A Texas woman says her Christian faith gave her the power to redirect a tornado away from her home. Sabrina Lowe, of Rowlett, said 10 family members were visiting her apartment Saturday when they heard the distinctive train noise of the approaching tornado, reported NPR…. “We actually went outside and started commanding the winds, because God had given us authority over the winds, the airways,” Lowe said. “And we just began to command this storm not to hit our area. We spoke to the storm and said, ‘Go to unpopulated places.’ It did exactly what we said to do, because God gave us the authority to do that.”…. The EF4 tornado, with wind speeds up to 180 mph, was among nine confirmed tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area, killing 11 people and destroying more than 1,000 buildings. The tornado killed eight people and destroyed about 600 buildings in nearby Garland as the storm barreled north from Sunnyvale to Rowlett, where Lowe lives.
While reading this story, I found myself rather conflicted. I didn’t know what was more offensive: the idea that a woman believes she was “told by God” that she has “authority” to “command the winds”…or the fact that she actually seems convinced that her actions diverted a tornado. “Because God gave us the authority to do that”…really? If that isn’t some Grade A, top notch, world class arrogance and self-delusion, I don’t know what would be. Before you know it, Ms. Lowe will have her own megachurch and TV network which she’ll use to fleece poor, desperate Christians of their SSI checks. Joel Osteen might just have some competition.
I’ve been able to find no mention of how Ms. Lowe managed to engage in a dialogue with the Almighty or if this is a regular thing for her. I’m particularly curious how she discerned that “God gave us the authority to do that.” How and why did God pick her out of thousands and millions of believers, some who live in North Texas and would probably have dearly loved to have been given Divine “authority” to “command the winds” before it leveled their manse?
Sam Harris once said of former President George W. Bush,
The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.
The idea that God spoke directly to Ms. Lowe and provided her authority over the winds is as prima facie absurd as it is an insult to the intelligence of any rational, lucid human being. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the accompanying book and movie deals come along and people begin mailing her prayer requests with large checks?
What’s even more disturbing about Ms. Lowe’s claim is that NPR chose to air it, thus lending the patina of credibility to the claim of someone whose piety and hyper-religiosity convinced them they possessed the imprimatur of the Almighty to control the weather.
Here’s a question NPR should have asked Ms. Lowe: If she really was given authority to “command the winds,” why didn’t she use her power to save the lives of the 11 people killed by the storms? Or save the more than 1000 buildings destroyed? Why did she choose to exercise her power in such a supremely self-absorbed and selfish manner?
Beyond that, a rational person might wonder why a loving God would send multiple devastating tornadoes in the first place. The EF4 tornado (with winds up to 180 MPH) which Lowe allegedly diverted was one of nine deadly tornadoes that struck the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. If Ms. Lowe truly had a Divine pass to “command the winds,” you’d have to believe that, being the good Christian she is, she would have directed all nine tornadoes away from populated areas. Instead, she selfishly focused on her own little corner of the world and left the rest of the metroplex to fend for itself.
I GOT MY GOD!!! YOU CAN DAMNED WELL GIT YER OWN!!!
Sadly, this is yet another case of a delusional Christian getting their 15 minutes of fame because the mainstream media couldn’t be bothered to do even the barest minimum of fact checking. How anyone at NPR could even consider her delusions of grandeur to be newsworthy defies understanding in the same way my conversing with a hair dryer would.
It’s not as if it was a slow news day….
