Animals
Health
Environment
Technology
History
Strange News
Space & Astronomy
Society
A 50-year-old pastor in San Antonio was killed after being struck by lightning while hiking with his sons.
Lightning kills about 66 people in the United States every year. Many of those deaths involve obvious tempts of fate by people who ignore the rumble of thunder and remain outdoors.
But bolts can strike entirely out of the blue, too. Last month a Florida man was killed by lightning under clear skies.
July 26th, 2007 at 1:16 am
Acts of God happen; there are no guarantees you won’t be struck by lightning.
Not sure what point this article is trying to put across. Nothing in the story implies the man and his sons were tempting fate by being outdoors. I can only conclude this was newsworthy because the man was a pastor and it is sporting to point out the irony that he was struck down by lightening. It must be a tragedy for the family.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Acts of God? Then God must have been really upset this week, because it also sent another lightning bolt to kill two teenagers that were playing soccer in Nicaragua and yet another that killed a boy and nine cows on a filed in Costa Rica. This last one was a “dry event” with no storm associated to it.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
I was once a born again christian and have an amazing lightning story which can be confirmed by others.
One day an american styled preacher (I’m from australia) who was obviously a con-man apparently caused the healing of a friend who was confined to a wheelchair due to multiple schlerosis (MS).
Because of this preachers obvious slimyness, it lead many of us to look for an alternate explanation… yet caused others to confer on this pastor the very authority of god (which he still enjoys).
That night, lying in bed with my wife, huge electrical storm in progress still perplexed by the events of the day… on the stroke of midnight we heard an explosion in the loungeroom followed by the tinkle of broken glass….
Investigating, I found our TV blown to smithereens… lightning had struck it… a burnt patch with trails radiated across the glass top table from the TV’s sad carcass.
That moment the veil lifted… I saw the light! There was NO god!… just a lightning strike!
Now I take the lightning bolt as my symbol… my life became amazingly full since that day (25 years ago)… more creativity, more coincidences and more happiness has been my lot.
My conclusion: Events happen and human beings are somehow compelled to concoct meaning from them… but that meaning doesn’t really exist.
There are no acts of god.
We are merely entertaining ourselves to the light goes out.
July 30th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
bovril said:
“there are no acts of god” I couldn’t agree more, and it takes me to conclude that:
a) God doesn’t exist and whatever acts we would like to attribute to HIM are just random/natural and /or unexplainble coincidences.
b) God doesn’t care for whatever happens to you.
c) God sends heavenly punishment to little kids just in case or as a remaider to the rest of us.
d) God doesn’t act, just watches.
e) God is in your mind
Pick one.