God is amazing, alright.

On Thursday night the Marlins played the Pirates, and it was about as average a baseball game as you could hope for (Pittsburgh beat Miami, 7-2)... except that Marlins pitcher Dan Jennings got hit in the head with a line drive.

That's always a scary moment, and frankly I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often: a screaming line drive comes right back at the pitcher's head, and before they get a chance to get their glove up for protection or duck out of the way, bingo, ball meets skull/temple/face. Seeing as how these batted baseballs are moving at, at times, 110 mph (175 km/h), and the pitcher is standing a little less than 60 ft (18 m) away...

v = 175 km/h = (1.75 x 10⁵ m)/(3600 s) = 49 m/s

v = d/t ... t = d/v = (18 m)/(49 m/s) = 0.37 s

...that's not a lot of time. (Always show your work.) Actually, that's not even the length of time you have to react. That's the length of time from when the ball leaves the bat to when it would hit you 60 ft away; you have to get your glove up by that time, and that takes a fraction of a second too.

So, Jennings got clocked. Preliminary tests suggest a concussion, but if you check the video clip above, dude didn't even fall to the ground. Ball smashes off his head, he spins around and takes a few steps, then puts his hands on his knees. Tough guy.

Anyway, he was well enough to tweet this afterwards:

The scans were negative-it seems I'm going to be ok. The support shown tonight has been unbelievable, speechless. God is amazing

Easy there, Dan -- that may well be the concussion talking. But let's unpack this statement.

God is amazing because...

1. the scans were negative
2. you're going to be OK
3. you've received support from people

These are all good things, don't get me wrong. I'm glad the scans were negative, that you're going to be OK, and that you feel the support of family, friends and fellow players.

But is this really evidence that God is "amazing?"

According to all the descriptions of an almighty deity I've ever encountered in Christianity, God is everywhere at all times. Now, there's always a question of how "interventionist" you want your God to be, of course... but omniscience and omnipotence seem to be pretty key features.

If God is omnipotent, and if God loves all His creatures and creations, you'd think that getting nailed in the temple by a flying five-ounce spherical projectile would be something that God wouldn't want one of His precious little things to experience. And yet, it happened.

The way I see it, there are two events here in which God could have intervened:

1. the initial incident of ball hitting face
2. the relatively-positive aftermath

Also, there are two ways in which God could have reacted:

1. do nothing
2. make things happen the way they did

I smell a 2x2 table coming on.

	God did nothing	God did it
ball hits face	Geez, do something already.	Dick move! You DID this?!
positive aftermath	Humans are pretty great.	It was the least you could do.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I don't know if God exists or not. But if so, come ON.