h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"2. RAIN: GOVERNOR OF SOUTH DAKOTA CALLED FOR A WEEK OF PRAYER.
Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, the state hardest hit by the
severe drought in the plains, proclaimed the last week of July to
be A WEEK TO PRAY FOR RAIN. Not a drop has fallen from the
heavens on South Dakota since. The governor used the wrong
technology. You pray to get out of Iraq, for rain you dance."

From Bob Park's What's New


Maybe South Dakota is being punished by god for banning abortion?

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1300&dept_id=374730&newsid=16988994&PAG=461&rfi=9

An opinion piece. Well written. And Google's best link at the moment.

Nonono, God is showing us not to believe those hippy "scientists" with their pinko pollution scares, and that only He (in his infinite mercy) can bring about global warming. The Rapture is upon us! The thousand year reign of Christ and the saints in the New Jerusalem has come! The sinners shall burn! Hallelujah!

Chances of faith being shaken in face of evidence? Nil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/5238694.stm

Seems the power of prayer is used to fight crime on this side of the pond

I agree, BTW, that its not a big deal. No point being a killjoy on such a harmless quirk.

I'm kind of puzzled why people would think prayer should make any difference.
If there was an all-seeing deity, it'd have to be pretty thick to think that people generally *want* droughts, and need to be reminded otherwise.
If there was some great Divine Plan that required a drought despite what people obviously wanted, why should praying make a deity abandon the plan early?

The only point I could see of a deity answering prayers would be to make it clear who the boss was, and the best way to do that would seem to be to repeatedly make things unpleasant, wait until there was some big public display of prayer, and then conspicuously answer the prayers there and then. I can't imagine it would take long for people to get the message in that situation, but that doesn't see to be how things generally work out.

there was similar attempt, using meditation, to fight crime in DC in the 90's. During the period of meditation it was the worst murder spree in the history of the city...

(World Centric)


That one really made my morning. As for the power of prayer ... yeah right.

az

TRiG, your link in post 2 ended up with all sorts of weird pop ups about protecting my system, whatever ... rather scary. Didn't get to read the article.


az

No pop-ups at all at this end. And I don't have Google toolbar installed at the moment.

TRiG.

No pop-ups here - using Firefox

No problem here.

s Taliesin ...

az

It's generally accepted in actually *Christian* (and AFAIK religious Jewish) circles that prayers attempting to influence God as regards the weather, are unacceptable. Answering a prayer to end drought might mean creating a drought elsewhere, so - there you go. Weather is a chaotic system, left to its own devices.

(BTW, I am sure you know that using 'its' for deity is just a childish insult, which is why you did it. That's just Potholer, as if you had a fight with your sister when you were 8 years old, and in protesting to your parents called her 'it' just to get back at her... )

you know gods gender DA/Vicky/Della/Annie?

Potholer: "If there was an all-seeing deity, it'd have to be...."

Here, "it" seems like a reference to some undefined deity, so the neutral pronoun seems appropriate to me. For all I know it (the noun "deity", not Potholer ) could refer to Athena or Vishnu all the same. Unless you advocate the use of "he or she", of course.

>>"(BTW, I am sure you know that using 'its' for deity is just a childish insult, which is why you did it. That's just sadface Potholer, as if you had a fight with your sister when you were 8 years old, and in protesting to your parents called her 'it' just to get back at her... )"

For someone pretending a knowledge of English, I would have hoped that you would understand that I was talking about prayers and deities in general, and that 'it' is the way to refer to beings (even supernatural beings) of unknown gender. Just because you think you know whch deities do and don't exist, and what gender (if any) they are, you shouldn't try to project your beliefs on others and expect that others share them.

Even in the Christian tradition, it is by no means unknown for prayers to be offered to saints (many of whom are women), or to the Blessed Virgin herself. "He'd" would be obviously inappropiate in such a situation, which is why I used a more generic form.
Should I use 'he/she/it/they'd' next time, to make what I was saying more explicit?

I'd suggest you might be better off refraining from telling other people why they said anything until you learn to read what they said with a more open mind.

>>"It's generally accepted in actually *Christian* (and AFAIK religious Jewish) circles that prayers attempting to influence God as regards the weather, are unacceptable."
Tell it to the governor.

>>"Answering a prayer to end drought might mean creating a drought elsewhere, so - there you go."
So you mean that an all-powerful deity couldn't just make *extra* rain instantly if it chose to do so, or cause more humid air to be blown in from the seas?

I would've thought that "God is omnipotent" pretty much covered *extra* rain, yeah.

Okay, I might have fallen in, as the saying goes, and you *may* have meant to be non-specific as to gender... But on the basis of your previous posts, I assumed you meant to be awkward...

I don't use any gender pronoun for God, but I don't use it - I simply don't use a pronoun at all, and repeat "God"... I think you'll find a lot of believers do that.

"Tell that to the governor"? Certainly, if I knew him - but why should I be bound by what an American politician does?

OK Thanks for the clarification. However, 'God' is actually maybe a bit too specific to use in a general context, since with a capital G, it is pretty heavily associated with Christianity.

On the subject of prayer, I can understand that people who think about religion might take a dim view of someone praying to win a lottery or get a promotion, since that pretty much would mean that someone else would lose out.
However, when it comes to weather, if someone believes an omnipotent deity really *could* make rain when it chose to, and especially if their religious teachings tell of a time when their deity really did make it rain, everywhere, for a very long time, it is understandable that they may think the deity could make rain for them, soon or even now, without other people losing out.