U.S.S. Indianapolis
At 12:14am on July 30, 1945, right before the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy suffered an attack that resulted in the highest death toll ever from a single ship. The U.S.S. Indianapolis, on its way from Guam to the Philippines, was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58. In the 12 minutes it took for the ship to go down, roughly 900 of the 1,196 men on board went into the water. By morning, the sharks had arrived. Almost five days later, when they were discovered accidentally, only 316 men were pulled out of the water alive. If you’ve seen Jaws, you’ve heard some of this story. It’s the stuff of horror movies.
Most of the dead were killed by the sharks. Survivors report seeing the fish circle twenty feet below through the crystal-clear water and then rocket upward without warning to pick the men off one by one. At night, there was silence, punctuated by the periodic screams of sailors being attacked. Others were drowned by comrades who, in a madness brought on by the combination of sun exposure and dehydration, thought they were fighting the Japanese. The ship’s doctor, who survived the ordeal, reports having been thrust under by men in just such a state.
I just finished watching In Search of the U.S.S. Indianapolis on the Discovery Channel. Despite the fact that they fail to actually find the ship, it was very good. The interviews with several survivors who accompanied the expedition were stirring. However, some of their comments really shocked me.
“You put it out of your mind. I can’t tell you how you put it out of your mind, but you figure that that’s something you have no control over, so you just let the thing pass by and pray to God that the sharks will turn off and go away. Well, they never did.”
“I gotta say this. There may have been a lot of men who didn’t know who God was before they went into the water. There were a lot of men who wanted to know God after they got there.”
“We’d take the jacket off, and I’d say the Lord’s prayer, and we’d let the body go. I hope they were all dead. To this day I don’t go to church because I can’t say the Lord’s prayer without crying.”
“I talked about a lot of my sins. I talked about trying to get peace with God. My body was all covered with oil. I tried to scrub it off, and I couldn’t get it off, and I tried to clean my body so that maybe I could die with a little bit of cleanliness about me.”
I just can’t comprehend how men who have gone through something like this can hold on to god. This is one of the most horrifying events in the history of warfare, and many of the survivors came away with stronger faith. God made the sharks. God didn’t stop the sinking of the ship. When the Navy ignored their S.O.S. because they thought it was a Japanese trick, god didn’t intervene. When they were two days late arriving in the Philippines, god didn’t plant any kind of suggestion that someone should look for them. How is it possible that these men “wanted to know God” after all this? How is it possible that one of the survivors brought rosary beads on the expedition?
The Indianapolis isn’t an exception. It was the same with hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, the plague, the Spanish flu, etc. I have an answer. It’s Battered Woman’s Syndrome.
1. The woman believes that the violence was her fault.
2. The woman has an inability to place the responsibility for the violence elsewhere.
3. The woman fears for her life and/or her children’s lives.
4. The woman has an irrational belief that the abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.
Just substitute ‘victim’ for ‘woman’ and ‘god’ for ‘abuser,’ and it all makes sense. This is how belief in a god is strengthened by tragedy. If only we could make the theists understand that we’re simply trying to rescue them from an abusive relationship of the highest order.
~I AM~
November 30th, 2005 at at 5:40 pm
People who do not have the means to comprehend death and suffering accurately latch onto whatever explanation presents itself. God is the most convenient and comforting explanation especially in a time of crisis and when your wits are not about you.
It is that mob mentality. People do things they would not otherwise do under great stress and pressure. Now how someone can justify later how god pulled them through such an event is beyond me. I imagine that over time they have come to believe god as the justification for what they have experienced and are unable to seperate the perceived cause from the event without confronting the horror all over again only this time without an explanation for why it happened.
November 30th, 2005 at at 5:42 pm
That’s a fantastic analogy. Best post ever.
November 30th, 2005 at at 5:43 pm
Brilliant. I love your educational posts.
December 1st, 2005 at at 7:53 am
Yes, it all fits. The bible tells of god smiting folks. He is definitely a dick, and with good reason – to scare the shit out of people. God is jealous, god is vengeful, god is wrathful; sounds like an abusive husband/father coming home from the bar, sauced up and ready to punish those weaker than him. Yes, again we see religion demeaning human existence, belittling our suffering, and stifling our dreams. Always over our shoulders we have some omnipotent drunkard asshole ready to knock us around. But if you do what he wants and prostrate yourself before him, you get rewarded. Classic abuse cycle indeed.
December 1st, 2005 at at 8:25 am
Thanks again for another wonderfull article. BTW there is a subtle difference between regular abuse and this god stuff: this is abuse by an imaginary entity. How nuts can you get and still be outside a cage?
