All headline News – July 25, 2006:
Public officials in Lubbock, Texas, a town populated by upwards of 200,000 people, are organizing a day to pray for rain.
Mayor David Miller tells the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, “Nobody is going to tell God what to do and what not to do, but we are in a serious drought in West Texas and since he is the man who controls the rain clouds, we’re asking him for his mercy and his help.”
The City Council and the Lubbock County commissioners are expected to adopt resolutions this week asking local residents to both pray and fast for rain this Sunday.
They should hit-up the local Native American population for a little rain-dance. Wait, they killed them all…
God, Allah, Budda, etc… whatever it takes.
As a college student living in Lubbock this doesn’t suprise me. What does surprise me is that I found out about this first from you guys.
Hopefully, this is just payback for Lubbock being a dry, as in you can’t buy alcohol, city.
The girl in the photo should do a rain dance.
I really wanna see her dance.
Is there such a thing as pole-dancing for rain?
I don’t blame them for trying – you never know.
Maybe they should pray for a few clouds a plane and a bit of silver iodide.
Yes… GOD controls the rain.
Okay, I’m an extremist, but I wouldn’t raise a voice in opposition to a law requiring all public officials to be athiests.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to as every strange bedfellow from the ACLU to the Southern Baptist Leadership Council would raise thier voices… But still, I’d stay out of that fray…
Officials have tried prayers before and say they were answered. In January 2004, after a year of drought, the city and county set aside a Sunday to pray for rain and got the second-wettest year since records have been kept.
It’s spelled C-O-I-N-C-I-D-E-N-C-E. But, hey, whatever makes them happy.
When I still was on the road, I used to overnight in Lubbock, once every 2-3 weeks. I remember 3 things:
1. I chose the motel I stayed at because it was next to the Buddy Holly statue. The best thing to ever come from Lubbock.
2. Visiting the Texas Tech bookstore for the 1st time, I was used to university bookstores that usually smelled like pipe smoke or pot. That one smelled like hairspray.
3. Everyone’s favorite country song was the one about the best view of Lubbock being the one “in my rearview mirror — leaving town”.
Oh yeah — it was better than staying in Odessa or Amarillo!
8: There’s no way to prove that it was a coincidence, just like there’s no real way to prove the existence / non-existence of God.
Can’t hurt, can it?
Never underestimate the efficacy of prayer.
– Precision Blogger.
Isn’t the best way to make it rain on Saturday simply to wash your car on Friday? It always works for me 😉
Sorry #10, save the philosophical semantics for another board.
Any thought, issue, theory, concept in science can be re-explained in terms of ”supernatural” factors (there’s probably a better word for it). It may be that an invisible, very large, alien is responsible for hurling the planets around the sun, but I’ll go with gravitational theory. It may be that an person from another dimension is watching me punch 10 + 10 on my calculator, and putting a 20 up in the display. I’d rather go with the whole CPU, quantum physics theory that makes up the IC’s, etc.
Proving “beyond a reasonable doubt” can get people executed, and science (including meteorology) is held to a higher standard than that.
Bottom line: there is lots of reasons why weather and climate happens (including seemingly random reasons: see chaos theory), but praying isn’t one of them.
Side note: there was recently a very large study of the effect of prayer on sick people. I won’t go into the details, but it was meticulously done and found out that there is no effect.
I have no problem believing that supernatural phenomenon may exist, but nothing I’ve ever witnessed or read about has lead me to believe otherwise. I have faith, but I don’t let it get in the way of navigating and planning is this non-supernatural world.
13: It’s not semantics. The only person you can really prove anything to is yourself. Other people may choose to believe you or not. One can only reason about something to the extent of one’s mental capacity. We generally like to think that we know what we are talking about, but that is only within OUR FRAME OF REFERENCE, which changes all the time.
The study you cited proves nothing, as it has no way to identify whether God has helped anyone or not. It assumes that a larger study means more chance of someone being helped by God, but there is no way to check if that assumption is true. Therefore, the study is flawed.
My argument is not about religion, but about people making absolute statements without thinking.
The real problem is that while many of the Christian townspeople are praying to their God for an end to the drought, the ice cream and beverage vendors in Lubbock are secretly praying to Mercury, the Roman god of commerce, for a continuing and very profitable dry spell. The best hope for the good folks of Lubbock is if Mercury’s new duties as the official god of internet gaming distract him from answering the prayers of the vendors, leaving the Hebrew God a clear shot to end the drought.
It could be a real sudden death “god-off” matchup, sure to keep you on the edge of your pew! May the best god win!
#13 – Lou
I would have said the same thing as you, and I am the opposite of you. I have faith – faith that being an athiest will yield the same result upon my death as that of any xian, which is to say I’ll be dead because Heaven and Hell are mythological places as are the dieties who reside there.
There is a problem with prayer and it does hurt. Not in this case, perhaps, but the simple minded Sling Blades of Lubbock can pray all they want. The drought may end it may not, but absent the prayer, it was going to end or not end all the same.
But this same mentality is used to deny medical care to sick children. If an adult chooses to die rather than accept medical care because of some dull-witted belief in the healing power of faith, then it just improves the gene pool. But kids can’t make that choice and when they die, its murder.
When school boards add Creationism (aka: Intelligent Design – it’s the same thing) to schools, thats a tragedy – but it’s even more damaging when Bible thumping teachers downplay, gloss over, or just plain ignore evolution.
When prayer is the solution to a problem, and not just the meaningless act of some individuals in their free time, then a great tragedy is taking place.
What was the point of of all the great struggles of mankind if in the 21st century we have so many citizens who aren’t really any more intellectually advanced than cavemen who freaked out during an eclipse?
Prayer == casting a spell. Magic is magic, no matter the mouth noise made to describe it.
18 kind of amused me… the difference is the perception of where the power comes from, which is terribly significant…
anyway, I hope it rains, it will be fun to count the occurances of ‘coincidence’ in this blog’s comments.
#9…Eideard…..I had some of the very best Tamales I ever ate in Lubbock….lol….but…we did take them *to go*……lol
Since there is no power (perhaps that was the point?), I would say it isn’t significant at all.
Hooky spooky force of magic or Imaginary Sky Buddy…
Everyone, on the count of three, evolve…
“…since he is the man who controls…”
Really ? A man ?
If they are going to pray, I think it should go something like “Get with the program” rather than “please give us rain.” Doesn’t God have a job description? 🙂
…And as to the girl in the picture, she doesn’t need to pray ; she needs to be prayed to.
Well, apparently, God’s taking some time to think about it. No rain yet.
“Sling Blades”, “Jugheads”? Okay, true…..but instead of sitting around laughing, how about sending some reinforcements??? There are dozens, yes, dozens of good folk here who could sure use some help.
Well, it started raining about a week ago and has rained about every day somewhere in the city and surrounding area, oh look, it’s rain clouds again! What a coincidence! Thank you Lord!