Biblical storm

[B. W.]

Interesting...

Biblical storm cloud of dust and rain 'sent by God to put a barrier between Israel and ISIS'

You know, 98% of the US News Media is not reporting news anymore.

I never heard of this event until today or the event leading up to it.

Whatever one's opinion is, God did send a barrier.

Everyone, we must get our news online...for now...
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[IceMobster]

Whatever one's opinion is, God did send a barrier.

[Mallz]

Saw that when it came out.
Reminds me of the missile that a terrorist organization fired towards Israel during the last war and was deflected in the air. Even they were saying it was an act of God.

[abelcainsbrother]

Saw that when it came out.
Reminds me of the missile that a terrorist organization fired towards Israel during the last war and was deflected in the air. Even they were saying it was an act of God.

Yeah,I also heard I think it was in the war in 1967 but the enemies of Israel saw an army of angels in the sky and it freaked them out and scared them. It's been awhile since I heard about it.Michael and his helpers?

[Mallz]

Yeah,I also heard I think it was in the war in 1967 but the enemies of Israel saw an army of angels in the sky and it freaked them out and scared them. It's been awhile since I heard about it.Michael and his helpers?

No, I meant the last war in 2014.

[abelcainsbrother]

Yeah,I also heard I think it was in the war in 1967 but the enemies of Israel saw an army of angels in the sky and it freaked them out and scared them. It's been awhile since I heard about it.Michael and his helpers?

No, I meant the last war in 2014.

OK,but let's add it up. Enemies of Israel saw angels and it helped Israel win the war,a missile was deflected and now this dust cloud that helped Israel.

[edwardmurphy]

Out of curiosity, why is God acting so sporadically and inefficiently? Why smack one missile but let hundreds more through? And why a dust storm now? Did I miss an ISIS offensive pushing into Israel? And why just between Syria and Israel? Doesn't God know that ISIS is active in Libya and Yemen, too? And why a storm? Surely God can do better than a storm. How about a permanent, invisible barrier that lets the righteous come right in but smites terrorists and missiles and whatnot when they try to pass through? If God is all-knowing then he's seen Star Trek and he knows about shields. Why is he still puttering around with this primitive nonsense? Why inconvenience ISIS when he could smite them instead?

It almost makes me think that you're cherry picking the facts in order to support your own worldview.

[IceMobster]

Out of curiosity, why is God acting so sporadically and inefficiently? Why smack one missile but let hundreds more through? And why a dust storm now? Did I miss an ISIS offensive pushing into Israel? And why just between Syria and Israel? Doesn't God know that ISIS is active in Libya and Yemen, too? And why a storm? Surely God can do better than a storm. How about a permanent, invisible barrier that lets the righteous come right in but smites terrorists and missiles and whatnot when they try to pass through? If God is all-knowing then he's seen Star Trek and he knows about shields. Why is he still puttering around with this primitive nonsense? Why inconvenience ISIS when he could smite them instead?

It almost makes me think that you're cherry picking the facts in order to support your own worldview.

Shut up, Ed. It was the work of GOD!!!!!111

[Mallz]

Out of curiosity, why is God acting so sporadically and inefficiently? Why smack one missile but let hundreds more through? And why a dust storm now? Did I miss an ISIS offensive pushing into Israel? And why just between Syria and Israel? Doesn't God know that ISIS is active in Libya and Yemen, too? And why a storm? Surely God can do better than a storm. How about a permanent, invisible barrier that lets the righteous come right in but smites terrorists and missiles and whatnot when they try to pass through? If God is all-knowing then he's seen Star Trek and he knows about shields. Why is he still puttering around with this primitive nonsense? Why inconvenience ISIS when he could smite them instead?
It almost makes me think that you're cherry picking the facts in order to support your own worldview.

What makes you think He is acting sporadically and inefficiently? What is efficiency and to whose perspective? As far as missiles are concerned, which hundreds let through are you talking about compared to the one that was divinely swatted? Did you just take an isolated event in one war and apply it generally over many wars, places and time (Like, turning what I said into a false rhetorical question)? Why now for a dust storm and not before or after? I'm sure there have been before and will be after. You'd have to explore this last time to see if you could see any reasons (at the least, you would have seen recent ISIS activity at that border. If you had, you know, done anything at all to look into it). And you asking 'why just between Syria and Israel'... really? You really don't know the Christian perspective, here? Can you even try?

God can do better than a storm? You think a shield is better? How can you even guess what is better when you don't even know what good is? What would be the goal of a divinely conjured dust storm? You just assumed protection. What does how He acts in one area (which you don't think He does, since He doesn't exist to you) have to do with how He acts in another (you know nothing about Him, including His motives or how He sees things)? Why doesn't He just smite ISIS right now? Kill off all the unrighteous and ungodly? Well, don't get disappointed, man, just be patient. He will do those things when He does come (and you have more assumptions that he doesn't do any of those things now).

