stuck two miles underground bearable.

 

Second, if it happened in the USA, it would be a question of a private corporation doing whatever they wanted to do.

 

There is also a matter of being a reasonable human being here.

 

So, we have a bunch of guys stuck a couple of miles underground and it is going to take a couple of months to get them out. Well, if someone says “please drop a bible down the hole” then I am dropping a bible down the hole.

 

Don't get me wrong, dropping food and water down the hole comes first. But we are still dealing with dudes stuck a couple of miles underground. Yet if dropping a bible down the hole is going to make life a hair more tolerable, the down the hole it goes.

Gene, I hate this argument.

Jefferson's letters, combined with "no religious test" and no mandatory swearing to a God, in the oath of office, COMBINED with the Barbary Treaty article 11, SHOWS his intent. Madison based the First Amendment on Jefferson's Virginia Religious Freedom act, not to mention the First Amendment itself.

You cant take it out of Context, like you are doing.

Religious people cannot be banned from partaking in government, but the government cannot favor one religion over another. But what they cannot do is promote religion and fund it.

Just like prayer is not banned in school, but the government cannot lead or force prayer on students.

What this allows the minorities to do is say, "You either let it all in, or you keep it all out, or you keep it neutral" Since Christians don't want to share government venues, when brought to court over issues like this, they usually back off and go to the neutrality Jefferson envisioned. "Moment of silence".

The intent is to prevent monopolies of power by insisting on neutrality. But enforcing his neutral concept has been loop holed to death and constantly ignored by our Christian majority. Jefferson's intent was very clear, it is just that the public, then, and even today, doesn't understand why he had that intent. He was trying to protect them from themselves and trying to prevent a theocracy from taking hold.

What most revisionists buy,(not you of course) is the bullshit that since a majority Christians landed on the Mayflower, somehow that constitutes a "Christian Nation". The nation wasn't started with the Mayflower, or even the Declaration. It was started when the ink was dry on the Constitution. THAT was the moment it became official.

I really hate the "Separation of Church and State" is not in the Constitution. SO WHY DID Jefferson talk about a "wall of separation" if that was not what the First Amendment meant?"

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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 OK Brian. Let's try this

 

OK Brian. Let's try this again.

 

You are in a hole two miles underground and you are not getting out for a really long time. You ask the guys at the top to shoot you some books so that life will be slightly mote tolerable.

 

Should the people at the other end of the hole have an opinion on your picks?

 

Let me even do this another way. You ask for some epic sci-fi and they send you the entire L. Ron Hubbard collection. Did you have somewhere else you would rather be? Sure but are you going there before you can finish the books​?

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Atheistextremist
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I think the first book I'd

 

be after would be penthouse variations.


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100 Percent Agree

EXC wrote:

They contacted NASA and other scientists to find out the best thing to do to keep them alive. I'm not sure if there has ever been a study done on the effects of religious belief on survival rates in difficult circumstances. There may be a limited benefit with some people, but I would suspect science has much better answers. The scientists should have objected unless there was evidence.

The problem with religion is that is creates a moral hazard where people are sent into dangerous jobs and religion is essentially the opiate to help people endure these difficult and dangerous places. It's no coincidence that West Virginia miners are highly religious. With religion, there is no incentive to make the conditions safe because religion tells them not to complain and to fix the problem. God helps you when you suffer, you go to heaven if you die.

When the miners get trapped, the governor prays for a miracle rescue. Instead of doing his fucking job in the first place of not allowing dangerous mines to operate. When the men are killed and injured by black lung, religion is an opiate for the families, so there are no angry family members demanding and end to dangerous mining conditions.

So there is a synergy between religion and dangerous jobs(i.e police military). Just as there is a synergy between religion and poverty, religion and war. Where there is human misery, there is religion and vise-versa.

 

Couldn't put it better myself.

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