Can we have a different miracle?

It's a miracle!

Neapolitans – people from Naples, Italy – are thronging to their cathedral to allegedly see the dried blood of a saint turn all liquidy via divine magic. (Via Pharyngula.)

Skeptics suggest that chemicals in the dried blood undergo a change in viscosity when jostled. I expect some believers to plead that skeptics just instead accept a "real miracle".

Those believers would be missing a key point. Atheists like me think don't merely think it sad that people are deluding themselves with this "miracle" nonsense. We also think it'd be even sadder if this were a true divine miracle.

Think about it: If this were the real thing, then that means the omniscient, all-powerful creator of the universe is using his time to play with a blood sample... while (to pick one of a million daily tragedies) leukemic children suffer and die in hospital beds. Hey, Sky Fairy, how about doing something about their blood?

That's the double punch behind believer idiocy: it's not just that they have no proof for the God they claim; worse, the God they describe is a worthless, callous incompetent who does parlor tricks while ignoring the prayers of the desperate. As a view of how the universe works, that's more depressing than the worst Lovecraft ever dreamed up.