Does God Hate Women Drivers?

December 4, 2008 By Guest Contributor 8 Comments

The short version of the story: A man drove over 100 mph and rammed into the back of a woman’s car because he thought God wanted him to “take the other car off the road.” Thankfully, both drivers are ok.

There was another aspect to the story that really caught my attention, though.

There are two mentions of God in the article.

In one, God is non-existent and malicious, and because the driver believed in Him, he is undergoing psychiatric evaluations.

In the other — just two paragraphs later — God was actually helping both drivers. The sheriff who believes in this God is seen as perfectly normal.

“He just said God said she wasn’t driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road,” said Lt. Kyle Coleman of the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

…

“God must have been with them, ’cause any other time, the severity of this crash, it would have been a fatal,” Coleman said.

Someone please tell me why one of these Gods is supposed to be believable while the other is seen as ridiculous.

(Thanks to Melissa for the link!)

Filed Under: General 8 Comments
  • Lynn

    This sort of stuff is beyond appalling and, frankly, I believe public officials who publicly state they believe “god” had a role in a crime ought to be fired immediately.

  • http://blog.chungyc.org/ Yoo

    Consistency is overrated. At least this must be what these kinds of people are thinking …

  • http://www.otmatheist.com hoverFrog

    Both kinds of god are ridiculous. Both deny any kind of freedom or consequences for actions.

  • http://notapottedplant.blogspot.com/ Transplanted Lawyer

    One invocation of God is really a shorthand for a peculiar confluence of physical and chemical forces that created an unusual result in the guy’s brain. The other invocation of God is real because it’s appealing.

  • Nico

    God’s left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing?

  • Jeff Satterley

    Does anyone remember the Sam Kinison bit where God makes Pat Robertson get up at 3am and check his tire pressure?

    That’s the kind of god that’s appealing to me :-)

  • Richard Wade

    It’s the same process as when Christians claim that other Christians are not “real” Christians when they do something stupid or crazy. If the behavior or outcome is disgusting, appalling, embarrassing or otherwise gets bad press, that’s the “false” belief in the “false” god, it’s called psychosis or whatever. But if the behavior or outcome is good, happy or otherwise gets good press, then that’s the “true” belief in the “real” god.

    All the credit and none of the blame. It’s a great arrangement!

  • Miko

    Simply put, it’s not inconsistent. If one person says that the post office delivers mail and someone else says that the post office is a secret cabal of international terrorists, is it inconsistent to believe only the first of the two statements?

    A better question is why, assuming a god does exist, theists suppose that it’s of the second variety rather than the first.

    Also, there’s some cognitive dissonance going on. People will instinctively find justifications/excuses for whatever positions they already happen to hold. As a real world example, after Bush came into office he blamed everything bad that happened on Clinton’s policies and attributed everything good that happened to his own actions while the Democrats asserted precisely the opposite in each case.