I call them _CINO_s; Christians, in name only.
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But weâd still be stuck with Alaska!
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Already has one. Theyâre called Christians.
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Damn media!
Youâre almost as bad as those pesky video cameras and their vendetta against police officers
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Credit where credit is due: Jimmy Carter is a deacon and he decided to spend his retirement years building houses for homeless people. The âletâs do some of that nice stuff Jesus was talking aboutâ Christians are out there, they just arenât nearly as loud.
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In James Branch Cabellâs Jurgen, I think, the original tablets of the Law are being used by Heaven as a âwar roofâ to prevent the appalling prayers of the religious from escaping the Earth.
The sheer delusional level of religious fundamentalists of all the Abrahamic religions passes understanding. I well remember one of them delivering a sermon in which he revealed that during WW2, angels accompanied British bombers on their flights into Germany (I later discovered that this was promoted by ministers of all the belligerents except the Soviet Union: the Germans, Italians and the US were equal offenders.) I later mentioned this to someone who had actually flown in Lancasters, and his comments were unprintable.
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I figure it a fair exchange for getting rid of the other 98%.
I think they have to be quieter than the loud ones.
Matthew 6
5 âWhen you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.
6 But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.
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This isnât new. The GOP has been praying for Obamaâs death since his first term in office:
and the outcry back then pretty much belies any claims that the following verses werenât something that everyone in the room knew about.
It occurred to me that I know many fundamentalist Christians who object to the suggestion that they cherry-pick the parts of the Bible they like and disregard those they donât. And yet thatâs exactly what Perdue claims to be doing.
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Actually, I think the worst thing you can say is that a âjokeâ that ends up referring to a prayer for someone to die says quite a bit about the joke-teller⌠no matter how old that joke may be.
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or read it in the original Klingon. Twist-ending: it doesnât get any more violent in Klingon.
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But the KJV is the only one with
And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him.
Itâs just chock-full of that type of humor.
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Really, while I can understand why it persists for psychological reasons, âprayerâ in general is a really weird fit for any religion with an omniscient deity, particularly one believed to be benevolent or to be acting according to a greater plan.
The âGod, go fix this for me!â style requests are especially blunt and tactless; but even the most polite âDear god, would you please kindly consider my petition for relief on matter Xâ stuff, while less blunt, is still logically pretty weird: if a deity is omniscient, it is fully aware of the petitionerâs situation(and likely knows it better than they do); and if the deity is benevolent or following-a-greater-plan, it presumably has reasons for the situation being as it is. No matter how tactful the request; one is providing information that the deity already has(at best, given that your information is imperfect you may just be providing a confused eyewitness misinterpretation); and requesting a reconsideration of an outcome that the deity has presumably allowed to come to pass for some good reason.
Itâs a much better fit for the hellenic-pantheon style deities, where a god might not be familiar with your problem, in which case bringing it to his or her attention is perfectly reasonable; or might not be disposed to help you without some sort of incentive, in which case sacrifices, bargaining, etc. are perfectly reasonable things to do in order to try to move them to consider your case.
Again, Iâm not blind to the fact that humans love their rituals, so Iâm not surprised that prayer is still a thing among even the more austere flavors of monotheism; but even the âThy will be doneâ stuff, which is the least demanding prayer possible, still seems wholly redundant. Itâs not as though an omnipotent deity runs much risk of its will not being done; and you hardly need to say anything for an omniscient deity to detect your devotion or lack thereof.
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He already knows what you want
And decided that you didnât need it
So donât bother asking for cures or an answer
God is the one who gave you the Cancer!
â Aurelio Voltaire, Dead, Ooky Spooky
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Itâs not merely ritual, itâs a form of meditation. Unless youâre five years old youâre not supposed to be asking for Christmas presents, or to win the big game, or even for your cancer to be cured. Itâs supposed to help you focus on and reify where you want to be within yourself, as with the Serenity Prayer. Itâs phrased as your side of a conversation with a deity because thatâs easier for a lot of people to grasp and believe than the idea that an internal conversation with oneself could make any difference, particularly for people whoâve been raised with it, and even more so for people who feel powerless.
There are also theological questions of free will and humility. Just because God knows youâre going to prostrate yourself doesnât mean you donât have to actually do it, because you donât know that He knows that, because youâre not omniscient one.
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