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More specifically, it's thanking God for their athletic ability and recognizing that without God they would not be in a place to play xyz sports game.
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Doesn't praying to God for the things you're good at/the things humans have accomplished sort of take away a lot of the magnificent capabilities of human beings in the first place?
If I thank God for (let's say my athletic capabilities), I'm assuming I was simply born better than non-athletic people. As if somehow if I didn't play Soccer or Hockey my whole life, I'd still be just as good at them as if I had never played. Praying to a God for my ability to be good at sports diminishes my own role in practice, determination, studying, and general knowledge of those sports. In my mind God didn't make me good at sports. I made me good at sports. I didn't need any type of
'force' inside of me, making me better than everyone else from the day I was born. I was not 'chosen' to be good at sports. I have
midi-chlorians inside of me who boost my performance if I just slow down and listen to my own body.
I mean, I'm sure some people have thanked God once or twice that there's a cure for (some) cancer. But wait...God created Cancer. Humans created a way to beat it. God also created polio. Humans created the polio vaccine.
It seems like God is in a constant struggle to create things in order to kill us, which then makes a (usually a scientist, and assume-ish-ly a non-religious person) create some type of antidote, to which someone will say "Thank God for this antidote."
Personally, I thank God for the Hydrogen Bomb, and Napalm. I'm glad he gave us the technology in order to create Nuclear Fusion and release massive amounts of energy in order to destroy massive amounts of humans in a split-second. I'm glad he decided to let us discover how to incinerate the people we don't like from above. I'm glad he decides to let countless tornadoes rip through the homes of poor people, and sends in massive tsunamis and floods to destroy the homes and lives of more poor people. And Hurricane Katrina? Don't get me started on how much of an act of God that was. I thank god for Earthquakes and asteroid impacts. I thank God for supernovas which can destroy us and we won't have any idea. I thank God for creating a sun with a finite life, so that we only have 4 billion years of possible existence on this planet - the planet he created for us to live on.
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If we succeed at anything, it's "Act of God", "God's will". You "Thank God" you were able to pass your test, as if you didn't study for it, or take X years of schooling. Yet when something goes wrong, it's the fault of a human. It seems to me that we only ever fuck up, and every time
anything goes correct in anyone's life it's (to someone else) an 'Act of God'. "Congratulations to the _______ Olympic team of _______ in the sport of ______. God chose you to be better than these other people this year. Come back in 4 years to see who God likes more, then!"
"And tonight the final score is: The Steelers 14, and the Lions 45."
"Yeah, Tom. Clearly they had God on their side tonight. Maybe the Steelers just didn't pray enough. Hopefully God decides for them to win next week."
"And in other news, a little girl whom God decided to give polio to has survived in defiance as doctors administered a vaccine in order to allow her to live a long, healthy life. Let's see what God has to say about that."
Thanking God for
my accomplishments seems so soul-crushing. I'm aware someone will say "well if it wasn't for God you wouldn't have been put in that situation anyways!". To which I will say now; phfff.
If God is in charge of my accomplishments, and what I succeed at - why am
I in charge of my failures? Clearly I cannot succeed without God's help, so why does he occasionally refuse to help me? if he puts me in a death-defying situation and I get out of it, considering I was about to die but lived - that's an act of God. But if I actually
do die, then it's because a stupid human did something stupid.
God seems like that douche in your workgroup who tries to take credit for everything you email to your boss, yet when your boss doesn't like it God's like "Oh, I don't know man. I took that day off. That was all Steve's fault."
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I had an old lady once tell me that proof of God is in the fact we die. She said "well we all die. God takes us all someday. when he decides it, we'll go."
I wanted to shout at her "Buuuuuuuuuullllllllshit to that, old lady."
If I walk into traffic right now, and get hit by a car. Is that an act of God? If I die by jumping off of a cliff, did God decide that was my time? What if I
do get cancer, and some human-invented-thing cures me; would God be pissed, and try to kill me in Final Destination-esque ways until I'm finally finished? And besides, if God wants you dead, wouldn't he just kill you on the spot? He's
God. he (allegedly) created time and space itself, yet I can find a loophole around a disease he made to kill me?
I don't believe that us having a finite life is any proof of God. Imagine a world where not a single person believes in a higher power; people would still die. Life would go on. The world would still turn. Natural disasters would still happen. Scientific progress would still take place. Wars would still happen. Bad political decisions would still be made. People would still be assholes. Dogs would still chase cars.
----Edit: And I'm not talking about the people who just say "Thank God" under their breath after they find out they don't have a baby, or after a big save or something. I say that all the time for non-things. I'll take a big poop and think "Thank God that didn't tear me open", but I don't
mean 'Thank God', it's a bullshit phrase for a lot of people. I'm only referring to the people who literally mean "Thank God" every time they say it.