“We have lost everything and yet we have lost nothing,” said Paul, a former New York City cab driver who also worked in New Jersey. “It can’t be anything but a miracle.”

“God wanted all of this to happen.”

I’m reading 200 thousand people died and this guy says “God” did a miracle. Does he think there’s something special about his church that saved it that’s not true of all the other places, no doubt including churches with kids, where people died.
I’m glad he was providing English and arithmetic education and I’m glad those orphans didn’t happen to be inside then but for him to say things like that make me think he’s deranged. It could easily be a sort of post traumatic stress syndrome.

nnmns, I’m just thankful he’s not going to fire people in the wake of one of his country’s greatest disasters because dinner was a little late. At least he has some perspective, I guess.

the article starts out “in a place in need of miracles here’s one. Then it goes on to say, “None of the 56 children, ages 4 to 17, who live at the orphanage was killed”
Who on earth could be discontented about that? Oh yeah nnmns and Mordred.
I like this story and I like the story about the adopted kids that were found, they were adopted by a young white couple who in the video were hugging and loving the little ones, it was some of the best footage. Then the Russian rescue team that pulled the kid out of total devastation, or the young lady that was completely buried and only her face exposed. Not to help but to tear down and criticize people who lived through it is no different from Robertson and Limbaugh.

First, cknuck, neither Mordred nor I was “discontented” that those kids were injured, but it’s all too typical of you to lie and say we were.
It’s not surprising that some people would pick out a chance event and claim it’s a miracle of their particular deity; that happens a lot. We used to read articles about a Bible stopping a bullet aimed at the one carrying that Bible. And it may have happened but what didn’t get written were all the stories about the people also carrying Bibles who were hit and died.
Aside from Paul’s crazy claims, another problem is that the article leaves out any mention of all the churches where people did die and of the places children died, probably including in some churches. The article could give those inclined to fantastical beliefs the idea here was evidence of a miracle.
In fact it was a lucky random event seized on by a person who seems to have mental problems and perhaps wants to ride the miracle claim to success in the religion industry. If he gets over his delusion and goes back to educating kids in Haiti I’ll give him due credit. That random event and claim was picked up by a reporter who wrote it up along the lines of those old Bible bullet articles and sold it to a news service predisposed to supporting belief in the fantastical. It’s a hack story about a piece of good luck in a place with so much bad luck that day.
Oh, and I credit Seker Dorval, the 17-year-old who kept those kids out of the building by accident. He might have implied “God” had chosen him to do “His” work but, unlike Paul, he did not.
I hope we are all donating some money for Haiti.

I stand by what I said. If I had been in Paul’s situation, I’d like to think firing people because dinner was late would be the last thing on my mind. And surprise surprise, I agree with nnmns. I hear about 56 children surviving a major disaster, and I just can’t help but wonder why thousands more didn’t make it. What’s wrong with having high standards when it comes to miracles?

First sentence over again, right this time:
First, cknuck, neither Mordred nor I was “discontented” that those kids were not killed (in fact I said I was glad they weren’t inside), but it’s all too typical of you to lie and say we were.
Why would you lie about that, cknuck? Are you so disposed to attack us that you ignore what’s written in front of your face? And it really would hurt to be compared to Limbaugh and Robertson by anyone trying to be objective. It didn’t hurt a bit when you did it.

How on earth would you know nnmns sitting at your computer judging what this person went through, you are a sad piece of work relentless in trying to shred people’s faith even in the face of adversity, this man has nothing else and you would try to damage that faith which he holds on to. Don’t you know when to quit.

nnmns the only other perssons that has said anything like you and Mordred is Robertson and Limbaugh. I have heard absolutely no one else dare to say anything like that, sounds pretty objective to me.

Hey, I wasn’t the one to take the delusional words of a traumatized man in a region of such horror and turn it into a claim of a miracle to further the fantastical claims of a religion.

