Rick Perrys prayer for rain

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/proclamation/16038/

Issued earlier this year, during the drought in Texas, using his official state powers.

What's wrong with that?

To those of us with faith, it means alot. If you have no faith, then don't worry about it.

I worry that you have very stupid (or very cynical) people in positions of enormous power.

Even regardless of the separation of church and state issue, this is just dumbfounding. Are we in the 21st century or in prescientific hunter-gatherer times?

I hereby dub thee "Sir Perry the Panderer."

But did it work?

Well your 21st century stuff has really fixed things for the drought, hasn't it?

So it's better to distract people with smoke and mirrors than to spend taxpayer monies on something that might actually help.

What exactly would help??

For starters, not growing crops like rice in a desert climate.

After that, increased state funding for irrigation.

Sneering contempt for people of faith always means a lot to skeptics, apparently. Even if they can't manage to show results, at least they can provide comfort. Oh, wait. They can't even manage to do that, can they?

What RickD doesn't realize (no matter how often he gets reminded of it) is that prayer isn't always about someone expecting a miracle cure. As well, it's not a signal that the person praying isn't going to actually do something for themselves in addition to their communion with God. It's the very communion with god that's the important part.

Surprise! I'll take increase taxes for $1000, Alex!!

Who saw that one coming?

You mean the crutch that allows you the comfort of pretending you have some influence over events that are completely beyond your control.

Or maybe diverting funds from the spurious task of cordoning off the entire state to protect it from teh Evul Immigrants.

What is the function of a state government, in your view?

And can someone tell me if the prayers worked? Did the skies open and the rains come, or did the good citizens of Texas simply not pray hard enough?

So I can put you down for not understanding prayer as well?

That's interesting. Rarely does someone come out so blatantly saying that border security is a spurious task. I'm... fascinated... that you'd so openly express your true feelings on the subject.

I don't have to buy into it in order to understand it. You're communing with your own imagination until I see proof to the contrary.

What's interesting is that you're playing the obtuse card because you apparently think it's reasonable to spend state revenue on building the Great Wall of Texas, but not on improving crop yields.

AFAIK, rice is grown near the coast, which usually gets a decent amount of rain.

This year hasn't been typical.

^Ah, okay. Good info.

But I can put you down for not understanding what I wrote previously. You know, the part where I said the person praying doesn't necessarily expect the prayers to be literally answered but does derive comfort from the exercise.

Some people say they get this from meditation. Some people say they get this feeling from drugs. But, at its very basic, there is a solace they receive that has nothing to do with whether they receive anything tangible from the "thing" they are in contact with.

I believe, of course, that there's more to it for a believer but I'm trying to find an experience that I think you can at least relate to on some level.

In this case, Perry seems to have been advocating a statewide plea for divine intervention. This is, obviously, more than just that communion I've been talking about but RD was so obviously disdainful of the entire idea of prayer that I thought it couldn't hurt to get back to the basics of the idea. And, yes, I'm certainly not saying that asking God for help in a specific thing is wasted effort. I'm just saying that my faith is not going to be based on whether Santa Claus gives me a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas.

The point is there is very little to nothing science can do to help this. Whether you are a person of faith or not, the choice is not science or prayer. It's prayer or nothing.

Look back at my first post. I said, basically, that praying AND taking action was a good idea. You're the one that brought border security into a discussion of praying for rain.

Ah! Spend more taxpayer money. I understand you now.

However, you immediately jumped to "more taxes," suggesting you can't see your way around diverting funding from "Messicans!!!" to, let's say, loans and/or tax breaks for improving agriculture.

No crutch at all. I often think that the phrase "Faith without works is dead" is often misunderstood and misused. JFK probably put in more succinctly when he said, "God helps those who help themselves."

You don't believe in prayer some people do.

One can "realise" that shit without giving it any respect. It's no less ridiculous than expecting results, and it's not the job of a state governor to be making an idiot of himself by leading officially sanctioned "communion" with any supernatural being.

I just skip to the "help yourself" step, myself. If I'm on my own anyway, no point in wasting time talking to the invisible man in the sky. And if the comfort factor is purely psychosomatic, I should be able to conjure it myself without a middle man.

As far as paying for border security, since you insist on talking about it, how about we go back to my other thread where I said that Perry wants the Feds to reimburse Texas for the money the state is paying out doing the Federal Government's job?

There is one thing you're right about, though, tax breaks (and most agriculture, IIRC, is done by corporations) do encourage business. Taxes and increases in taxes do tend to discourage it.

I'm sure he's all broken up about whether you think he's making an idiot of himself!