Georgia Governor to perform Christian rain-dance, Atheists to protest
Offline http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/13/southern.drought.ap/index.html
I've never been more ashamed of my state government than I am now. Rather than work on better water conservation efforts to end the drought, we've decided to take the easy way out... our Governor is going to pray for rain. The amusing thing is that we already have a 20% chance of rain today and tomorrow, so if it actually does rain, then obviously prayer works... except for the prayers of farmers devastated for months by this lack of rain.
The Atlanta Freethought Society will be out there, as will some FFRF members. If I can get through traffic, I plan to show up (hooray for coinciding lunch break). If I can make it out, I'll probably have video and pictures for everyone of the protest, and of our Government officials officially giving up on saving Georgia from drought themselves and asking a sky fairy to save us.
The Regular Expressions of Humanistic Jones: Where one software Engineer will show the world that God is nothing more than an undefined pointer.
- Login to post comments
Nice! Good job at the state for doing nothing useful.
Praying for rain is problamatic at best. If it rains, what does that mean? Did God answer the prayer or had he planned to send that amount at that time anyway? If it doesnt rain, does it mean that he is still punishing them for some unknown sin? Does it mean that the prayer was unheard because the person doing the praying is not held in enough esteem by the creator, that the person(s) praying is (are) not praying to the correct god, or does it mean that God is upset with them for violating Jesus's instructions in Matthew 6:5-6 where he tells them not to pray in public..."as the hypocrites” who stand in the synagogues and on the streetcorners to be seen of men. Instead, He instructs us to go into an inner room and shut the door, and then pray."
Of course, all this is based on the assumption that there is a god and that he intervines on our behalf, if asked, for which there is not a shred of proof that such an entity exists.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
It is amazing that in this day and age people accept this as actually doing something.
Lol at the Op's 'rain dance' description....great stuff!
And shame on them for not actually doing something useful like, oh, maybe instituting some statewide measures for reducing carbon emissions? Um, hello global warming!
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
I don't know if this is more repulsive or scary. At what level did it seem like it would be helpfull to pray. I'm just reminded of that one picture that reads,"Prayer-how to do nothing and still think your helping."
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
If praying doesn't work maybe they'll try sacrificing goats next.
I can remember growing up seeing dipictions in movies of Native American rain dances. I guess if you dont dance while you make a request to your sky daddy will listen to you?
In the intire history of humanity when has dancing or prayer or anything prevented flooding or drought?
I dont care if it is Kemosabi or Krishna or Jesus, crossing your fingers is crossing your fingers and is as usefull as throwing holy water at Lex Luthor.
It's not raining in this region for NATURAL reasons, not because a fictional man in a beard has a beef with a fictional man with a pitchfork. These idiots might as well be consulting a Ouiji Board or "Magic 8 Ball".
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Welcome to the 21st Century.
You need to think more laterally. They'll probably sacrifice a pagan or something along those lines.
How far are you through Microbiology
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Knowing the Georgia government, I'd suggest that we'll sacrifice something more substantial, like teacher's salaries.
That way, more people will be poorly educated, and will think doing a rain dance makes it rain.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
As statistically predicted by the 20% chance of rain... we've still had no rain in Atlanta the past 2 days. I'll have a bit more of an update and some of the protest pictures up soon *as soon as I can find my camera's usb cable, I guess god hates me for that Nothing Fails Like Prayer sign I had*
The Regular Expressions of Humanistic Jones: Where one software Engineer will show the world that God is nothing more than an undefined pointer.
Two chapters. Then I had to stop and research some things (Actually several things), so I can reread them and see if I really understand everything.
It's going to take quite a while.
I've done only a first read of 1/20 of the book and some side research on it.
I think it's going to get more and more difficult as I go.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
lol Kemosabe isn't a god, Brian.
It's Native American language meaning apparently either, "trusty scout", "Apache Friend", or "one who is white".
http://www.write101.com/kemosabe.htm
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
What's going to make it worse is that when it does rain again, whether it's a day from now or a month, this event is going to be attributed to the solution.
What I saw on TV was a bunch of people making complete asses of themselves. Remember what happened to the Dover School Board after they lost their Creationist fight? They were all removed from their post. I think the community in Georgia owes that in return for such stupidity.
If you were ashamed of your GA Gov for doing his little rain dance with other ministers and lawmakers, you'll really be disgusted with them for the following:
Governor calls cold front bringing rain an 'affirmation
An affirmation for these State Government psychotics that their absurd rain dance and prayer vigil on the steps of the capitol proves not only the existence of their imaginary Christian Sky God, but 'it' is actually listening to these bozos!
If there was a God, Man wouldn't have had to invent him [reversing Voltaire's famous quote].
Nevermind that a prediction for rain can be easily made 2-3 days in advance as well. Some great affirmation.
Here's one: I label myself a prophet and state that tomorrow in Michigan, it's going to be around 41 degrees with scattered flurries. Source: Weather.com.
Their prayers DID work. I've got the proof right here.
Difficulty - they didn't pray to get rain WITHOUT gale-force winds. Think of the old SNL skit where the hair stylist sells out to Mephistopheles in exchange for being able to give their customers the best possible hairstyles, but the customers wind up never needing another haircut again.
{SPOILER!!! highlight text to read}
Or in Ghost Rider where Johnny sells his soul to the devil in exchange for curing his father's lung cancer. The devil does cure the cancer, but the father dies the very next day.
{/spoiler}
Speaking of spoilers, if you didn't read all the way to the end of the book, know that Jesus dies.
Good night, funny man, and thanks for the laughter.
I label myself a prophet and state that tomorrow in Michigan there will be a lot of depressed college football fans sometime around 3:00pm EST give or take a half hour.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Hehe, well unlike some sports fans in Michigan I am and will always be a true Spartan fan. I don't care a whit about those rodent wolverines. MSU beat Penn State... so there.
I mentioned this in another thread about this topic, but i`ll do it here again. Is there any law in geogria for removing a governer because of insanity or incompetence? If so you might want to think about having a lawsuit, even if you know it won`t go anywhere it'll be great PR.
Morte alla tyrannus et dei
Georgia Constitution, Article I, Section II, Paragraph VII:
Separation of church and state. No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution
Not only was this stupid and insane but out-right illegal by Georgia law if he used anything at all that was paid for by the State in the purpose of organizing this event. I can't concieve of how he couldn't have used something state-paid to do this.
The Regular Expressions of Humanistic Jones: Where one software Engineer will show the world that God is nothing more than an undefined pointer.
I don't understand why they would pray to the same asshole that has kept it from raining in the first place...
Cool way of handling a spoiler. I'll have to remember that.
BTW, you failed to mention that Jesus comes back to life, although that little plot twist reeked of Deus ex machina. Of course the Holey Buybull is one big Deus ex machina.
And the part of "Deus" is played by some asshat who is "jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (Tip of the hat to Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion)
Books on atheism, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.
LOL, exactly.
Job 5:18 For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.
Nice guy, that Deus known as Yahweh.
Books on atheism, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.