Why do Christians give god credit for everything.

[Carole]

This is a problem for me being an agnostic who was born and raised in the bible belt. I hear god getting praised even when nothing out of the ordinary happened.

For example a long time friend of mine recently had extensive dental surgery.  She has been keeping us up to date on her recovery via facebook.   

It's been pretty cut and dried, the dentist performed the surgery with no complications.  Its a week later and she still looks like she has been beat with a baseball bat but she is recovering.  Last night she posted thanking everyone for the prayers sent her way and saying god is awesome.   I thought "but why"?  God didn't  do the surgery - shouldn't she be thanking her dentist?  She hasn't recovered any faster than anyone else does from this type of surgery - she is still bruised and still can hardly eat.  So what did god do that was so awesome?

Other than the god fixation she is an okay person, she is fairly intelligent and runs her own business so she is not stupid except for this one area.  I just don't get it. Shouldn't she be thanking her dentist and the family that has taken care of her?

[Smurfette Principle]

As far as I can tell, Christians give God credit for everything because God is the creator of all things. Yes, the dentist did the surgery, but God led the surgeon to take his job, God inspired the makers of Novocaine, God Himself is allowing her to recover (and if she wasn't, it would be because God is punishing her).

Yeah.

[QueenofHearts]

I always like when athletes do this. They make a great play and then in the press conference they say that God was responsible. It makes me laugh because 1) their hard work for the last 2 decades made them such great athletes and 2) if they tripped and tore every ligament in their knee they wouldn't say "Well, I had a good run and saw the opportunity to score, but then the Devil fucked up my ACL."

I know a few people like that IRL, but I don't hang out with too many religious people and all the stories are roughly the same as the one you've given. I think they are just happy about circumstances and feel the need to ascribe it to something other than happenstance or naturally occurring phenomenon (like a dentist fixing teeth). People just want to feel special.

[Carole]

People just want to feel special.

I guess that is it.  This has always been an issue for me.  Having grew up here I see this happen almost on a daily basis and I have never understood it.  I never understood a lot about the religious folk, despite having grown up with them.  I went to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School and did all the  things a good little southern girl is suppose to do.  For some reason all the training never stuck with me,  I don't know why - just lucky I guess. 

[Radiation]

I really don't know how to put a succinct answer to this.

I think it has to do with the notion that one should be thankful for the little things in life and is also an inherent belief in Divine intervention. So I think that Christians believe that God can do little miracles and somehow he connects everything.

[Patches]

People want to feel like they're in control of their lives.  If something good happened to them, they want to feel like it was because of something they did.  If there is no direct correlation, then they ascribe it to their god being pleased with something else they did and rewarding them with good fortune.  Conversely if something bad happened to some people that seemed to have no relation to anything they did, then again, it was because their god wanted to punish someone for something that upset him.

It could also have to do with religious insecurity, and the constant need to reaffirm their belief by insisting that every little thing that happens is proof that their god is working in the world.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

Deferment of responsibility.  I think it's a bad attitude.  To put it shortly.

God takes all of the credit but none of the blame.  That's why the Devil was made.

[Rime]

I've mulled this over a few times.

Essentially, it's an attempt to humble themselves.  There's a problem, however, in doing this for everything.  With many of the fundamentalist types, there's an attitude that they're holier because they're making a conscious effort not to take credit for the good things that are happening.  And can even turn into some form of sick competition for who knows how much more God has done for them.

It's not humility then.  It's exalting oneself.  Pride in a very irritating form.

[Old Viking]

If you have a god looking over you -- finding your car keys, sending you to a good dentist -- it's a clear indication of your status in the universe.

[Vypernight]

Actually they credit God for the good things but blame gays, abortionists, etc. for all the bad. 

[Sylvana]

Isn't part of it that they believe that everything is controlled by god and essentially predetermined, and that they cannot do anything and nothing can happen to them without gods express consent. They received professional dental care because god allowed it to happen, and the operation was a success because god allowed it to be. They have this completely deterministic attitude to life. Of course the real irony is that anytime someone does something wrong it is our own sinful nature and free will.

The aspect of trying to be humble and not accepting success is real. It is pretty much directly related to the persecution complex. If something good happens, god gets the credit for looking out for them. If something bad happens its either god testing them, or they are being persecuted like any good christian should be.

[TPFKADF]

This is a problem for me being an agnostic who was born and raised in the bible belt. I hear god getting praised even when nothing out of the ordinary happened.

For example a long time friend of mine recently had extensive dental surgery.  She has been keeping us up to date on her recovery via facebook.   

It's been pretty cut and dried, the dentist performed the surgery with no complications.  Its a week later and she still looks like she has been beat with a baseball bat but she is recovering.  Last night she posted thanking everyone for the prayers sent her way and saying god is awesome.   I thought "but why"?  God didn't  do the surgery - shouldn't she be thanking her dentist?  She hasn't recovered any faster than anyone else does from this type of surgery - she is still bruised and still can hardly eat.  So what did god do that was so awesome?

Other than the god fixation she is an okay person, she is fairly intelligent and runs her own business so she is not stupid except for this one area.  I just don't get it. Shouldn't she be thanking her dentist and the family that has taken care of her?

Well once upon a time it used to be that God or some supernatural force was responsible for everything...it is human nature to assign supernatural explanations to things people don't fully understand, though over time more and more supernatural explanations have been replaced with natural ones.

Part of the issue here might actually be fear though...if you don't "thank God" for your good fortune, God might end up punishing you with bad fortune...

I recall a story I heard recently about doctors performing some miracle operation to save the life of a child thought to be terminally ill...rather than just thank the doctors, though, the parents attributed the child's recovery to praying to some obscure saint, and the Catholic Church declared the recovery to have been due to the miraculous intervention of that saint.

[Vormir]

It might be guilt. "If I don't thank god, he might get mad at me!" or, "If I don't thank god, others might think I'm not a good christian!" Or perhaps she just does it because she thinks it what she is supposed to do. A lot of religious people do religious things because they think its what they are supposed to do.

[Cerim Treascair]

Generally speaking, I've found "if it's a good thing, it's because god, if it's bad, it's all your fault"

[Qlockworkcanary]

It's a variant of the Fundamental Attribution Error, but instead of taking credit yourself for good things and blaming the external world for bad things, they give god all credit and blame the debbil for all evils in the world; it's a great way to remove oneself (and others) from responsibility, good or bad.

This is a common thing in more than just the Christian cults. I watched a special on eye doctors who were allowed to go into North Korea to perform surgery and the people didn't thank them but rather got on their knees and thanked the Dear Leader -not exactly the same (although he was/is deified) but it's the same mind set.