I hope there is a there there: Miami church holds prayer services to keep

[Nimrod2005]

Miami church holds prayer services to keep hurricanes away

What the fuck is wrong with people?

MIAMI -- Hurricane season is fast approaching and now people in South Florida are doing everything to prepare -- including prayer -- news partner NBC 6 reported.

St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, 7377 SW 64th St. in South Miami, began three days of solemn prayer to keep hurricanes away on Sunday. The event is called "Preparing Through Prayer."

Each night -- Sunday, Monday and Tuesday -- parishioners celebrate Mass, followed by a candlelight procession.

The hurricane season starts June 1.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-59hurricaneprayer,0,254660.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

[htuttle]

1. Have they considered just tossing a virgin into the volcano?

A tried and true method, I've heard.

[Dr.Phool]

4. Could we substitute a Republican prostitute?

[da_chimperor]

8. Ann Coulter?

:shrug:

[Nimrod2005]

10. Brilliant!!! Coulter would do I am sure...She is not a virgin, but she is

a Whore...

[DBoon]

19. the volcano would spit her back up

nt

[Initech]

35. Good idea!

:rofl:

[bullimiami]

6. do you think that would help?

[Nimrod2005]

9. ROFLMAO....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

18. Another reason to celebrate

premarital sex.

[bullimiami]

2. it cant hurt. more power to them.

and i mean that.

[displacedtexan]

3. The same people who scoff at rain dancers?

Hm.

[efhmc]

5. Probably get more help this way than they will from the bushies.

[jedicord]

7. When someone prays for something and it doesn't happen...

do they feel betrayed?:shrug:

[The2ndWheel]

13. Mysterious ways my friend

Mysterious ways indeed.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. No, not usually

I just figured I got an answer and it was "no."

[jedicord]

20. Great reply Grannie!

I'll never accuse you of being a religious crazy, 'cause you seem to be a religious sane.

[Mad_Dem_X]

23. Exactly...the answer we receive

is not always the one we want. :)

[Dorian Gray]

25. No...

Or they shouldn't. I don't. I pray all the time, but I always stipulate, "if it's Your will."

[ComerPerro]

11. Just like any other prayer, its always a good bet for a preacher

Its all in how you spin it:

Imagine they do pray that there are no hurricanes.

If they are right, and no hurricane hits that part of Florida, then the preacher can claim that his prayer worked.


HOWEVER

Assume that they pray and a hurricane hits their area anyway.

The preacher can still say that the prayer protected the church, or if the church is destroyed he can at least claim that it protected many of the memebers and family of church members...



What I'm wondering is, when Christians pray that they be spared from something, what do they think about those who are hit by the affliction?

Or do they even think about those people at all?

[Nimrod2005]

14. NO they pray they don't get hit, but it is ok for the storm to hit

North say Georgia or maybe even NOLA, since it is a bunch of darkies Dems there....

[ComerPerro]

29. That's what I was getting to

they pray to protect themselves.

They don't pray for no hurricanes. They just pray that the hurricanes hit elsewhere

[TallahasseeGrannie]

17. I have faced a few hurricanes in my life

and I have prayed about it. I usually pray for them to just kind of fizzle and die out or to his an unpopulated area.

[ComerPerro]

28. I am talking about people who make very public prayers

[TallahasseeGrannie]

30. fools

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. That was my thought, hearing a contractor in Iraq talking on NPR about

a near miss he had "The lord was looking out for me".

So what's the lord got against the 2500 who didn't come home?

[ComerPerro]

33. No kidding. That's what I hate most about that mentality

[meti57b]

12. Prayer is more of a sure bet than federal aid from the bush administration

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. Whatever gets you through the night

[mikeytherat]

21. ...be he Jack Daniels or Jesus Christ."

mikey_the_rat

[TallahasseeGrannie]

24. Some work better for some situations

the trick is to know when. As a matter of fact, sometimes when I pray the answer I hear is "sit down, shut up and have a drink."

[Dorian Gray]

26. Hee...

That's one of my favorite answers to prayer, Grannie! :)

[sonsera]

22. Look at it this way - -

"It certainly can't hurt anything"! e. g. Look up Desmond T. Doss the War War Two Hero.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. You know, this could do some real good

if the candlelight procession ends at a table where they distribute two gallons of bottled water and ten pounds of canned food to each parishioner.

[bdamomma]

31. Prayers

are not going to help, maybe if some people respect the earth, and pay attention to the Kyoto Protocol just maybe we could reverse some of this global warming.

[Speck Tater]

34. OK, this just doesn't track.

They believe:

1. God knows everything.
2. God has a grand master plan.

Yet they believe that:

3. They can mumble some incantations and convince God to change his mind.

Face it, if God knows everything already he's not going to change his mind, or alter his grand master plan just because a handful of people mutter some incantations. That third belief just doesn't track with the first two at all. It simply shows that religious and magical beliefs are born of fear and uncertainty, and a niave desire to find a way to "control" God, or the fates, or the laws of nature with appropriate incantations and rituals.

How can a truely religious person reconcile his attempts to influence or control the very God he worships with his belief that this same God already does what's best and can't bought off with bribes?

[Sammy Pepys]

36. Eh, so what?

First of all, I highly doubt that they're praying other people get hit by hurricanes except them.

And it's not any stranger than the stuff I read in the Religion Forum here on DU anyway....