During the rescue of the Chilean miners, I heard/read lots of people saying that they were praying for the miners. And once all 33 of the miners were rescued, people said, “Thank God!” followed by: “It’s a miracle that they made it out.” The president of Chile even said:
What started as a tragedy is ending as a real blessing. I think that the miners have given us an example of unity, of teamwork, of faith. Their families, they never lost faith
…
It was a miracle, because on the first day the odds were against us… At the end of the day, the miners were in the hands of God.
Well, actually, no. The miners were not in the hands of god. They were in the hands of humans. And it was humans who saved them.
God (if it exists — which I don’t think it does) had absolutely nothing to do with this mining incident. God did not save those miners — people did. People who used a lot of scientific knowledge and then bravely went down into the mine to rescue the trapped miners. If god was real and had any power and genuinely wanted those miners saved, it could’ve teleported them out of the mine or something like that.
And if god is so into saving miners all of the sudden, how do you explain the miners recently trapped in China? Did god just decide that miners in Chile are more important this week?
I know that that argument (“Why can’t god save everyone?”) is tired… my main point is this: People keep giving credit to god saying it was a miracle or that faith kept the miners alive, etc. Well, no, it was actually modern science that did both. I hate it when people praise god for things that humans did. It only diminishes the accomplishments of humans and hands them over to some nonexistent being.
Let’s give humans credit for what humans do.