You ask a lot of questions, inquisitions that are oxymoronic in nature. You should really try finding out who He is and how He works. There are very basic things about his nature that are apparent without divine revelation. If you would actually try to get to know Him, perhaps you would see how you're questions are fairly confusing.

[edwardmurphy]

According to Wikipedia - not a great source, but adequate in this instance - between 2000 and 2013 Israel was hit by 8,749 rockets and 5,047 mortar shells. According to you 1 missile was "deflected" by God. Your interpretation of the event seems to be that God didn't want that missile to hit Israel. That begs the question, why didn't He feel the same way about the other 8,749 missiles or any of the mortar shells?

What I'm saying isn't even an attack on God's methodology, which I know is supposedly inscrutable. What I'm questioning is your interpretation of the event. What makes you attribute that one miss to divine intervention? What makes you brush off the 8,749 missiles that hit, killing 50 people and wounding another 1,900? Why are some storms miracles and others not?

In short, why are you cherry-picking like that?

[Jac3510]

According to Wikipedia - not a great source, but adequate in this instance - between 2000 and 2013 Israel was hit by 8,749 rockets and 5,047 mortar shells. According to you 1 missile was "deflected" by God. Your interpretation of the event seems to be that God didn't want that missile to hit Israel. That begs the question, why didn't He feel the same way about the other 8,749 missiles or any of the mortar shells?

What I'm saying isn't even an attack on God's methodology, which I know is supposedly inscrutable. What I'm questioning is your interpretation of the event. What makes you attribute that one miss to divine intervention? What makes you brush off the 8,749 missiles that hit, killing 50 people and wounding another 1,900? Why are some storms miracles and others not?

In short, why are you cherry-picking like that?

I don't know that you can ask that question honestly, ed. So you recognize the "supposedly inscrutable" nature of "God's methodology," but then you ask about it anyway. You say your just asking for Mallz' interpretation, but any answer he gives has to be with reference to why God would intervene in this case rather than another. I mean, that's the form of any answer whatsoever. The mechanics are well enough known--there was a strong wind that at the last second blew the missile off course and pushed it into the sea. So you aren't asking for evidence of a physically impossible event. You're asking why the interpretation of this event should lead us to conclude that God was behind it.

Anyway, it seems to me the inference that God did, in fact, cause the wind is not unwarranted. Proved? Of course not. Unwarranted? I don't think so at all. Here's a description of the events from the Iron Dome operator:

• "A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated [its trajectory]. We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.
  
  "We fired the first [interceptor]. It missed. Second [interceptor]. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.
  
  "Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that…sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a God!’
  
  “I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of God send that missile into the sea.”

So it looked like there was going to be a mass casualty event. All natural attempts to prevent had failed. Four seconds to impact. EMS has already been dispatched to care for the wounded and dead. And then you have the wind blow it off course. That's pretty incredible. It's even more incredible given the stats you cite that supposedly count against the alleged miracle. How is it that out of some nearly 14,000 attacks, you only have fifty deaths?

Now don't misread that question. I'm not suggesting that there have been 14,000 miracles. Those rockets, we all know, are rather poorly designed. They have poor aim. A lot of them end up going to non-populated areas, and the Iron Dome has a 90% success rate at shooting down those directed at populated areas. That still leaves 10% that get through to populated areas and still cause minimal damage. But that's still a lot of rockets generally and still a lot that get through. The casualty rate remains pretty low. So given that, I look with some interest at the fact that one of the very few rockets that gets through by chance and that by chance happens to be aimed in a location that will cause real damage--the kind of damage that could double or triple or more the total number of deaths by such attacks!--is blown off course at the last second.

In other words, it doesn't seem to me that the person who thinks that God intervened to save those people is being unreasonable. In fact, for the sake of argument, let's assume that we live in a world where actual miracles happened and were scientifically acknowledged. Let's say 99.995% of people were theists based on the scientific data (you can never say 100% because there will always be conspiracy theorists, right?). Let's say that you were one of those people and now you read this story. Would you be more or less likely to see the hand of God in this particular case?

So I think confirmation bias would guarantee that you would say that God moved the rocket. "Aha!" you say. "You're just admitting it's just confirmation bias!" And no, I'm not. I'm saying that our beliefs and values do impact how we view the world and that you likely wouldn't think twice in this particular case about questioning whether or not God was involved. Perhaps it would only be confirmation bias, but in that world, theistic ed would argue that there's no evidence it's merely confirmation bias and that you've got plenty of warrant for seeing this as a good example of God's intervention. But I raise this to flip the question. Given the fact that wind blew the missile off course, can you see that the claim of "confirmation bias" when you expect to see natural causes and discount the miraculous or discount supernatural interpretations can be leveled at your own skepticism? And then we have to ask, which is more likely--that ed is just seeing what he wants to see (that a last minute wind just happened to blow a rocket off course and in so doing accidentally preserves the record of extreme ineffectiveness of those rocket attacks) or that Mallz is just seeing what he wants to see (that God moved a rocket at that last minute that would or could have caused the deaths of hundreds and rendered the rocket attacks much more effective than they had been previously)? If you are truly neutral on the God factor from the get go, then I think Mallz' position is much more credible--much less prone to confirmation bias--than your own. It's only when you presume the much higher improbability of God's existence that Mallz' interpretation even hints at being the invented one. And perhaps even MORE on point for this thread is the fact that Mallz does believe in God (and an interventionalist one at that), and so his interpretation seems all the more obviously if not positively warranted!

