Monday, September 17, 2007

God being sued by a state senator from Nebraska

Well, this is not from the Onion, but its still pretty funny, creative, and kind of real - at least for Omaha:
State Senator Ernie Chambers is suing God. He says it to prove a point about frivolous lawsuits. Chambers says senators periodically have offered bills prohibiting the filing of certain types of suits. He says his main objection is the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all. Chambers said, "Thus anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody - even God."
And it has a bit of everything - the issue of Omnipresence and Omniscience:
Chambers lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in Douglas County Court, seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.The lawsuit admits God goes by all sorts of alias, names, titles and designations and it also recognizes the fact that the defendant is “Omnipresent”.

In the lawsuit Chambers says he’s tried to contact God numerous times, “Plaintiff, despite reasonable efforts to effectuate personal service upon Defendant (“Come out, come out, wherever you are”) has been unable to do so.”

The suit also requests that the court given the “peculiar circumstances” of this case waive personal service. It says being Omniscient, the plaintiff assumes God will have actual knowledge of the action.
and of course the problem of evil:
The lawsuit accuses God “of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff who Plaintiff has the duty to represent.”It says God has caused, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.”

The suit also says God has caused, “calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction.
I'm assuming that its a typo in the last sentence - and its "innocent babies" and not "innocent babes" - but who knows. Read the full story here.

2 comments:

hedge said...

No, he's really worried about the harm done to those innocent attractive women!

(I suspect he actually meant "babes" in an attempt to emulate an archaic style, e.g. "out of the mouths of babes," but I think my interpretation prioritizes the millions of inhabitants better.)

I wouldn't've expected such hilarity from Nebraska!

Salman Hameed said...

A-ha! You are right...it IS "babes", to emulate the archaic style. Thanks!
By the way you can get the copy of the lawsuit in pdf format from here:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/chambersversusgod.pdf

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