{"id":67370,"date":"2016-04-17T23:30:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T03:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=67370"},"modified":"2016-04-17T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-17T23:11:00","slug":"god-is-better-than-uconns-womens-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=67370","title":{"rendered":"God is better than UConn\u2019s women\u2019s basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Jim<\/a>
Jim Coufal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s pretty well known the UConn women\u2019s basketball team is a dynasty. They have won 11 NCAA Tournament Championships, the last four in a row. They have had dozens of All-American players, Tournament MVP\u2019s, players of the year, and each year they recruit the top young women coming out of high school, including the best of the best from our very doorsteps.<\/p><\/div>\n

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They have had a 90 game winning streak and are currently on a 75-game winning streak, including six undefeated seasons. And they don\u2019t just win, they win big, like the blowout of a super Syracuse team in the recent NCAA Tournament championship game. They are a true dynasty, but God is better.<\/div>\n
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UConn has gone 210 and 13 in its last in its last six seasons. WOW! But notice, they have lost. God never loses. And if you watch closely, the winning UConn\u00a0 players thank God, he doesn\u2019t thank them. In Christian dominionism, that means they must be more worthy than their opponents, who you never see thanking God for keeping them in their place, but that\u2019s another story.<\/div>\n

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God has a distinct advantage to start with. College basketball plays by rules set by the NCAA. God makes his own rules and changes them when it is to his advantage. Or at least he dictates to those many authors who wrote in the bible a message whereby he can\u2019t lose; heads he wins, tails you lose. The different gods of the three major monotheistic faiths, but especially Christianity and Islam, are, according to their beliefs, \u201cthe way, the truth, and the life,\u201d and that means the ONLY way, the ONLY truth, and the ONLY life.<\/div>\n
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In Christianity, there are estimated to be more than 3,000 separate denominations, and, for the most part, each one of them believes it has THE WAY. So no matter how different they are in belief, ritual, structure and tradition, he\u2019s got it covered. God wins, humans lose, including the violence the differences create.<\/div>\n
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When tough questions arise, like the problem of evil in the world – made by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God – it\u2019s a \u201cmystery.\u201d According to theologians, popes, bishops, rabbis, ministers, Imans and other such authority figures, we can\u2019t know the mind of God – as they go about telling us just what the bible, or Torah, or koran means about how we are to live, what we cannot and must do, and how we must be obedient to God\u2019s will.<\/div>\n
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Agnostics are more consistent. They believe we can\u2019t know if God exists or if he does we can\u2019t know his mind, and so they spend little if any time worrying about him. Atheists simply find no conclusive evidence for any god. But God has got this covered too; his emissaries say agnostics and atheists can\u2019t be moral because without God there is no morality. Look around and see how wrong this is, but comfort outweighs truth.<\/div>\n
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The problem of evil is a major stumbling block in believing in an \u201call loving\u201d God. But God\u2019s covered here, too. The bible tells us in many verses that suffering is good for us, it makes us stronger, produces endurance and steadfastness, and leads to heaven, where joy will far outweigh\u00a0earthly suffering.<\/div>\n
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So why not seek to suffer more? Beyond these rationalizations, when something good happens, that\u2019s God. When something bad happens, that humans. Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters beyond human control are \u201cacts of God\u201d – a loving God, but they make us stronger. This goes for prayer, too. If what is prayed for seems to happen, it’s God. If it doesn\u2019t, God knows best, and we can\u2019t understand his mind. The other kind of prayer, worshipful, is puzzling, as well. Why would the all-powerful God need the worship of failed creatures he purposefully made \u201cin his image\u201d?<\/div>\n
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Why do humans commit so much evil? Because God thought it necessary for us to have \u201cfree will,\u201d as if in his omnipotence he couldn\u2019t make us differently. And if we are \u201cin his image,\u201d what does that say about him?<\/div>\n
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To the wretched, God\u2019a message is, ‘…wait, and you will receive justice in the next life.’ To the rich, he warns about the eye of the needle but leaves the notion they are being rewarded and that the wretched must obey those in authority.<\/div>\n
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Got it covered again.<\/div>\n
Jim Coufal of Cazenovia is a part-time philosopher and full-time observer of global trends. He can be reached at madnews@m3pmedia.com.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s pretty well known the UConn women\u2019s basketball team is a dynasty. They have won 11 NCAA Tournament Championships, the last four in a row. They have had dozens of All-American players, Tournament MVP\u2019s, players of the year, and each year they recruit the top young women coming out of high school, including the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23677,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-local","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}