Pray for Rain

I've really never quite understood what prayer was for. If God knows best, what the hell do we need to ask him for stuff for? I mean, I understand the idea of prayer as a way of talking to God, I suppose (though if He already knows everything, it really shouldn't be necessary to direct our thoughts explicitly at Him). But it's the asking for stuff part that I never got. I mean, either we should get stuff or we shouldn't, and who'd know better than God what it was that we should get? Nobody, particularly not us.

And let me tell you, growing up Catholic, praying was the only part I really bothered with. I don't know why, but the whole religious thing never really meant much to me, but dammit, if they're going to make me get on my knees every damn time I have to go to church, I might as well try to get something out of it. That's how I always saw it, anyway. But despite all that praying, I'm pretty darn sure I never got any of the stuff I was praying for. It was always about girls and money and stuff like that, so I suppose maybe I was asking for the wrong stuff. But dammit, that's the stuff I wanted. So sue me.

And so it's pretty damn funny to watch this web video of some jackass blasphemer for Focus on the Family asking for it to rain on Obama's Democratic Convention speech.



What an a-hole, and his video sucks! That's the kind of crappy ass stuff corporate schmucks were making fourteen years ago and I guess I now know where those suckheads ended up: Working for James Dobson.

And for me, the funniest part is how half-assed he is about the whole thing. Like he knows his request is entirely wrong, but he just can't help himself and thinks that's kind of funny. Sure, he's making an entirely juvenile request that won't actually stop abortions or prevent donkeys from marrying snakes, but hey, he's been a good boy and if enough other good boys and girls ask for it, maybe God will give them their funny joke on Obama.

And the whole thing was stupid. Even he knew it, and he's an idiot. But one thing I've never understood about the more simple-minded Christian-types is how they rationalize why this stuff doesn't happen more. Why doesn't God make it rain more on Atheists? Why do bad things happen to true believers? Sure, you can rationalize this a little with the "He's testing us" theory or whatever, but eventually, even the most diehard believer's got to realize that they've got no real advantage over the non-believer, right? Right? But I suppose, if these people were able to think through things this far, then they wouldn't be the simple-minded believers they really are.

And as the standard disclaimer, I'm not referring to any Christians who don't think this way. I'm quite aware that there are plenty of smart Christians who have intellectually consistent belief systems, and so I'm just referring to schmucks like the guy in the video. People who know they're making unreasonable requests to their god which aren't likely to work at all, but just can't help themselves. People who see their Lord as being little more than their own personal genie; an hour a week pays for itself in no time.

What this guy did is a much bigger insult to his god than anything I could ever do, and that alone is worth the price of admission. There's really nothing much more presumptuous than asking the creator of everything to change the earth's weather patterns for your own personal amusement. It's enough to wish there was a god, just to see that bolt of lightening strike this dummy dead on his own video. Now that's something to pray for.