Robertson and Limbaugh have proven once again and for all time they are lame media prostitutes who will say and do anything at the expense of anyone (other than themselves) to get attention. Anyone who takes them seriously is simply “the John” who is willing pay to have their own fears stroked and anxieties stimulated. They are a blight on the Freedom of Speech and of the Media. And I am being gentle in the expression of my opinion here (Glenn Beck shares the same corner for his own prostitution)
The REAL Miracle will be if Haiti’s leadership is finally able to straighten out and begin to serve the people rather than abuse and neglect them.

The minister said God had given them a miracle. A miracle is in the “eye of the beholder”, some people on the plane in the east river of NYC who were all rescued said the same thing, and didn’t mean that because they had a miracle that other people who hadn’t had a miracle were less deserving than they were at other crashes. I don’t think the minister thinks that he is more special than the rest of the Haitians who were in the wrong place at the time of the quake.

I hope not. But stories like that disturb me (obviously, I guess) because they can be used to make the innocent believe in miracles that, so far as we can tell, aren’t. And thus to further fantastical religions.

nnmns to any other rational thinking person that would be the last thing on their mind in light of the magnitude of this disaster and the reporting of 56 children, ages 4 to 17 that survived the devastation. In a place full with lost of life a story like this should be joyful but your sole focus is to attack the person’s belief. It only goes to show the level of your commitment to attack anything having to do with God anywhere. Most Christians I know would never spend that level of energy on atheism.

You do, cknuck. And I didn’t attack his Christianity, just his claim to be involved in a miracle and especially the “journalism” that created such an article. At least try to attack me based on what I do, not on what you falsely claim I do.
But I really came back here to make a link to a column on the blockage-of-aid case you don’t hear about.

We cheer when a Haitian child is rescued from the rubble, but ignore the thousands of Gazan children who are suffering malnutrition and being buried by Israeli policy, a policy that is a war crime.

On Wednesday, 80 international aid groups called upon Israel to change its policy of blockading civilians in Gaza, because it is having severe negative effects on the health of Gazans.

Admittedly, the situation in Gaza is not as dire as that in Haiti. But it is very, very bad, and it is man-made. The Israeli government imposed a blockade on the Gaza strip in 2007 and has maintained it ever since. It limits the import of fuel and staples, and punishes the whole population. Since half of the 1.5 million Gazans are children, the Israeli siege of the little territory is among the more massive ongoing cases of child abuse in the world. There is a virtual news blackout on this atrocity in the US mass media, and attempts of two sets of activists to get humanitarian aid to Gaza in recent weeks were largely ignored by them.

It’s our support of Israel, when it does this and when it steals Palestinian land and on and on which is a big reason we were attacked on 9/11 and are targeted now. Our uncritical support of Israel is a heavy weight around our nation’s neck.

IMO, for what it is worth, the fact that ANYONE survived this horrible earthquake, children, adults, dogs, cats etc. is in it’s own way, is a miracle. What is unfortunate is that those who have survived the actual quake, may die from lack of help…survive only to die from hungar or disease or from the wounds they suffered during the quake. A poor country now even poorer due to Mother Nature and some of her fury.

pagan if you have seen the way that they are distributing food it is a shame; hoovering over the masses tossing food out while the people fight over the food. It is demeaning and only serves to feed the strong while the weak and most needy go without. my people in disaster areas always serve on the ground face to face equally.

cknuck, my information has come from NPR and TV. The whole situation was made worse, apparently, with the lack of roads into the area. Having sent my contribution to the Red Cross, (stuck with a known organization) I can only hope that things have gotten better with the distribution of food, water, and medical help. Getting to the folks “face to face equally” may have been harder there…but obviously I don’t know. All in all, it is all extremely tragic.

Red Cross is one of the best for donations, they will get a good percentage of your dollar where you want it.

“Red Cross is one of the best for donations etc.” cknuck
Thanks for the conformation of what I thought, cknuck. I know it has had a few problems in the not to far past, but I understood that those situations were taken care of. )