gravitybow

I'm sure there are several religious sites out there attaching some significance or other to the recent shuttle tragedy. My dad sent me this tribute called The Gates of Pearl from We Praise Him Ministries. (note: midi file and pop-ups included)

The material is copyrighted, so I can only use a snip to get my point across. The tribute ends:

Now, We Praise Him Ministries says of itself elsewhere on its site:

What We Believe (Statement of Faith)

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible authoritative Word of God.
• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• We believe in the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
• We believe that regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for the salvation of lost and sinful men (born again).

...etc

There are several NASA photos in the tribute, but there is also a painting of Jesus with his outstretched hands welcoming souls to Heaven. The caption reads: I never said it would be easy...I only said it would be worth it," which is an obvious reference to accepting Jesus as one's Lord and Christ and following the straight and narrow, consistent with the site's nature.

But the religious makeup of the crew was Hindu, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Charismatic Christian, Unitarian, Episcopalian and Baptist.

This, then, is the inconsistency of what the tribute says versus what the website professes: If being born again is required for salvation (and a trip to Heaven), then the tribute is lying about the fate of the Jew, the Hindu, and the Unitarian. On the other hand, if the tribute is an accurate reflection of the fate of the crew, then being a born-again Christian is not necessary to get to Heaven. But I suppose what bothers me most about this fantasy tribute is that it has taken an ill-fated scientific odyssey of seven dedicated individuals and turned it into an evangelical joy ride to Heaven.

Rusting Car Bumper

I think one should note which religious flavors seem to forward these "they are with the Lord now" type things.

It's only evangelical or fundamnetalist Christians. The Unitarians, Catholics, Hindus, etc. don't go around making these statements.

There might be something telling in that.

DC

Bree

Calling QoS...We haven't had a Weekly Nutwatch in awhile!

Chrestomathy

I think she's holding out for her own forum....

gravitybow

(sigh)
Right you are, DC. Only my Dad's side of the family (very religious) sends me prayers, petitions, and poems. Sadly, if it weren't for these occasional missives, I wouldn't hear from them at all. A "Hi, son" or "Hi, nephew" would be nice. But I do admit there is a perverse satisfaction in getting these crazy things to read. Haven't written my Dad back on this one yet, but it'll look pretty much like what I've posted above.

Shake

Yeah, there was a cartoon on the editorial page the other day showing two guys in white robes standing on clouds. They were saying something like, "Columbia's on final approach now." A blatant opinion that the shuttle and crew were now in Heaven ®. Whatever.

atheist_in_foxhole

Yeah, I'm sure they're all up in Heaven now (except for the Jew and the Hindu, both of whom are burning in the Lake of Fire that they decided to jump into when they rejected our Lord).

The ones who made it to Glory are probably asking Gawd why He decided to have them burned to a crisp and torn to pieces in the skies over Texas.

A great ship? Please. It disintegrated during re-entry. It probably should have been retired years ago.

I always get a kick out of reading these "statements of faith" on Xian websites. These people are fucking insane!

Shadowy Man

Makes it sound like they were meant to die.

philechat

Beyond stupid. I just love how people are fond of creating tasteless poems "on occasion" that they are completely wound up with their own earnestness, forgetting about any sort of art in writing. Can't stand them...and the 911 poems as well. People must wake up from the whole "as long as there's a message they are good art" mentality. To quote Oscar Wilde, "all bad art are sincere".

scombrid

Has NASA considered the possibility of the pilot having been raptured?

The folks that write poetry like that don't think to much about the deeper meaning of their words or any contradictions there in.

Other Christian websites have purported this to be a sign of god's anger much like 911.