i'm a fairly rational, empirical evidence sorta guy, but i've felt the same thing you're talking about on visits to Ellis Island...

or maybe there were angels.

No!! She said "lose her mind" not looses her mind..so who wastes cyber print??
grammar much?

Cue the Theme to Twilight Zone.........

This woman is obviously more sane than a guy with "Ball" for a last name. Seriously, what's your middle name? Anyway, this woman knows what she saw. She was right not to mention this occurrence at the crash site because then she couldn't have witnessed the full majesty of God's angels in action! Clearly, these heavenly beings were guiding the hands of the rescuers as they cleared the debris and searched for people in the wreckage! And another thing, this woman couldn't donate 100% of the proceeds to a memorial, then how could she be prosperous? This is all God wants for his people!This woman's not turning deaths into dollars. God is using this tragedy to prosper one of his people. You should be ashamed of yourself. Just because this tragedy didn't prosper you doesn't mean you get to condemn someone else who has found a way to make good out of a bad situation!

The really insulting part in all of this is that some people would rather talk about imaginary benefactors than praise the actual hands of the actual rescuers - taking away the agency and selflessness of the people on the scene and chalking it up to the will of mythological beings does a huge disservice to the human beings who do the real working, living, and dying. It is baffling that in 2012 anyone is still pretending that they know, much less can see, the will of a deity, and doubly baffling that they aren't universally dismissed along with UFO abductees and Astrologers.

Will, you are exactly right! This greedy beyoch is simply taking advantage of weak minded and greaving people. While there is no law against such actions (if there were every priest, minister, and other religious leader in America would be in jail), it is still disgusting.

Thank you for your support Richard and Morgan.

And I'm obviously more sane than a guy with "S'more" for a first name.

Will is right. It sounds really lovely and moving, but something that extradinary shared in a book, wouldn't you be compelled to donate all proceeds? I do not mean that she should not make a living, but truly not profiting would lend more credibility to her experience. Boy men really cut right through the crap don't they.

It's insulting because it shifts the focus from the heroic actions of the people who risked themselves to find survivors in the rubble to 'heavenly beings guiding the hands of the rescuers,' as if these people would have been incapable of helping without divine intervention, and it also creates a ridiculous paradigm where the people who the rescuers couldn't reach in time to save were somehow purposefully not chosen by the angels to be helped (and, of course, that's only after these angels decided not to nudge the planes a little to the side and avoid the impacts in the first place).

Faith is a self-imposed delusion by the believer and is eminently deserving of criticism - the universe is vast and the origins of existence are unfathomable, but deluding ourselves to the point of certainty is intellectually irresponsible - peace on earth isn't going to come from making stuff up and insisting that it's true.

I'm not attacking you - I hope it comes across as constructive criticism. And I was addressing the central premise of that post, discounting the contradictory idea that 'prosperity from the event' is different from 'deaths into dollars' when the event itself is death. I don't want to use this blog post as the staging ground for an exhaustive point-by-point discussion on the subject, but it's not that faithlessness is modern, it's that faithfulness is archaic; your god is Zeus, Odin, and Horus. There is no judgment, there is no gap, and you don't need redeeming - as best we know, a major organ stops functioning until you lose consciousness and your body can no longer survive and eventually your body decomposes into particles. Imagined certainty about the very origins and purpose of being distracts us from the human imperative to further our understanding of existence itself.

Samar, intellectual debate involves criticism of differing points of view, but that should not be taken personally. You offer no reason for thinking that 'god' exists; whilst religious people are entitled to have faith in any one (or more) of thousands of gods people have believed in, they invariably are not happy unless everyone else shares their own particular faith. People 'of faith' usually can't offer reasons in support of their belief in a deity (if they could, they would not need to rely so much on faith) so it's difficult for them to rationally convince non-believers (i.e. in the absence of reasons). I'm happy for people of faith to have their faith as long as they keep it to themselves and don't try to impose it on others. A particularly egregious case of this involves ignoring/rejecting scientific evidence (from cosmology, geology, biology etc.) which contradicts the 'young earth' creationist faith, which is inspired by a literal interpretation of the book of genesis.

It's a really common, and understandable, jump to assume that people without faith must believe in THAT in the same manner as those with faith believe (perhaps because that is the lens they already see the world through), but that's simply inaccurate. It is the very concept of 'belief,' which I"m using as synonymous with 'faith,' that I am rejecting - the unwavering certainty in the unknowable that rejects all reason and challenge. For my part, I would be thrilled to see a god, before or after death!, but we have no empirical way of knowing what, if anything, that might be.

And, again, a call for criticism isn't an attack except to those with their minds completely closed to reason.

What gives you the right to judge others John? Seriously, people like you are destroying the modern day church faster than any atheist. Keep talking....

Uh, NO!

If you want to worship and invisible man and believe he has invisible "angels" working for him/her/it, that is your business. Just don't expect the rest of us to fall for the same scam.

But it's NOT closure. Instead it's insulting.

Out of curiosity, where do you think these spirits were escorted to?

Duh Morgan, everyone knows that God is an American.

Morgan, by your own admission, we can't know the will of God. So then, why do you insist on being able to grasp his full majesty to believe in him? You don't offend my sensibility when you say you don't believe in my God. You offend me personally! I see the rescuers' actions as only possible by the direct action of God in their lives. We aren't basically good creatures who just want to make this world sunshine and lollipops. We're bad things that go bump in the night, who praise a person on tv for being "the danger who knocks!" or whatever that is. You're so desperate to disprove the God that I hold so dear for what reason? Just to be a bully? How does it make your life any better to tell me that my God doesn't make sense?

Imagine everyone around you believes in the president and you do too, but I come in and tell you to prove that he exists. You're nowhere near him, but you can tell me proof of his work and I tell you that it was the people of America that did that because it helped that they were involved. There's no way you can empirically prove to me that the president doesn't exist because no matter what you say, I won't listen. That's how atheists are to me. Sticking their fingers in their ears every time someone explains very logical points to them.

Being faithless is shameful. When you truly know that, you'll understand why your existence offends me to my core.

I am with u Eric, not a very reliable source.

Soos - Why? Because I think it's simply not said enough. When we attribute acts of valor to angels and acts of evil to devils it strips us of the responsibility and gravity of what we do, and undermines our imperative to improve our civilization. If we are not responsible for our own actions - praying for a higher test grade instead of studying, angels guiding hands through the rubble, etc. - then we are denying the very possibility of our own ability to do both incredible and horrible things, and our comprehension of the difference is how humanity learns. Deflecting our motivations, both just and evil, to mythical beings is both delusional and deeply counter-productive.