Don't pray for me Argentina, I never said a prayer for you

Our pal TheMom who died recently was a stone cold atheist. She mentioned it time after time on her blog and in the comments section of mine. So why would Christians feel the need to tell her family and friends that they'd be praying for her? She was an atheist she didn't want or need anyone's prayers.

I think Christians do this kind of thing to (a) make themselves look like they are being good pious people, and (b) it's a half hearted attempt at 'saving' others. But really what's going on there is yet again a Christian is making the assumption that we all need and secretly want to be like them. And it shows yet again the lack of understanding and compassion that some Christians have for others and their beliefs.

In other prayer news I laughed out loud when I heard Quitter Palin say that because the oil leak in the Gulf hadn't been stopped by now that that showed that man's ways are a failure and that we need to rely on her god to fix things. And the way to get her god on board is to pray for a miracle in the Gulf. So, since she and her followers prayed hard for their god to intervene and since he didn't, he must want us to have oil pouring out into the Gulf because he hates fish, we already know he hates shellfish since he forbade his chosen people from eating them, and he hates tourism in the Gulf region. Since Palin's god didn't stop the oil leak even after they all begged him to, this whole affair shows what a lazy bastard their god is.

And in a related story to the one above, when Fox Noise heard that President Obama asked people to pray to their god that we find a way to stop the oil from flowing out into the Gulf, they asked Newt Gingrich if it was right and proper for him to invoke the power of prayer since he doesn't attend church as regularly as they do. Two things about that:

1. Newt's response to the President saying that he wanted religious folks to pray was, "Well, I hope he means it." Which shows you how cynical Newt is, since he obviously thinks that Obama only invokes prayer for political purposes.
   
2. The talking heads on the Fox morning show now are the arbiters of who is and who isn't pious and prayerful enough to ask for prayers to be said about national and environmental tragedies. You're not a Christian to them unless you pass their litmus tests. Shocking, huh.

I pray that one day people will stop invoking prayer as a tool to get things done. I pray that people will do more than pray when bad shit like oil spills and earthquakes go down. I pray that people will stop being slaves to Bronze age religions that keep humanity fearful and shackled to the past. And I pray that one day we'll all give up the religions that divide us from one another and that we'll learn to be kind, peaceful, and just towards one another not because someone's book of fairy tales says we have to be but because it's the right thing to do. I'm also praying I hit the Mega Millions jackpot tonight as well, but with my luck, the god who nixed a miracle for the oil spill in the Gulf will also put the kibosh on me winning the $34 million jackpot, the dirty bastard.