Sainthood, Miracles and Wack a Mole

Didn't the church f*ck up Native Americas back in the day. Oh wait, they were civilizing them (and raping them, and killing them and giving them diseases). So this morning when I wasn't playing wack a mole in my bed, and I was listening to NPR, I was so WTF...Pope Dookie Head started the canonization process for a Native American to become a saint. Ugh, I feel lazing right now, do I wanna go into all the details-n-stuffs (this is why I'm a stoner blogger and not a journalist). Ugh.

OK then, on to some of those pesky details (I'm not even gonna research this, I'm doing it from memory, so there) that make articles good and newsworthy. There is a boy that got into an accident and when he was in the hospital he got a flesh eating strep infection, the doctors said "sorry, this is all we can do", they are Native American so an elder suggested praying to Kateri Tekalwith, of the tribe that they are from-Lummi-because she was also disfigured by that small pox that came from whitey. Guess what, it frackin' worked. Or did it.

The boy, five year old Lil' Jake, got better. An elder came and "I pinned that relic (a coin with her image on it) to his pillow and I read that prayer to him every single day." Then lil' Jake was cured. Man oh man, that IS the definition of a miracle, which btw is one of the requirements to become a saint...which btw Kateri is on her way to become (so sayith Pope Dookie Head). Oh wait...one more thing. Lil' Jake was receiving the best medical attention at the hospital that he was staying at. So...WTF.

First of all Team Skeptic, if that is your/our real name, there is no such thing as a miracle. Fo sho there are miraculous events that do occur, but a true blue miracle, an event that defies the natural laws of the universe...well, that shit don't exist man. Admittedly, we may not be able to explain how Lil Jake's flesh eating disease just plain stopped, but to automatically chalk it up to a *miracle* is to insert that god that everyone keeps talking about into those gaps that skeptics keep talking about (which are also the gaps that science keeps filling). 

Second...prayer don't workie workie either. That Study of Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer that Team Atheist keeps referring to concluded that 1) prayer had no effect on recovery and 2) the patients that were prayed for did worse. Yes that is, did worse. If you are on the Team and you haven't checked out that particular study, check it out, yo.

This is the result of Googling Pope Dookie Head.

So what is there, besides chalking up to " I dunno." What is there? The only thingy that really does exist, all you kind gentle and very good looking readers, statistics and probability (yippie). There was a chance of passing away for Lil Jake, but there was also a chance of surviving. Occurrences with the probability of 1-1 million happen several times a day. Weirder things have happened: the tornado that rips up a town, but that one house is untouched, cancer remission for no apparent reason and Lil Jakes strep infection just plain stopping (and now that I think of it, perhaps it ran it's course). Again, just because right now we cannot explain how the recovery happened, we do not have to go right for the miracle card. Miraculous yes, but to say it is a bonnafide miracle, like from God-n-shit, no way (1). OK back to Native Americans.

I think this song is romantico and I saw them in the early 90's and when they were playing they asked for weed and people threw joints onto the stage.

It always perplexes me when beautiful brown people accept and promote the very God, the whitey god, when dudes peeps fucked us up. Let's see, mmmm, slavery was ordained by God but then the very same God was used for redemption of the slaves. My Filipino peeps were all, like, kill-ed, raped and kill-ed some more by those Spanish and now the Philippines boasts (to my embarrassment) to be the most Catholic country in S.E. Asia. And now, because of Pope Dookie Head, we have the original nature loving hippies, the Native Americans, being canonized and sent down the road to sainthood.

Say it isn't so.

* Friendly Atheist

* The actual survey

* USA Today article

* Formely known as The Skeptics Dictionary For The New Millennium...I think.

(1) ...and howz about instead of claiming its a miracle, why don't we use the scientific method and solve this mystery. that is the difference between faith and science...the quest for truth.

* I don't know why that one paragraph is underlined. Revoke my Asian nerd card.