 |
|
|
|
|
June 15th, 2010
11:02 AM ET
Jesus statue struck by lightningIf you've ever driven between Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, on I-75 then you probably saw the six-story King of Kings statue featuring Jesus coming out of a lake with hands raised in front of the Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio. Monday night the statue was destroyed by fire after being struck by lightning.
CNN iReporters in the area are all over this story. The gleaming white statue was unmissable, even speeding down the interstate. Monroe fire chief Mark Neu told the CNN Belief Blog he's never seen anything like the fire in his 32 years as chief. He said the 62-foot statue had a steel frame and was wrapped in Styrofoam and covered with a fiberglass coating to protect it. At 11:16 last night, the fire department got the call the statue had been hit by lighting and was on fire. "It spread from the statue to the amphitheater," he said. "There was heavy damage to the amphitheater where the stature backed up to. It was a fast-moving fire. We’re looking at $700,000 worth of damage." The chief has spoken with church officials, who have gotten calls about the statue today from as far away as China. "I know the membership of the Solid Rock Church was devastated by the fire and have every intention of putting the statue and the amphitheater back as is was," Neu said. "They said they plan on rebuilding immediately and moving forward." Neu said no one was injured in the blaze. The statue made cameos in loads of Ohioans' snapshots and even made it into the documentary "Jesus Camp." I once got a speeding ticket not far from it while on assignment. The Ohio state trooper would not give me a warning despite the fact my co-worker in the passenger seat asked if it counted if we had a "news emergency." Check out Time.com and CNN affiliate WLWT in Cincinnati for more on the story. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
|
|
|
Bazinga!
...this would never have happened had they put him in a bear suit.
My God help me throw my balls out on the table as if they were dice. Amen.
Touchdown Jesus is at the University of Notre Dame, not some joint in Ohio.
god...he's my favorite fictional character
If the statue had not been errected on a steel frame and not been made of flamable materials, say solid granite, the show that 'God' put on in burning down the statue would have been much more of a 'miracle'. As it was the lightening, a naturally occurring atmospheric phenomenon, was attracted to the talest object around with a potential to lead its extremely high voltage electrical current to ground (the statue's metal frame of the statue and it's rain soaked fiberglass skin). The fibergalss and styrofoam body of the statue burned only because the electrical current and the resistance of the materials it ran through was high enough to raise the temperature of them past their burning point. The fact that some humans will always point to a God's intervention when such acts of nature and physics occur, shows the inherent inability of our human race to evolve as a whole beyond such traditional beliefs and embrace the TRUTH of science that is all around us. If there ever really was a creator of mankind, he/she/they have long since left the planet and only return from time to time via highly evolved space craft to check on their little petri dish experiment that we call Earth.
See... that is plausible. God was an Alien, regardless of your beliefs... if he exists at all, he's not a native!
Well put sir... or ma'am. Unlike the ramblings of righteous-in-christ... who has a paradoxical screen name... because any rightoeusness is "Filthy rags" and claiming to be so is most likely proof of the contrary... so watch yourself R.I.C... you're on dangerous ground!
O bolt of lightining. We thank thee for truely smiteing this graven image and returning it to the atoms from which it was made.
Now if lightning would have struck this staue and NOTHING happened? That would be something worth investigating.
Styrofoam is not rated to withstand 1.21 gigawatts of power, christian god or no christian god.
God definitely has a sense of humor as this fire proves and it also proves the existence of God. LOL!!!!!
answer to Lookingforhope: sunny side up, bacon and hash browns?
Obviously God doesn't like this statue. Why are they rebuilding it? $700,000.00? Money could be better spent on helping their neighbors to keep from going into foreclosure, or for a medical procedure that someone needs and can't afford. This is religion turned to idolatry. The message of love has been lost again. The seed fell on infertile ground.
Lookingforhope, so you obey your god through threat of force? Sounds like a bully or mobster to me...
God is Great!!!!
All these false idols...will get you no where.
My God help me throw my balls out on the table as if they were dice. Amen.
The forces of nature are controlled by God – is this not a sign??
Allahu Akbaar !!!!!!
Socrates asked religious zealots why Zeus would throw lightning bolts at his own temples, and they had no answer. Nearly 2,500 years later, believers still can't come up with a plausible response. Why put lightning rods on church steeples? It makes no sense. If God wants to zap the church, He will, and if not, He won't. Aren't lightning rods a breach of faith? From pedophile priests to suicide bombers to natural disasters, most of the data are consistent with there being no god, but ye of much faith will never give reason a seat at your table. Hate, though, often sits at the head, next to Fear and, lo, Ignorance.
what an excellent point of view!
If you were a girl, I'd marry you. I <3 you.
Well said, StoneMason. Well said indeed. Almost Dickens worthy.
Read the book of Job.
God has distanced Himself from this sin filled earth. Bad things happen here as a result of mans rebellion against God. Satan caused all of Jobs problems not God.
God always warned before causing a disaster. The flood....120 years of warnings and only eight takers. Sodom and Gomorrah, again only a handful. All the earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, there were no warnings, those are just the end results of living in a messed up world that is not the perfect place God intended.
The infidels of the world have been warned enough.
You would think the Solid Rock Church would make a solid rock statue. LOL
Behold the power of Satan
blame Bush