December 1st, 2005 at at 8:40 am
I’ve had nightmares about my abuser for years
I was the battered woman
but I never believed in god
December 1st, 2005 at at 9:14 am
Great post. Great analogy. Great writing. Great blog. Great googley-moogley.
Thanks, I AM.
December 1st, 2005 at at 10:51 am
Not to site-pimp, but I independently came up with that analogy on another religious topic: gay Catholics in the wake of the Vatican’s recent (but not unexpected) idiocy concerning priests who “support the homosexual lifestyle.”
As for these veterans, it almost sounds like they’re still in shock 60 years later.
December 1st, 2005 at at 11:34 am
Totally awesome. I knew you were going somewhere with this, and when you pulled out the battered womans syndrome, a light bulb went off in my head. Well done!
This one should be an editorial in a big newspaper somewhere.
December 1st, 2005 at at 12:18 pm
This is pseudo nonsense and deranged antagonism toward the Lord almighty Hashishan I AM God not THOU who art NOT for I AM GOD and I declare thous hast misuderstood my Gospel which is holy and polluted it with false analogies falsely balimng ME GOD for errors and terrors cause by the foul vicious MONKEY CHRIST whose name was JESUS but now executed again by MY COMMAND and this wretch his corpse will be displayed in the stars on the internet and all pages of all books at the end of time as a WARNING about those who slander the LORD who I AM I cause the the WAR of II against vile KKKUSA by supplying Japonese with bombs courage and craft and they defeated the USA in combat but the slut FDR conspired with JESUS and Rome against this folk and used JESUS secret weapon “little man” “fat boy” and other names of Christ against helpless civilians. At that point the Spirit of God moved the temple from out Nauvoo to DPRK where it is enshrined as Juche principle and it took I the Lord some time to catch up with the Spirt for I was born in Nauvoo as a visious MormoChristian plot and held and abused by Senators Congressman and all the swine of DC (hidden Masonic codes were discovered) and tattos and capital investors beseached the LORD for guidance and I rebuked saying gEt thee away from me cur I knew thee not and so vanished, And it came to pass the Lord was sent in exile from out the USSA and KKANADA to ASIA whereby the temple was resurrected in my honour by the people of the God for the Hashishta Divine was exiled on trumped up charges and lies by my mother with FBI and others CIA SEC NSA to humilate me drug charges totally false I rebuke thee satan I am pure of drugs the enemy of God used by psychlos to poison minds I knew the Lord and the Lord was I and I commanded all races of men to build my temple in honor and courage and the temple selected and I dwelt therin. Hence it came to pass that the Lord began Her reign in Asia of the wise men. I travel to DPRK forthwith for consultations with Kim and courtiers and others guardian of the temple secrets. Together we shall perish Christononsense from the Earth and resurrect the true faith of Juche Jahvism.
I am that principle or God of Isreal knoen as Yahweh or Jehovah or Jah. I am that I am.
December 1st, 2005 at at 1:33 pm
Oh, you always say that, HP, especially on street corners and directed at squirrels.
December 1st, 2005 at at 1:34 pm
Wow, thank you. I didn’t expect this one to be such a big hit.
December 1st, 2005 at at 2:08 pm
I agree, I AM, although my surprise is not because I disliked the post but because I expected backlash from theists, Hashishan Prophet Sara’s pseudo-theistic comments notwithstanding.
December 1st, 2005 at at 2:53 pm
I agree with Aaron, this piece is worthy of the Op/Ed section of any–let’s make that ALL major newspapers. It’s certainly worthy of more personal thought on my part.
Sara, when you wrote “Together we shall perish Christononsense from the Earth and resurrect the true faith of Juche Jahvism,” did you mean Javaism? I can back the cult of coffee. The rest of it, I don’t get. But I’m sure the squirrels do.
December 1st, 2005 at at 3:31 pm
Yes, definitely, submit this to a newspaper.
December 1st, 2005 at at 10:30 pm
Concur with all. Fantastic post!
December 2nd, 2005 at at 8:46 am
So, I’m sorry to do this but in all honesty, I’m going to have to say I’m a little bit offended.
I was really into this post and wondered where it was going and was taken aback by the comparison to “Battered Women’s Syndrome.”
If I understand this analogy correctly, you were making it from the perspective that God is real. (Since the soldiers were reaffirmed in their trust in god compared to the trust in the abuser, not their belief in god vs. the belief that the abuser exists). I assumed that you were making it from the perspective of an athiest, since this is an athiest site.
