Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dale Headley on March 16, 2013 at 3:27pm

If you have a "God given talent," or you have been "blessed by God," the obvious question should be: which god?  There are thousands of them to choose from.  To the extent that I have any "talent" or "blessing" for which to be thankful, I would first thank my genes, then my parents, then my hard work.  God?  Not so much.

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Permalink Reply by RobertPiano on March 16, 2013 at 3:36pm

I would like to personally thank Bacchus for this nice Pinot Grigio.

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Permalink Reply by Ed on March 17, 2013 at 8:15pm

This seems to be a VERY popular variety of wine. My sister is hooked on it. 

Without my small vineyard all would be lost, no hope, no happiness.

En Vino Veritas...

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on March 17, 2013 at 8:24pm

People should start a meme of thanking the pagan god of their profession at award ceremonies. The blowback from middle America would certainly liven up all those Hollywood strokefests.

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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on March 16, 2013 at 3:42pm

when someone tells me that I have "God given talent" or I was "blessed by God" I get a little offended. I would tell them that I actually worked my butt off to get where I am.

I have been thinking and saying this since I was like only 8 or 9 years old, every time somebody would see a singer or pianist on tv and give god the credit. Even as a child I felt that "that's just unfair, they put a lot of effort in their skill, but you say that it was just magic."

It's fucking mind boggling how stupid religious people are, that they still haven't figured this out.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on March 16, 2013 at 5:58pm

If it's a god given talent, why'd you have to work your ass off to become proficient at it?

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Permalink Reply by Angela Evangelia on March 16, 2013 at 7:09pm

 

I think its because people dont know how else to respond. Its a throw away line ...

Just like atheists say -  Oh My God ... I say that a lot.

The worst one is when someone dies, especially a child and the religious response ... Its Gods Will

 

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Permalink Reply by Ed on March 19, 2013 at 9:47pm

It may be a throw away line but eventually it will be a good development if people drop the gawd references altogether. It's a subtle unintentional reinforcement.

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Permalink Reply by MikeLong on March 19, 2013 at 10:26pm

Will that ever happen? God knows.

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Permalink Reply by Kathleen Smith on March 17, 2013 at 3:11pm

This could not be better said.

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Permalink Reply by MikeLong on March 16, 2013 at 9:49pm

To me talent is different from success. Success, in virtually any serious endeavour, requires a whole lot of work whereas talent may well be present through no fault or effort. For instance, I have perfect pitch. This is an amazing talent (to some people - to me distinguishing one note from another is no different from distinguishing one colour from another), but it required no work on my part whatever - it was just there. On the other hand I could have trained 36 hours a day but I could never have run like Usain Bolt. He has talent (in addition to working hard).

I don't like "God-given" either but, when viewed as a colloquialism, it's just one of thousands of words derived from a religious history.

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Permalink Reply by Kris Feenstra on March 17, 2013 at 3:58am

I agree with this. Certain things may have genetic components or other factors suiting people to certain endeavors. Perhaps this is all talent is. Perhaps it is a circumstantial factor similar to what we call 'luck'.

Such natural predisposition to excel at a given activity can never paint the whole picture -- especially when competing against others who are similarly predisposed --, but I think it would be equally silly for a person to say that personal effort is the sole factor. It's a middle ground issue.

If someone is literally crediting God, then yeah, I'm not to fond of it; however, like Mike, I'd say it's mostly figurative and not intended to detract from the individual in question.

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