How survivors of ‘Miracle of the Andes’ see faith in God – 03/28/2023 – Darwin and God

I’m still a little dizzy from the impact of reading “A Sociedade da Neve”, a book by Uruguayan writer and journalist Pablo Vierci. I just published an interview with the author in this Sheetas you may have seen, but the conversation was long and very rich, so I would like to take advantage of the blog’s space to address a topic closely linked to it.

“The Society of the Snow” deals in the most intimate way possible with the personal stories of each of the 16 survivors of the “miracle of the Andes”, which recently turned 50 years old. In this case that took the world by storm, 45 people aboard a Uruguayan military plane crashed into the Andes at around 4,000 meters high. Of those, 16 survived 72 days on the mountain before being rescued by Chilean rescuers. One of the elements that most impressed me in Vierci’s account, who was a childhood and adolescence friend of several of the survivors, is how the spirituality of many of them seems to have been a central aspect, whether during the tragedy or after they returned to Uruguay.

We talked about this a bit, and it’s worth taking a closer look at what he said. Check it out.

“I’ll tell you a phrase they usually use to answer that question. They say this: it’s very easy not to believe in anything here ‘on the plains’, but it’s very difficult not to believe in anything up there. When there was a strong wind , when they feared an avalanche, they sang religious songs from childhood and, as the wind calmed down, they arrived at the conviction, for some so old or so childish, that this calmed the universal fury.

But each of them has its formula. Some are much more religious in the traditional sense, believing that if they managed to save themselves from a mountain accident, it was because God wanted them to keep going. Others discovered, as many of them say, the God of the Mountain, a god different from the one we are used to.

I know the religiosity of many of them before and after, and it is something completely different. And they have a bond with death that is completely different from what you and I have. They don’t fear it and take it for granted — although I can’t quite grasp how they understand it.”

Read it if you can — it’s a booklet.

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