Hallalujah, Texas

If you’re not from Texas, you probably won’t understand Texas. But one thing you can understand about Texas is that it is a strange and silly place, not entirely unlike Camelot. Except without all the singing.

Here in Texas, we have a governor. His name is Rick Perry. He has great hair. And that’s about all I can say about him, according to the international rules of motherly advice of the ‘if you can’t say anything nice…’ variety.

If you live in the USA (as I’m sure at least a few of you do), then you’re probably familiar with the Bible Belt. If you’re not familiar with the Bible Belt, it’s pretty easy to get a handle on. Just rent yourself a copy of Footloose.

Yeah, it’s like that.

As you are no doubt aware, America was thrown into terrible financial chaos in 2008. As you are also no doubt aware, this crisis was brought upon by corporate greed, corrupt politicians and the insidious little insects buzzing about on Wall Street. However, what you are probably not aware of is that is wasn’t really their fault.

It was ours.

The blame of the current miserable state of the United States lies firmly at the feet of its citizenry, not its leaders. And certainly not its broken, upside-down financial system.

No, it is entirely the fault of us, the people of America. Because we haven’t been praying hard enough.

So says Governor Perry, anyway. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Guvnah Goodhair in his own words:

To be clear, if Perry wants to pander to the religious right (who don’t seem to care that he pays no heed to the teachings of Christianity as long as he golly-gee-shucks his way through a big prayer meeting and makes them feel better), that’s fine. Catering to the religious crowd is what politicians do. There’s a reason they do it, and it’s nothing to do with any religious ideology other than the Religion Of Getting More Votes. And it works.

My problem is more with the commercial that comes after he testifies; the one that implies all the problems facing the country are because God is mad at us for not praying, rather than placing the blame firmly at the feet of evil, greedy bastards.

You know, people like Rick Perry.

I have no problem with prayer. Whatever makes this miserable world more tolerable for you is fine by me, as long as your holy rolling doesn’t gum up the works for those of us who want to find real solutions to the real problems that we really face here in the really real world of the real.

Then again, there’s a large part of me that wants to slap all of you.

Hard.

And twice on Sunday.

You see, even the most devout Christians – especially the most devout Christians – have to acknowledge that prayer is ultimately futile. Prayers of gratitude and worship are fine and all, but most people pray for something to happen. It’s what Governor Perry’s little Holy Ghost circlejerk is all about: effecting change in the world.

The problem is, prayer can’t do that.

If you’re a Christian who believes in the God of the Bible, then you must believe in His Divine Plan and that He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. (And that he loves the Oxford comma.)

By those criteria alone – the basic principles of Christianity – then your prayers do absolutely nothing in the real world. They can’t.

If God is omniscient, then He knows all things. If He is omnipotent, then He is all powerful. And, if He is omnipresent, he exists in all places, at all times. And He does not change.

Add all that to the Divine Plan, and even the most pious Christian in the world must accept that their prayers do nothing other than make themselves feel better.

If you get cancer, then God already knows you have cancer. He’s omniscient, after all. And, since everything is part of the Divine Plan, you got the Big C for a reason. Sure, He could flex his omnipotent muscles and cure you, but He’s omnipresent – so He already knows if He’s going to heal you or let you die.

You can pray all you like, but you’re neither calling to His attention anything He doesn’t already know, nor are you going to convince Him to change His mind. God doesn’t change. And He has a plan. (Kind of like the Cyclons, but with less power chords and Hindu chanting.)

So what I’m saying here is, please stop using prayer as a means of making yourself feel better at the expense of actually doing something that might make the world better.

The afterlife is all well and good – and I honestly do respect everyone’s right to believe whatever they want to believe about it – but it’s after life. It’s right there in the name. It happens later, after this life is over.

It’s at this point when my devout friends will often tell me, “Well, wouldn’t it be better to pray and do all these things, just in case everything is true and you need to do it to get into Heaven?”

To this, I usually answer, “Sure. But wouldn’t it also be nice if you prayed and did all these things, but also stopped clinging to the hope that maybe life gets better after we die, and instead kept doing your prayer and ritual while you also started doing a little something to bring this life out of the cosmic shitter?”

And that’s the whole point, really. What if there is no grand reward when we die, and no ultimate punishment for our sins? What if the only time we have is right here, right now on this little rock called Earth? Wouldn’t that make what we do here and now the only thing that matters? That actually means anything at all?

I don’t know about you, but if I were keeping watch at the pearly gates, I’d take a good, long look at the guy that did the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do, not because he wanted a shiny prize or was afraid of being punished by God’s jailer with the bifurcated tail.

So anyway, today’s message is simple, kids:
Stop praying.
Start doing.
Amen.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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