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This is a true story about D-Day, June 6, 1944. It happened on Omaha Beach. Karl, the German corporal I heard say these words in a BBC documentary recently, was speaking of himself and of one of the enemy, the American soldiers who had just landed on the Normandy shore. It seems that both survived the Omaha massacre in which the Germans were decimated and the Americans lost 90% of their troops. After the war, Karl somehow met Jimmy, one of the rare G.I. survivors. They became friends and discovered that they had both prayed during the assault. It would seem that, for once, both their prayers were answered.
There is, of course, another take on this. You and I know they were just damned lucky, though both veterans are convinced it was far more than luck. God, they say, heard their prayers and saved their lives. In their minds, their survival is proof. Cause and effect. It would be unkind to ask Karl and Jimmy what they thought about all the others who prayed – and stayed, right there on the beach or in the bunkers with a bullet in their heart or their head blown off. But if it were possible to dialogue with these two survivors, firm in their shared faith that God chose to protect them and not so many others, one could question the criteria for His selectivity. (Please don’t give me the “mysterious ways” bit or dare say it to the families who still mourn the death of a loved one). The very question implies another : were they begging a figment of their imagination to save them ? They swear God protected them. So He exists. Q.E.D.
RIDENDA RELIGIO
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
Yes, isn’t killing each other, & praying to be saved, just delightful?!
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Some readers may remember that I invented something called the “Credulity Quotient”, the “C.Q.”, a cousin of the I.Q. I suggested that political candidates submit to a series of tests to determine what they are prepared to believe. Public knowledge of their score would be at least as valuable to voters as the still-unpublished Intelligence Quotients of people seeking public office.
Our two reconciled soldiers, survivors of Omaha Beach, are both at the extreme right end of the Credulity Scale. I am pretty close to the other extreme. I need reasons to believe something, though I know I can never be sure as to the ingredients of prepared food. I just have to take the manufacturers’ and the store’s word for it. I do not have to take the Bible’s word for anything.
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There are of course many many things that we believe even though we may not be able personally to verify them – electromagnetic radiation, quarks and mesons and other sub-atomic particles, dark matter etc etc. In most instances of this type of information we are on very safe ground because we use devices that engineers and scientists can manufacture using the data that we accept “on faith” – devices like MRI imaging machines, phones that enable us to talk to someone on the other side of the world or even the moon etc etc.
Other claims involving belief in God or gods have to be taken “on faith” without any real prospect of testing their validity. Others again seem to be incompatible with what we know to be true – the claim for example that Christ was/is true God and true man but was nevertheless born of a Virgin. I’ll let you figure that one out for yourselves.
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The D Day !!!
We can forgive them because it’s very old
Now, the good believers, in fact the muslim ones, pray to be killed, (become saints and have all the women they want)
Most come true. The progress …
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