Yesterday, Greg posted a story about a city in Tennessee that has completely run out of water, and in that piece, made brief mention of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue's call to pray for rain.
Granted, I think the people who find comfort in prayer should pray for rain; however, the American Humanist Association, like many others I'm sure, justifiably is pretty irritated by this request.
From the article: "Humanists see Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue's call for a rain prayer to be a divisive distraction from the work of government." I think this is pretty cut and dry. While I would agree the water situation has gotten to the point that an act of God will be the only way it can be mediated, is a mandate for prayer an admission of the capitol's failure as a governmental entity?
My argument with this situation is not regarding the prayer itself. Clearly, we're fucked as far as our water supply goes, regardless of its causes (massive drought, poor government planning, lack of individual conservation, the list goes on). I also understand that prayer is an important part of life for many Georgians, and I won't go so far as the bitter humanists and say it doesn't work; the fact is that I don't know if it works or not, so why not try?
Yet, the message implied from this action is that God created this disaster and only He can get us out of it, which from a governmental (and individual) standpoint misdirects responsibility from our own negligence.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Does praying for rain equal an admission of incompetency?
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1 comments:
While asking for God to "fix" the situation does seem to dodge responsibility on the part of both the government and the people, it isn't too surprising that officials point to religion for solving an ecological crisis. A certain ecological religion class comes to mind...
Maynard (of TOOL) has been praying for rain since 1996.
On perhaps a more positive note, the call to prayer for the purpose of rain also implies a somewhat Pagan paradigm by seeing natural phenomenon as a divine blessing - an understanding largely lacking in modern perception.
However, if the presence and lack of rainfall are both the doings of God maybe there is a message behind the drought itself, tsunamis, levy-breaking hurricanes, etc.? It seems ironic that in our advanced, sophisticated civilization we see suggestions like this one reverting back to the smanistic practice of manifesting rain by spiritual means that has existed for thousands of years among many different indigenous cultures.
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