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    Atheist for Jesus
       posted on 08/27/2010
    Memo to the Self-Help Crowd
       posted on 08/11/2010
    Anne Rice - The Wanderer
       posted on 08/04/2010
    The CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer)
       posted on 07/26/2010
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       posted on 07/24/2010
    The Flock Joins the Gulf Effort
       posted on 07/17/2010
    Praying For Hitchens
       posted on 07/13/2010

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    Anne Rice - The Wanderer
       08/04/2010 by Pesci
    The CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer)
       08/04/2010 by Pesci
    The CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer)
       08/01/2010 by Chris
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/25/2010 by Pesci
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/24/2010 by Chris
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/24/2010 by Chris
    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting
       07/24/2010 by Pesci

    The Flock Joins the Gulf Effort


    Created on Saturday, July 17, 2010      Bookmark and Share

    Home    Blog    2010    July


    You've heard me rant about how clearly useless prayer is. This week CNN had an article about an Alabama church that used to hold summer services on the beach but was displaced by cleanup efforts.

    This is interesting on several levels.
    Clean-up efforts forced the congregation from the sandy beach up to a concrete pavilion, "partly due to the relief workers basically taking away our beach. We’re glad they are, but that is the situation," said the Rev. Lance Moore, who has pastored the congregation for six years.

    Oh yes, those pesky relief workers "took away" your beach. This may be my favorite example all time of the contrast between praying and doing. There is an old saying that a single pair of hands working together is more powerful than a thousand hands clasped in prayer. What better example of that than this one? And these wishers actually had to get out of the way so that the doers could do something. How do you look yourself in the mirror after that happens?

    “We’re down there praying every week," Moore told CNN's Belief Blog by phone on Thursday. "It’s important for us to pray every week, every Sunday since we’ve been out there since it has happened. Every day we’re down there, we’re praying for some relief.”

    The lord either looked the other way when the original event happen, or worse, caused it to happen. Now you're expecting him to change his mind? But it IS the divine plan, isn't it?

    Look at a little closer at that statement. This guy infers that he and his group are actually out there helping.

    The day of prayer follows past Sundays in the Gulf where legislatures and governors had called for a day of prayer. This week's event was organized in part by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Evangelical Environmental Network...


    What? The Evangelical Environmental Network? What the hell is that? We need a group of religious fanatics to focus on the environment? It is great that a group will get a bunch of people to sit around and not help.

    “We’ve been praying since Mother's Day for help, and maybe this Sunday it’ll be a prayer of thanksgiving,” he said.


    At some point the oil will stop. We know this. And of course, this group will give thanks for that even though we all know it is going to happen. And when it does, these are the kinds of people that will give credit to the one that could have stopped it before it happened (or maybe the oil has freewill as well? Food for thought).

    I have a better thought. Why don't we just pray for bad things not to happen in the future? If we do this we won't have to pray for bad things that have already happened because we had already offered up a prayer.

    I think it would go something like this:

    Dear Lord,
    I'm not sure why but we are thankful for all of the bad things that happen on this planet that you created.
    We know you could stop them if you wanted to but this is all part of your master plan that we can't know.
    We prayer for no more bad things to happen so that we don't have to bother you again in the future. Toss us a bone, will you?
    Either way, we love you either way because you threatened us with fire if we do not.
    Amen.

    This is where being a catholic comes in handy - you can just repeat this prayer over and over again to not only get the bonus karma in the future but to also absolve the sins of your past. Nice.

    Here is a pic of the non-doers at work. Isn't it about time for a water break?
    Doing their best to help with the cleanup effort



    Scenes From My First Skeptic Meeting   More in JULY   Praying For Hitchens

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