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September 9th, 2011
11:08 AM ET
Family credits Virgin Mary statue for saving their house from wildfire(CNN)– Wildfires are raging in Texas. At the Garcia's home in Montgomery County, Texas the fire line comes right up to a statue of the Virgin Mary. The family tells CNN affiliate KTRK they believe the statue helped saved their home.
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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.  |
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My santa statue spared me from the flood in Harrisburg this week too....
My jesus statue makes for a great stake for one of my vines to grow on. My Mary cangles helps in the bathroom when one goes number #2.
cangle???? meant candle
amazing! gotta love Santa.
Satanist name sake, inner spirit troubled by his blasphemies, not letting him type correctly.Down deep he fears the judgement of God for his foolishness.
I have a freind that has a Mary on a Half shell on his mantle piece.
I is also a marital aid with 2 c cells.
Is he protected as well?
The Virgin Mary does not, nor did she ever, have super powers. Neither does a rock carved to look like her, or a grilled cheese sandwich that "has her face on it." There is no biblical evidence to support such a belief.
Wouldn't a true "atheist" consider the phrase "biblical evidence" an oxymoron?
@Stoopid Peeple
You make me sad, considering you answered to a Theist, not an atheist, pretty sure he is at liberty to believe that the bible is rockhard evidence
Define biblical evidence????? We have a grilled cheese sandwhich with jesus's face on it. It cannot be denied and it does exist. Do you have more than words????
@Laughing
So what you're saying is...even God can make a grilled cheese so hot that even he couldn't eat it? Now THAT makes ME sad.
He's a theist, not an atheist.
Stewpid people.
there is not biblical evidence that the bible is true. u just accept it, me too
@Anton Biblical evidence: textual support as quoted from the Bible.
@miguel: I use historical and archaelogical evidence to support the idea that the Bible is true. From that basis I use the Bible as a credible source to argue on issues regarding the Bible–such as Christianity.
@Stoopid You've successfully proven that you can state a tautology, not "stump God."
There are some Hispanic Catholics in Texas (as elsewhere) who do believe there is power in images of the saints. Please know this is not at all a common belief of the majority of Texans. This story represents a minority of Catholic Texans. Most of the religious people in Texas are not Catholic. We do believe God is in control however. No matter how good or bad the situation is, God is still in control. And whether or not you believe as this Catholic family believes, you should not insult another's faith. They have a right to their belief just as you have a right to your nonbelief.
What does anybody's opinion have to do with another's rights????????
.
Yes god is in control and he likes to watch.
Well said. Let people believe what they want. Why is there so much hatefulness when people talk about God?
Why is it that some people accuse God of the catastrophies that happen? God does not cause these catastrophies, it is the work of satan. God only allows things like this to happen so the universe will learn how evil sin really is. Unfortunately things are going to get worse because satan knows his time is short, his days are numbered and he and his angels will do all the damage of destroying all the lives of people that they can.
Bo–do you really believe this nonesense, or are you just a troll writing crud and sitting back to watch what happens?
If I have the power to stop a murder, but I allow it to happen to prove a point, aren't I just as guilty?
Bo
If my rabid labrador kills my neighbor It is my fault.
If Jesus's gay lover Satan burns down a rednecks house it is Jesus's fault,
This is a fact. The fire stops at the Virgin Mary Statue. It has been verified, it has been recorded, It is just a fact whether you believe it or not, it happened, period!!!!!!!!
great, and?
Its also a fact that almost a thousand Christian homes have burnt down.
If Jesus has done one, he has done both.
Nice God you got!
This is the "Virgen de Guadalupe", NOT the Virgin Mary!
Waiting for cnn to do a story about the moronic comments people make anytime a story comes up about Texans suffering… Proving, once and for all, that we Texans are better than everyone else because we don't dance on the graves of our fellow Americans. Stupid liberals and tea party morons alike are still my American brothers and sisters and although I disagree with them I’d never celebrate their pain.
Actually it is. It's the Virgin Mary who appeared in Guadalupe. She is also known as Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Yes Honey, I know the history of the "Guadalupe".
When the Spaniards invaded/settled/conquered/discovered (whichever way you want to "believe'), they had to DARKEN the Virgin Mary to look like them to convert them to christianity.
Since you "knew" the history you should have "known". 🙂
@texans are better....HUH? Time for your meds or more jesus juice?
@wandering....HUH? No more meds or juice juice for you! 🙂
Just saying!
@wandering...your "saying" makes no sense. 🙁
Oh, come off it now! Let's grow up people.
Of course the rest of the neighborhood burned to the ground. No mention of God in that outcome.
.
Is it just impossible for people to be gentle with one another? At what point in our lives do we become mean spirited? What psychological abuse does our society inflict that makes it seemingly impossible to respond to a story like this by simply saying that it is wonderful that the fire didn't go any further.
It has become fashionable to be rude and hateful.
It is always the abuser who wants peace once the tide has turned against him.