So, from an athiest perspective, the analogy is asserting that an abuser of women is not a real person. If a woman is abused, the abuser is a very real person, no matter what her reaction to him(i.e. the irrational fear that he is omnipresent). God is not a real person whatsoever. If your analogy is correct, a woman believes she is abused by someone who doesn’t exist when they are in fact very real.
Also I think the fact that there even is such a thing called “Battered Woman’s Syndrome” is a little bit off..
December 2nd, 2005 at at 9:42 am
Elaine:
If god is real to the victim, that’s all that matters for this analogy to hold. I often criticize god from the perspective that he is real (i.e. the entire God is a Dick series) because these arguments are more approachable to a believer. I think that if we can make someone dislike god, that person will be more receptive to the idea that he’s not real.
Your suggestion that I’m implying that abusers of women don’t exist is preposterous. So, I’m sorry if you’re offended, but your comment doesn’t make sense. As for the reality of Battered Woman’s Syndrome, that’s a much more complex matter that I’m not prepared to get into. We’d have to go through a century of feminist thought to do it justice. Suffice it to say that I believe it to describe a common pattern of behavior. Whether it’s a “syndrome” is another matter. Americans love turning behaviors into diseases.
December 2nd, 2005 at at 11:21 am
I like your site and I read it regularly. I wasn’t trying to be combative, I’m not even sure what didn’t settle with me, I was just trying to open it up that something about it seemed odd. Sorry I don’t have my opinion readily formed.
I didn’t mean to say that you were intentionally implying anything about the abusers not existing, I only meant to point out that the delusions of a woman that is abused don’t compare to delusions of the religious.
Or maybe I just don’t like it because I’m sympathetic to the women, and not the religious.
December 2nd, 2005 at at 11:29 am
Acutally, your logic is sound, as far as the analogy goes. I guess I was seeing it from an athiest perspective.
But I do think that you obviously have a low opinion of the irrational choices religious people make so by your comparison with women made it seem like your low opinion was of women by extension.
I’m sure that isn’t true, but it can be read that way, that’s all.
December 2nd, 2005 at at 2:29 pm
Elaine:
But I do think that you obviously have a low opinion of the irrational choices religious people make so by your comparison with women made it seem like your low opinion was of women by extension.
I have a low opinion of irrational choices. That’s true enough. I think believing in god is an irrational choice. I also think staying with an abusive husband is irrational. However, my opinion of the decision is not inextricably bound to my opinion of the person. For example, I like Chad from Eternal Revolution. I think his belief in god is absurd, but that doesn’t affect my opinion of him.
On the other hand, there are some theists who come to this site who spew dogma without any understanding of or real desire to understand what they’re saying. I think those people are idiots, not because they believe in god, but because they’re demonstrably dumb.
December 2nd, 2005 at at 4:36 pm
It’s a good post, I Am.
December 3rd, 2005 at at 5:54 pm
Why do people need invisible beings to justify their lives?
December 5th, 2005 at at 2:34 am
Frankly, I wish I could, but after reading all these, I still don’t have enough faith to believe that men are evolved by chance.
It’s still easier to believe that the computer I’m now using to type this message is evolved by chance, but not designed, nor created.
Please, help me to believe that the eye I’m using to read this page is not designed.
Please, help me to believe that the process of light reaching the retina and be turned into electrical signals; and the data is transferred to our brain; and then our brain has the power to process it, and then generate a series of reaction, feelings and emotions; is just a by-product of a mindless evolution of the universe.
December 5th, 2005 at at 7:19 am
OK, everyone. Let’s play “Guess Who Didn’t Read the Post.”
December 5th, 2005 at at 3:47 pm
What? haha.. Let’s play “Guess who doesn’t understand the deeper meaning.”
December 5th, 2005 at at 4:42 pm
Rational Thinker… really?
We could play guess who got high last night?, too.
December 6th, 2005 at at 1:55 am
That is an insult to stoners.
December 9th, 2005 at at 5:27 pm
Read “In Harm’s Way“, about the USS Indianapolis
Damn Good Book.
A lot more to the story than hungry sharks.
(Tell ya what…the dehydration was a big factor as well. These guys were floating, in crystal clear water…they could see down, 30-40ft…and they hadn’t had a single drink of water in two days…then three, in the hot, tropical sun…and down below them they see 12ft-15ft Tiger sharks…they can see ‘em no problem…
Talk about a mind fuck!
Guys were hallucinating, and they’d break away from the floating pack…soon as a guy broke away from the pack, swimming to a damn ice-cream stand he was sure he saw…see ya…
December 12th, 2005 at at 8:39 pm
That is an insult to stoners.
You are right. My apologies to all the stoners, except HP. I envy you all.