So this local church has had a message on their billboard for the last 3

[Horse with no Name]

months, saying "Pray for Rain--Jesus, we NEED rain...Pray Pray Pray"...
so now, 3 months later, it finally rained.
Now their sign says "PRAYER WORKS...We got rain".
I have nothing against praying, but it seems to me that the law of averages was at work here.
If the sign had been up a week, I could truly understand attributing the credit to prayer...but 3 months?

[Greyhound]

1. What?!? A religious organization trying to

claim credit for the inevitable? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you! :rofl:

[sharp_stick]

2. That's how religion has worked for hundreds of years

If you don't get what you want you didn't pray hard enough. If eventually you get it, it's all God. Even if you are praying for somthing that's going to come at some point like rain.

[cain_7777]

29. I must not be praying hard enough.

All these religious people are still here.

[Selatius]

3. The laws of nature have more to do with it than praying does

This universe operates on fundamental laws, and those laws exist despite what we may think. Science is merely the discovery of what has already been there for eons.

[The Straight Story]

Maybe you should alter it: Pray for Brain :) (nt)

[eleny]

4. Delusional

[iamjoy]

5. God Answers All Prayers

sometimes the answer is "no"
Sometimes we have to be persistent.

:eyes:

[ThomWV]

6. The Opiate of the Masses

He was right about one thing ....

[Philosoraptor]

7. prayer is like masturbation for your soul

[TallahasseeGrannie]

32. You say this like it is a bad thing?

[liberal N proud]

8. These same people will claim that natural disasters are God's wrath

I understand that prayer is a good thing but these people are so absorbed in their mindless quest for something to identify with that they will believe anything.

[tsuki]

9. My daddy always said you only pray for two reasons, to praise

his name or thank him. God does not equal Santa Claus.

But then Daddy was kind of straight-laced.

[Horse with no Name]

10. Your Daddy was a very smart man.

:thumbsup:

[tsuki]

25. Thanks. He was my Hero. nt

[Rufus T. Firefly]

24. A-men.

People seem to think that if they ask God for whatever, they get it! I get praying for strength, or for help, but not like the episode of "King of Queens" when Carrie prays for stuff to go on sale, and it does, and she starts going to Mass.

[ismnotwasm]

11. What always bothers me about that

Is I've seen people pray for someone to recover from a lingering,often fatal illnesses. They start out with perfect faith that God will have that person recover. Often that's not the case. Then it's "God's will"

God seems to get credit whether something happens one way or another, so praying FOR things to happen seems illogical. Since God will evidently do whatever he/she/it wants to do by those standards anyway, why bother?

I'm not against prayer, meditation or whatever, but I don't like the moral authority people so often claim when "God answers their prayers"

I'm sure the people in Darfur are praying as I type.

Where is God there? Maybe he's too busy making it rain because of some billboard.

[Skittles]

15. "God must have been watching over me"

a WTC survivor had the gall to say that after 2800 people were burned or crushed or jumped out the building.

[FiveGoodMen]

18. Ridiculously selfish and disgusting, isn't it?

[Skittles]

19. it's when I know they are absolutely brain-washed

they have no idea how ridiculous they sound

[TallahasseeGrannie]

33. Not necessarily

I once was saved from a very dangerous situation that killed other people and I did thank God. I didn't think I was special. I thought that it meant my work here was not done and theirs was.

I often wonder who the lucky ones were.

[Solly Mack]

12. Now you know it takes 3 months for a prayer bubble to traverse

the earth's atmosphere and the answer to travel back again - usually

Mass prayer merges into a bubble that travels up to the troposphere, then on to the stratosphere -where a small struggle with the ozone layer takes place, then on to the mesosphere ... then higher still to the thermosphere ...( once received, if a prayer request is urgent, God bounces the answer off an ion and sends it back via a radio wave for a quicker result)


Now on to the exosphere, where it gets a boost from helium gas that sends it up, up (and away in my beautiful, my beautiful prayer bubble)

Sure, the prayer comes out sounding like Donald Duck - but it's the journey that counts, right?

The prayer bubble usually slows down during the "pauses" - (that is why they call them pauses, right?)

(I am doing this from memory - so forgive the mistakes...and the obvious blasphemy...that too lol)

[BlueStorm]

13. LOL!!!

that actually sounds like something that an "Intelligent Design" proponent would say!!!

Blue

[Solly Mack]

14. I was kinda going for that "sound" lol

[Nicole]

16. The prayers did indeed work.

It would have taken 4 months to rain without those prayers. :sarcasm:

[hunter]

30. Or perhaps their prayers were keeping the rain away?

God: Stop bothering me! I'll decide when you get your rain.

My own kids were terrible pests when they wanted something. I didn't want to reward them for that, so I'd often wait until they stopped pestering me to get what they wanted if it happened to be something I was going to get them anyways. That's actually not my own theology, but it's a good monkey wrench to toss into these sorts of arguments. Unfortunately someone always takes it seriously, as if God could be an irritable dad.

[charlie]

31. I'd rather he *was* like that

With the fundie freaks acting like kids in the back seat hollering IS IT ARMAGEDDON YET?, I'd love to see Him finally pull over and whale the tar out of them.

That's what I'd like, if I believed He existed, of course :)

[Jeanette in FL]

17. This is the first time I have laughed all day

I owe you, big time. Thank you so much.

[Imalittleteapot]

20. It worked. It worked.

Got 10 minutes of rain yesterday. First drops in 2 months. Thanks prayer people.

[crim son]

21. The new sign doesn't surprise me.

Magical thinking, illogical thinking, wishful thinking. The foundations of religious belief.

[porphyrian]

22. I guess they didn't pray for the rapture hard enough.

Sad fucking desperate people.

[brentspeak]

23. Your contempt is duly noted

For all you know, these particular church people don't even believe in the rapture.

[porphyrian]

28. And I frankly don't give a fuck, either, but thanks for unnecessarily...

...defending them.

[Odin2005]

26. LOL! Wishful thinking at it's funniest.

:lol:

[Evoman]

27. To me it kind of sounds like a joke.

I could see a church putting this up as humourous little bit on their billboard. I really doubt it was serious...nobody could be that dumb. What kind of church is it? Is it even a fundie church?

[SPKrazy]

34. Perhaps God's Timing Is Different From Theirs?

or maybe they are just a bunch of loons

I don't know that praying for rain is a good or bad thing. It can't hurt? Or maybe it could?

If God were a genie to which we could ask him to give us things, would asking for rain help?

What if one asked for rain, and got a deluge and flooded, caused tornadoes, etc. killed people.

I am inclined to either not ask for specific things, or preface it with "if it is your will" (although I really believe that it is up to God and not me, and my preface makes no real difference to God, but it reminds me that I am not asking a genie for fulfillment of my wishes.

Does that make any sense?