Sorry, but the Bible specifically says that God doesn't save one's person house (or spare someone) specifically because they believe in him. They got lucky and should certainly be thankful, however that statue did nothing. You can't say that statue saved you but then a church burns down and then what? God didn't like that church?
The fact of the matter is that the Bible says both good and bad things will happen to good and bad people. There are random events and that doesn't specifically mean God is mad at the region/place specifically. Unfortunately these uninformed Christians make the rest of us look bad, wish they'd actually know what His word says.
Be thankful? Absolutely. God saved you bc of the statue? Absolutely not.
Holy crap I am in agreement with you ?????????????????????
and u and ignorant. Chatholictst don't pry to Mary. read at least the heil marry
@Alfonzo Muchanzo–you seem like a reasonable person. How do you account for the numerous inconsistencies in the Bible? For that matter, how do you decide which things in the Bible to follow and which to ignore? I mean, it says in the bible to take your slaves from the surrounding nations, but I don't know many people who would follow this advice today. It also says we should stone an adulterer to death. Can't see that happening much either. I ask these questions respectfully. I am not trying to create a gotcha moment. It just seems that people take what they want and ignore the rest, yet insist the Bible is the word of God. and honestly, I don't pick out the Bible only for these questions. I think the other major religions have similar questions to answer.
Catholics should stop worship statues. I hope all these natural disasters on American soil would stop Americans from manual burning of churches. Some Americans are so anti-religious.
You say anti-religious like it is a bad thing. Personally, I think many shortcomings of this country are because of religion. Don't get me wrong, I fully support each person's right to believe or not believe whatever they want, so long as they don't directly hurt anyone else or try to force others to live by their chosen creed.
For your (narrow-minded) information: Catholics don't worship statues, they don't hold Mary as divine. Catholics ask saints to have them pray for them or for others, and hold Mary as special among all saints. The statues are reminders of their presence among us, and of our need to do as they did when they were alive on earth.
Too many decide to criticize when they should be thinking about the need for faith, the need for young people to find faith, to find compassion, to find saints to use as role models. All you negative people are examples of what is wrong with the world today - and even Mary is surely praying for you.
Well said Ann Rice. 🙂
Do you folks have jobs ?
Yup, I'm at mine right now. Making great money too. How about you? Hm?
Of course- i just find it interesting that people blather on about religion / politics ect on a news website.
Winning over hearts and minds on cnn.com / now excuse me as i have a steamer brewing – plop plop giggle giggle.
So, why aren't they dropping Mary statues on the fire?
Exactly what I was thinking!
LOL. Good one.
🙂
ok, that was funny
I won't defend the idea that this statue of Mary had any thing to do with saving this home, but I don't condone the sacastic remarks either, they are so lowbrow. Such remarks only tarnishes the character of the person making the remark.
Bo
I won't defend the idea that this statue of Mary had any thing to do with saving this home, but I don't condone the sacastic remarks either, they are so lowbrow. Such remarks only tarnishes the character of the person making the remark.
----–
Sometimes something is so absurd one cannot help themself. Such as these rednecks thinking a statute saved their house while the rest of Texas burns and people lose everything. Fires don't burn forever and are we to look to where they eventually stop and claim a miracle? Simple expressions and thoughts from simple minds (sheep).
I agree that the discourse on blogs like this one often contain many impolite, snarky to outright rude comments. I have been known to make a snarky comment or two...but rude and mean-spirited? That's just not right. That said, it is high time the rediculousness of stories like this this one are pointed out. The kind of thinking demonstrated in this story is selective. Something great happend to us so it must be BibleGod. No, we got lucky. If this REALLY was a miracle in the sense this family thinks it is, then the all the families around them who lost homes were also the result of BibleGod's actions.
I don't think that there is anything more "low brow" than believing in magic. Defending believers of magic because the magic believers purport to know something the rest of us don't is lunacy. You're caught in their snare. Magic believers don't deserve respect and should not be afforded it.
That's because we live in a self-centered society. It's all about "I, Me, My" so people get all excited when something like this happens to themselves, forgetting that many of their neighbors just lost everything. Basically adding insult to injury.
"Actually, Sue, we are only to pray to Jesus, not his mother Mary."
I've never known anyone to pray TO Mary, only to ask Mary to pray for them. Big difference. All the same, I don't see much point in asking corpses to do much of anything.
You've never heard of the prayer "Hail Mary"?
Apparently you haven't. "pray for us sinners" The hail mary asks mary to pray for others.
In Texas they are saying, "Hail, Mary" - a shower of ice would help since "Jesus Rains" is not working...
but is it a prayer? if its a prayer its worship.
God sent us tsunamis, floods, and other natural disasters, plus cancers, typhoid, meningitis, and other awful diseases too numerous to mention.
God must be quite the azzhole.
Amen.
And the Dave said "Let thy point be valid, and it was...and it was good"
For once I agree with HeavenSent
Phony heavensent, get a job.