[RickD]

Jac,

That just may be the most worthless post you've ever posted. You used facts, truth, and accuracy, to try to explain something to edwardmurphy.

That truth stuff doesn't have any effect on him.

[Mallz]

According to Wikipedia - not a great source, but adequate in this instance - between 2000 and 2013 Israel was hit by 8,749 rockets and 5,047 mortar shells. According to you 1 missile was "deflected" by God. Your interpretation of the event seems to be that God didn't want that missile to hit Israel. That begs the question, why didn't He feel the same way about the other 8,749 missiles or any of the mortar shells?

What I'm saying isn't even an attack on God's methodology, which I know is supposedly inscrutable. What I'm questioning is your interpretation of the event. What makes you attribute that one miss to divine intervention? What makes you brush off the 8,749 missiles that hit, killing 50 people and wounding another 1,900? Why are some storms miracles and others not?

In short, why are you cherry-picking like that?

Seriously dude, you're just insulting my critical thinking ability with more back-loaded assumptions. How you even phrase your questions assumes the other rockets and mortars 'went through' without any providence involved (how exactly do you know what my interpretation is..?). And I wasn't pointing out His methods as much as I was pointing to His motives. As Jac took the time to show, you don't just take anything you see and apply it through your worldview lense without critically thinking about it (like you just did). Which further shows me the lack of seriousness you show me as a person. If you would actually say something, ask something, that relates to me, I'd be happy to explain myself to you. So far, I've only gotten things coming from you that you attribute to me and I'm not sure where you are pulling them from (projecting?).

Why are some storms miracles and others not?

This is something more along the lines I can answer. But know that my answers are drawn from observations and experimentation with finding out who He is and how He is (including in force). That is a very general question that could really be unpacked. We'd have to get on the same page to do it, though, which includes you exploring how I see things, instead of attributing assumptions. What constitutes a miracle for you? Why would God intervene some places and some places seemingly not? That goes into the area of motive for Him. Do you know what the motives are for Him intervening subtly to overtly? There would be many more questions to 'get on the same page' to discuss this. Which I could see being very hard to do with someone who has back-loaded beliefs on the topic and seemingly attributing them to me (and that's typical for us all. A responsibility we have to overcome, so don't think I'm singling you out or something). Anyways, if you really are curious and want to know, I'll have a discussion with you.

[edwardmurphy]

I'm hurt, Rick. I always look for facts, truth, and accuracy.

Regarding this missile story, here are the facts:

1) The story originated on an ultra-Orthodox Israeli website called Kooker. I haven't been able to find out much about them. They only get mentioned in regard to the missile story and to an article they published by a guy named Ben-Zion Gopstein. Gopstein is the director of an Israeli Jewish anti-assimilation organization called Lehava. They made the news in 2015 when they demonstrated outside a Christmas celebration at the Jerusalem International YMCA, apparently shouting "The Arabs won't defeat us with knives, and the Christians won't buy us with presents!" In his Kooker article Gopstein wrote “Christmas has no place in the Holy Land. Missionary work must not be given a foothold. Let’s throw the vampires out of our land before they drink our blood again.” So...

2) The Kooker story was reposted verbatim on the usual conservative Christian sites. None of them seems to have done any sort of investigative work other than the usual check to see if the story fit their narrative.

3) The article didn't include any information that I could actually look up, like the battery commander's name, or some dates, or any sort of corroboration. The only thing that could be checked is the claim they "knew where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters" and that they calculated that the "missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya or the train tracks." Since that was all I could find to look up I pulled up Google Maps and checked if those locations were within 200 meters of each other. The Azrieli Towers and the Kirya are nearly a kilometer apart. I don't know where the train tracks are, so who knows about that. So anyway the one fact that could be checked ended up being inaccurate.

In conclusion, the only information that we have about this "miracle" is a vague anecdote published on an ultra-orthodox website that also publishes anti-Christian rants from the leader of a group with a history of hate crimes and violence against the police.

[RickD]

Ed wrote:
I'm hurt, Rick. I always look for facts, truth, and accuracy.

Yes Mr. Ed, I'm sure you always look for the truth.



Ed,

Put your big boy britches on. I'm just teasing you. Just because you're a liberal, that doesn't mean you can't be objective, on occasion.