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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 18133
[Religious]
Date Posted:
7/7/2007
8:08:12 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 5,500
RSS: 22,636
Comments: 14
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Week Of Prayer Coincides With Increase In Rain
Author: Sarah Bruyn Jones Source: Tuscaloosa News (AL)
Title: WEEK OF PRAYER COINCIDES WITH INCREASE IN RAIN
The state prayed.
It would appear that God provided.
Since June 30, the day Gov. Bob Riley designated a week for residents to pray for rain, Tuscaloosa has seen .55 inches of it. Given that in June Tuscaloosa measured just under/s1 inch of rain for the entire month, more than half an inch within a week might indicate there is something to it after all.
Whether the rain arrived by coincidence or divine intervention is up to individual interpretation, but praying for rain is something that cultures have turned to throughout recorded history.
“It is part of what it means to be human," said Michael Murphy, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Alabama. “The thing that impresses me the most is in anthropology we’ve never found a society that didn’t try and influence forces beyond their control."
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Community Thoughts: There are 14 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| They Had Better Be Careful | Jul 7th. at 7:09:24 pm EDT
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
Look what those Texans got whey they prayed for rain. Prayer is focused intent, just like a magic spell - same thing - often same results, depends on the focus and the intent.
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| Prayer........ | Jul 7th. at 6:59:46 pm EDT
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Jedi Gordy (Edinboro, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
is a form of focused energy asking the divine for something. So is magick. So, how is it that it is rubbish when prayer makes something happen, yet perfectly alright when we use magick? Well, IT ISN'T RUBBISH!! Lest we forget that Jesus was a Rabbi who used Kabbalistic MAGICK, and gave those that did and did not follow his path the same powers? Invoking Jesus or the Christian god through prayer is no different than invoking the Muslim god, the Jewish god, the Buddha, the Hindu gods (I could go on here forever) , and yet we put it down? And what about looking after oneself and community before taking on the power to help the world? That is how it should be. Unless you are at a good level yourself, you CANNOT help others!! And shame on you who constantly rag on the Christians! Let not the actions of a few speak for the majority. Lest we forget, we have some VERY bad practioners in our ranks as well (I have met a few of these people) ! And that we have allies within the Christian community, given we get over our wounded psyches and REACH OUT, like we should be doing!!!
With wisdom and love,
Gordy
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| Fancy A Swap? | Jul 7th. at 3:05:48 pm EDT
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Moonlight Wolf (Bradford, England) - Email Me
Pray for rain if you lack it if you want but over here in the UK we certainly don't want any more.
We've had flooding in Yorkshire that will cost us billions (British billions by the way) and that has left thousands of people homeless.
Anyone who has watched Wimbledon the past two weeks will know that it has been teeming it down over here. (Heck, one of Nadal's matches lasted five days because of it.)
You Americans can pray to God/the Gods/the Goddess for rain. We'll pray for sunshine.
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| Well! | Jul 7th. at 2:51:17 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
I'm not bashing prayers-only the fraudulent non prayerful actions of those who deem their deity is "the one and only"-and the fact that they bash us every chance they get. If they believe their god will send them rain- then by all means they should believe it. As for proof that he will send rain every time they ask-is another matter. At least they cannot-even with prayer- control WHERE it falls.
They can only hope it falls where they need it, and there are times when Nature definitely has a sense of humor; teasing, drenching or bringing all sorts of other things along with the rain.
As for who sends it-- depends on who asks.
I'm sure even the Flying Spaghetti Monster has had his share of prayers for rain (after all, spaghetti needs water to cook his pasta blessings!)
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| ... | Jul 7th. at 11:22:53 am EDT
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
If this were a solitary Wiccan doing a ritual for rain claiming the credit, I'd ask for the evidence. Since christian mythology is allegedly based on some sick idea of love, it stands to reason that the christian "god" would have more important things to do than deliver rain to a bunch of rubes. Like, say, stop the heat wave in the West. Or maybe stop the genocide in Darfur? Better yet, prevented Chimpy McFlightsuit from having the past two presidential elections rigged in his favor!
There is a VERY good reason why I come down hard on christian mythology. It claims to be the "one true and genuinely authentic" religion when it's been proven that huge swaths of it were stolen from other sources. Yeah, some originality there. F**king liars.
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| The Problem... | Jul 7th. at 10:47:06 am EDT
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Greybird (Sullivan, Indiana) - Email Me
The problem with looking at the results of prayer scientifically is that nobody has ever figured out how to apply controls to any of the gods, which means that the results of their actions (including the results of prayer) can never be a constant.
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| Of Course The Writer Forgets | Jul 7th. at 10:44:48 am EDT
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Ananta Androscoggin (Greene, Maine) - Email Me
that you can't call any experiment a successful proof unless anybody, anywhere, at any time, who repeats it exactly gets the same results every time.
If nobody can duplicate the results, either the hypothesis is totally bogus or superstition-based, or you need to figure out some modifications to your hypothesis to account for the different results, and then devise a new experiment to test for whether the modifications are meaningful or pointless.
But don't forget that Jahweh started out as a storm god, so rain would be right up his alley.
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| Classy | Jul 7th. at 10:33:12 am EDT
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Greybird (Sullivan, Indiana) - Email Me
Had the article been about how every coven in Alabama had performed a week-long ritual for rain, people around here would have been praising the power of pagans and the joy of the gods.
Let a different religion (you know, "THAT religion") make a similar claim, and people jump in with the insults.
And people wonder why pagans have a bad name. Here's a clue: We don't need an Evil Christian Conspiracy (tm) - we do a perfectly good job of giving ourselves a bad name by claiming ethics (tolerance) that we aren't willing to actually practice.
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| ... | Jul 7th. at 9:14:50 am EDT
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
Yep, their Jebus ignores true suffering in the world in favor of sending a little rain to a group of ignorant hicks. Such a loving "god" there.
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| It Must Be Nice To Be The Favorite... | Jul 7th. at 8:37:29 am EDT
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NightLad (Toronto, Ontario) - Email Me
When the Tsunami struck and the world prayed, God did nothing.
When Katrina hit and the nation prayed, God did nothing.
But when Tuscaloosa prayed for a little water to fall out of the sky (because clearly they were suffering from drought far worse than, say, areas of Africa where people continue to die of dehydration) – GOD in all his infinite glory, brought THEM rain.
Hallelujah.
(I guess when you believe God loves you more than anybody else, it’s easy to believe such things.)
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