Amen.
I can find no where in the bible Where Jesus called his disciples to hate any one, He taught to forgive your those who hate you and to bless them that attack you. the exact words are in Matthew 5:44 " But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." I am so sorry that the name of Jesus has been used by some Christians to further there own selfish desires. We who are followers of the teachings in the bible spend so much time not doing what the Lord clearly teaches. To the world I say stop hating each other and do good help those in need, feed people who are hungry, do good to all you meet, Jesus never spoke out against any one except to the religious people at that time and it is not any different now ! From Gods perspective we all are guilty of crimes against GOD and man. I pray that all people stop and think does hate, greed,selfishness solve any thing?
And to the Christians ? can you really say that you are walking in the truth, when you lie cheat and steal or act like the world around you? we are called to be a light but yet we are no different that the rest of the world, is it any wonder the world see you as hypocrites Does not the Jesus warn about the "yeast of the Pharisees" in Luke 12:1 Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy!
I am an atheist and do not think the case for the existence of BibleGod has been made, but I do agree with much of what you say here, insomuch as the teachings of Jesus (if he existed at all) were about love and understanding and not being judgemental. How so many Christians got so far away from these ideas is beyond me.
Yep, the statue saved the house. You bet. That's why God ignored all those prayers for rain – so he could perform a REAL miracle and save ONE house that had a statue of the virgin. And of course I'm sure that absolutely none of the houses that burned had any crosses or virgins o whatever the owners' favorite Christian symbol might have. Nope. That would be impossible.
Exactly. Why is it every time something like this happens it is a miracle from the big invisible guy in the sky. What about all the houses around this one that burnt? Did big invisible guy in the sky dislike them? Did they not pray correctly? Why is it when something bad happens it is rarely pointed out that big ivisible guy in the sky did it. Tsunami wipes out 250,000 people-its a miracle! Earthquake destroys Port a Prince–It's a miracle! Sure, big invisible guy in the sky's trackrecord looks pretty good when you only call out the statistically low probability cool events. The truth is these people whose house was spared were lucky. Period.
Jesus was a man, plain and simple. We have had many wonderful men AND women in our history, he happened to have more admirers to write about him.
And apparently did care to save that woman and 18 month old baby that burnt to death in their house the other week.
Why does Jesus hate the Rednecks so much?
It seems to me, the more the grovel to his Palestiniam rear, the more he burns their damn huts down!!!
When Irene went by, I didn't get flooded, but the Jehovah hall up the street is hip deep.
Strange sense of humour your supposed savior has
Do they ALSO credit Jesus for burning down all the other ones?
Good post William, as usual.
And I'm sure you know that the religious will never be brave or smart enough to honestly ponder that question. You'll see a variety of responses like "we can't know god's ways", and other similar garbage now.
Actually, Sue, we are only to pray to Jesus, not his mother Mary.
Amen.
HeavenSent
You just don't grasp that someone believes your God is nonesense do you?
Your dogma is so engrained that you can't free yourself if you tried!
Exactly where in your indoctrinated mind did you get this concept from?
Now the Hail Mary is wrong!! You guys have GOT to get your ridiculos beliefs straight, before the whole world realizes you for the liars you are.
Heaven,
Thou shalt have no other gods before me... I believe that includes jesus too
HeavenSent
Actually, Sue, we are only to pray to Jesus, not his mother Mary.
Amen.
--–
Do you get on your knees for him?
I get on my knees a lot. I do my best work there.
I do not think that Jesus wanted to be worshiped as a god. He was trying to lead his followers to follow God.
Wild Bill
Are you just trying to goat me into this conversation or do you really believe the stuff you are putting out there? Two house side by side yet only one goes up in flames ,everyone dies including the cute little children and puppies. We all try and make sense of it and all we have is our mind and heart. I look to God and thank Him for all blessings he pours out on believers and non believers then pray for those who have suffered loss asking for hope and rebuilding of their lives.
It is never about the house that burns down or doesn't it is about the att-itude of our heart and mind. If there is a God He is more than able to either blot out the pain / event as if it never happened or bring new life from the ashes in His time and place. We cannot put our subjective thoughts and limits on what God can do while our human mind is limited. Big gap between the force that put our existence in motion and the motion we are experiencing together.
Look carefully Bill at your dogma and the Garcia's dogma both revolve around what we cannot know or see. We both try and make sense of it but it is not there to our senses.
Jesus demanded and accepted worship. Praying to Mary, a human, is an idolatry. Catholics don't read the Bible much.
Bill, you dont' grasp that the biblical word fool means moron in today's verbage.
Amen.
That goes for the phony carnally minded heavensent that steals my handle as well as others.
Amen.
HeavenSent:
"Verbiage” is an insulting term usually meant to disparage needlessly wordy prose. Don’t use it to mean simply “wording.” There is no such word as “verbage."
–http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/verbage.html