After finding THIS news article at badastronomy.com, I sat in bewilderment for a few seconds. Several things popped into my head immediately.
1) Harking back to the days of high school English I am reminded of Wang Lung seeking the favor of the Earth God and getting totally screwed with famines and locusts in The Good Earth. Jesus Christ what a terrible book.
2) It amazes me that all of this is occurring on state grounds…with taxpayer money. What a waste.
3) How long before Pat Robertson proclaims this as Gods justice against dog lover and former Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick?
4) My dad once gave me this tidbit of advice – ‘If you’re gonna take credit for the rain, you better be ready to take credit for the floods.’ Never mind the fact that I think this type of prayer is ridiculous -- It perplexes me how one-sided the perspective of believers can be when natural phenomenon is concerned. If He gives us rain to quench the drought, does He not also give us hurricanes to wipe us out? Anyway, I doubt that we’ll see much media coverage of God’s justice on Mike Vick anytime soon.
1) Harking back to the days of high school English I am reminded of Wang Lung seeking the favor of the Earth God and getting totally screwed with famines and locusts in The Good Earth. Jesus Christ what a terrible book.
2) It amazes me that all of this is occurring on state grounds…with taxpayer money. What a waste.
3) How long before Pat Robertson proclaims this as Gods justice against dog lover and former Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick?
4) My dad once gave me this tidbit of advice – ‘If you’re gonna take credit for the rain, you better be ready to take credit for the floods.’ Never mind the fact that I think this type of prayer is ridiculous -- It perplexes me how one-sided the perspective of believers can be when natural phenomenon is concerned. If He gives us rain to quench the drought, does He not also give us hurricanes to wipe us out? Anyway, I doubt that we’ll see much media coverage of God’s justice on Mike Vick anytime soon.
Finally, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve been to church but what exactly does this quote from the article refer to?
“Teilhet said the governor's office has invited spiritual leaders from several faiths and dominations to participate in the service.”
“Teilhet said the governor's office has invited spiritual leaders from several faiths and dominations to participate in the service.”
Maybe I'm underestimating the diversity of groups involved in bringing Georgia rain!
3 comments:
Damn, they must be SERIOUSLY desperate. Actually, I did hear that if it doesn't rain there, they will have no fresh water supply in less than 3 months from now.
GRASPING
AT
STRAWS
Poor Georgia.
My heart goes out to the folks in the southeast who are enduring a bad drought. I believe the governor's time would be better spent doing less praying and more planning.
This reminds me of a true story I heard years ago. Once upon a time, a "dry" county in Kentucky took a referendum on whether to remain dry or go wet. A number of community leaders were associated with a local Christian college and a seminary. On the night of the referendum, they held a mass prayer meeting and begged God to influence the voters to keep the county dry. I guess God's answer was "no." Either that, or He would have felt better if they had gotten off their knees and into the voting booths to actually take part in the vote.
Prayer is not a substitute for action, ever.
The reasoning I often hear from believers is that everything God does is good and has a good purpose-- even hurricanes and tornados. We're just too stupid to understand why.
It's no coincidence that this religious teaching provides an excellent foundation for the masses to rally behind a male leader/human god (the President) and trust that his judgment is right even if we don't understand why... because he is the President and he knows better than we do. And we need to support his decisions. Anything else would be heresy... I mean, unpatriotic.
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