Archive for August 6th, 2008


God Makes A Lousy Co-Defendant

August 6th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

Let’s talk about Matthew Lincoln, the 58-year-old Tennessee man who’s suing his former church. After praying to have “a real experience” while worshiping, Mr. Lincoln was so overwhelmed by his faith that he fell down and hit his head. Twelve months and two surgeries later, he’s still experiencing leg and back pain. When the church’s insurance company refused his claim, Mr. Lincoln sued. He’s asking for payment of his medical bills, wages lost when he was unable to work, and pain and suffering, all of which he values at $2.5 million.

Comment on this story has run along two major themes: “He got what he prayed for,” and “He should blame god, not the church.” I figured that Mr. Lincoln surrendered to the will of his chosen deity, so he should rock his injuries Job-style, and accept his suffering as the whim of that deity.

It’s a little like every story ever written about wish-granting genies. You ask for a whole lot of pudding, and a tanker truck carrying a ton of tapioca crashes into your house. You get what you wished for, with a side dish of zero sympathy. I assumed that a court would set Mr. Lincoln on fire before it awarded him any money.

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Links For Brains: 8/6/2008

August 6th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy
  • The New Humanist Blog does a little investigating, and concludes that the Birmingham, Alabama City Council web-flitering flap was probably caused by a software setting, rather than simple anti-atheist discrimination. (Atheists lumped in with Satan, Baba Yaga and the Boogie Man. Except, you know, real.)
  • FactCheck.org explains that the uranium shipped out of Iraq in July is left over from the end of Gulf War I: The Prequel, and had nothing to do with the still-elusive WMDs that the Bush administration invented out of whole cloth in 2003. (FYI, if you’re not reading FactCheck.org, you probably believe something that’s entirely untrue. If you are, you’re aware that being able to lie convincingly is a prerequisite for political office.)
  • Wired provides useful links and a poorly cropped photograph to point out that forensic DNA isn’t as perfect as the hype. (Nature just keeps right on building better fools.)
  • Some dinky blog seems to think that a lawsuit against a church for a faith-inspired injury isn’t as stupid as it sounds. (I am a filthy self-linker, and I deserve to have a belt sander applied to my genitals.)
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