The WorldNutDaily is famous for their breathless, moron-level headlines and writing, but this one may take the cake:
Divine intervention sought in presidential race
And to no one's surprise, the article is really just an advertisement for a new book called We Will Pray for Election Day, by Thomas Freiling and Michael Klassen - sold by ShopNetDaily, naturally. According to this mock article cum advertising blurb, this "inspiring blockbuster" contains "40 prayers to change America" and, obviously, seeks divine intervention in the election. But how exactly do they expect God to intervene? Let's think about this.
If God needs to intervene, then it must mean that without his intervention, the wrong people would win (and does it need to be said that the wrong people would be "liberals"?). But in order to change the election, I can think of only two ways that God might intervene - by changing people's minds for them so they vote for the "right" candidates, or by making sure that something happens to prevent votes for the "wrong" candidates from being counted. Either way, it's a violation of that legendary "free will" that fundamentalists like to talk so much about, isn't it? If God sees fit to just change someone's mind from the outside for them, free will is history. Somehow I doubt that the authors of this idiotic article have thought this through very well. All they know is that God is on their side, naturally. Who could doubt that?
In fact, one of their readers named Al Barrs actually thinks it already happened. He writes in an e-mail to the editors,
Regarding "Divine intervention sought in presidential race," don't know if anyone noticed or not but "Divine intervention " is what prevented our president from being Al Gore!Let's hope it happens again in November 2004.
There's nothing quite so annoying as stupidity masquerading as piety.
If by "divine intervention" the emailer meant "constitutional coup" compliments of the United States Supreme Court, then I agree, we've experienced "divine intervention." You don't need prayer for that...just a close election where the favored candidate needs a little secular boost.
If by "divine intervention" the emailer meant "constitutional coup" compliments of the United States Supreme Court, then I agree, we've experienced "divine intervention." You don't need prayer for that...just a close election where the favored candidate needs a little secular boost.
Despite occasional pretenses to the contrary, even Antonin Scalia doesn't qualify as a divine being. :)
Ed Brayton Wrote:
Either way, it's a violation of that legendary "free will" that fundamentalists like to talk so much about, isn't it?
Indeed. But cognitive dissonance isn't just acceptable to a religious mind, it's a prerequisite. The more you can deny your own reason in favour of your faith the better you are. Praying for God to change the election while saying how great it is to live in a democracy isn't anything special beside watching the daily horrorshow on TV news and saying how great it is to have a loving, compassionate God running things.
Indeed. But cognitive dissonance isn't just acceptable to a religious mind, it's a prerequisite.
I think this is painting with too broad a brush. My post was not a response to religious people, it was a response to a particular brand of religious person. I know far too many religious people who are brilliant and well educated to indict them along with the stupid ones. And I know plenty of stupid atheists too.
Still, you make a great point about the dissonance of saying how great it is to live in a democracy while also praying for God to intervene to change the outcome of the elections. That one hadn't occured to me.