Question for believers: What about Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers?

[cleanhippie]

A few months ago, with Texas aflame from more than 8,000 wildfires brought on by extreme drought, a man who hopes to be the next president took pen in hand and went to work:

“Now, therefore, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas.”


Then the governor prayed, publicly and often. Alas, a rainless spring was followed by a rainless summer. July was the hottest month in recorded Texas history. Day after pitiless day, from Amarillo to Laredo, from Toadsuck to Twitty, folks were greeted by a hot, white bowl overhead, triple-digit temperatures, and a slow death on the land.

In the four months since Perry’s request for divine intervention, his state has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Nearly all of Texas is now in “extreme or exceptional” drought, as classified by federal meteorologists, the worst in Texas history.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/rick-perrys-unanswered-prayers/?emc=eta1

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So what is it, believers? Does god just not answer prayers or just Rick Perry's prayers? Or does he hate Texas and Texans? Or...?

[izquierdista]

1. Should have asked Joe Pesci

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

[cleanhippie]

2. "you must stand in AWE of the false claims and broken promises of religion"

I love Carlin!

[backscatter712]

13. Carlin gets it! You'd get the same results praying to a milk jug as you would God or Joe Pesci!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI

All prayers, according to your priest/minister/pastor/rabbi/mullah will get the answer of either "Yes", "No" or "Wait", which happens to be the full set of all possible answers to prayers. In other words, all prayers are answered because all things that happen belong to one of the three categories of "Yes", "No" and "Wait" - meaning any random coincidence can be attributed to the Power of Prayer(TM).

All praises to the Holy Milk Jug!

[mwb970]

3. I never understood praying for specific outcomes anyway.

Isn't that basically invoking the all-powerful Creator to fulfill one's personal wishes and desires? You tell God what you want and he snaps into action and delivers it to you, even if it means violating the laws of physics to do it? Doesn't that make Man the master and God the slave? Isn't that what religious people call "blasphemous"?

:shrug:

I don't get it. You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!

[provis99]

4. God works in Mysterious Ways!

The religious person's all-purpose cop-out.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Maybe it's God saying to Rick Perry, "I don't have to listen to you, you hypocrite."

:evilgrin:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. I know exactly what you'll get as a reply.

Condescension.
Subject changes.
"Oh, yeah? Well, STALIN! And by the way, Hitler was an atheist too."
"Just another gratuitous religion-bashing from your kind."
"You don't get it, and it's no use explaining it to you."
"Alerted."
Maybe some obscure statistic "proving" Texas is actually less Christian than average.
"Well, they're mean, evil right-wingers, theerefore they're NOT TRUE CHRISTIANS! Q.E.D."
Some completely unrelated story of someone who prayed for something and happened to get it.

Did I forget anything? Oh yes I did. People railing at THIS post and completely ignoring the question in the OP.

[cleanhippie]

7. The silence is deafening.

[white_wolf]

8. "God did answers, he just said no."

That and "The Lord works in mysterious ways" are the number one copouts used by the religious on these kinds of isssues

[Meshuga]

9. If the prayer attempt failed, why not try rain dance? n/t

[laconicsax]

10. What's the difference?

[Meshuga]

12. One has people praying for rain...

...the other has people dancing for rain.

He can also try saying "abracadabra!" and/or wave a wand.

[struggle4progress]

11. Not all of us regard prayers as magic tokens that one pops into a cosmic vending machine

to obtain desired goodies

If you want to argue this point again and again and again, you're probably on the wrong website, because people smitten by Perry praying for rain are mostly not in the Democratic demographic

[trotsky]

14. Not all, but most.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Faith-Tools/Meditation/2004/12/U-S-News-Beliefnet-Prayer-Survey-Results.aspx
Over 70% of Christians believe their prayers are answered "always" or "often." (Add in those who think the vending machine only works "sometimes" and you get a whopping 97%.)

[cleanhippie]

15. Its great that YOU don't but MOST believers do.

[struggle4progress]

16. Given the large quantity of time we DUers seem to spend on the internet, I think it a safe bet

that nobody posting here knows a majority of the folk in the world -- so guesses about what "most" think cannot be considered very reliable

In particular, I can safely feel free to disregard as uninformative your stereotypes about what "most believers" do or do not think

[laconicsax]

17. Does 70% not count as "most?"

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Faith-Tools/Meditation/2004/12/U-S-News-Beliefnet-Prayer-Survey-Results.aspx

84% of Christians pray at least once per day. I think 84% counts as "most." (96% pray several times per week).

27.5% of Christians said their prayers were "always" answered, 43% said their prayers were "often" answered. I think 70% counts as "most." (97% say their prayers are answered at least some of the time.)