So I'm not religious, but this is the sort of thing that will pull me out my heathenism. Focus on the Family dude prays for rain at the Dem convention, now the GOP may have to cancel their convention because of hurricane headed to Gulf region. Heh. Alright, alright I know the dude was being humorous. Still, come on my conservative brethren...this is a freebie!
Just FYI, Michael Moore is getting a little bit of heat, over at PZ' place for instance, for telling almost exactly the same joke. I don't particularly care. Just a heads up.
I do care a little more than Brent, as a religious man. I enjoy your blog very much and I have great respect for your writing. But as a Christian who supports Obama, I cannot see how a large hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast can remotely be characterized as a heavenly blessing. A lot of brothers are going to suffer because of this storm. While the GOP is savvy enough to deal with its political impact, a lot of people are going to suffer under heavy wind, rain, and flooding.
Yes, got it. The headline--and to some extent the post--was tongue in cheek. I probably should have thought about actual victims before posting. My bad guys.
During Katrina we heard from some (not all) religious conservatives that God had sent to hurricane to punish New Orleans for its sinful lifestyle. (To which Roy Blount so memorably protested "But He missed the French quarter!") So I think the jokes are within bounds--God sends a hurricane at New Orleans on the first day of the Republican convention--go ahead, "God sends the weather" people, explain his messaging.
Well, Karma can be a bitch. Weren't the AmTalibangelicals praying for rains of "biblical proportions" to come down on Denver during the DNC, especially for Obama's stadium speech? Sure looked like a clear lovely night to me.
Maybe they should just stick to praying for their football team to win and leave the weather up to nature.
Hope this isn't too much thread drift, but what offends me more is when people from Notre Dame claim God is on their side, or those who say that Cowboy Stadium has a hole in the roof so God can watch his favorite team (sorry to all you Cowboy fans here )
Since you closed comments on the earlier post re: no comments on other Atlantic bloggers, I will post it here:
I enjoy the comments. Please keep them. I believe they add to the conversation. I like the interaction.
Sometimes I read the other blogs here, but mainly I read McArdle and Coates.
I am sure that the comments may often seem like more trouble then they are worth (McArdle sure puts up with lots of ...), but if I want opinions, and that's all they are, stuffed down my throat, I can just read the daily newspaper, if I subscribed to it.
Without comments, bloggers just seem so holier than thou, so insulated, so from the mountain top to the swamp. You know what I mean?
LOL. Despite my comment, I really didn't think there was much likelihood that this thread would turn into a debate on the appropriateness of your joke. I suppose if one actually believes in God, and further, has some specific notion of how God manifests in particular earthly acts, I could see where there might be some sort of offense taken. But I guess from my perspective, even if I believed in some deity, I really don't see how I could ever believe that some particular storm or any natural event was due to a specific act of will of that deity. I am simply not capable of taking that sort of talk seriously, whether it is intended as a joke or not.
My uncle, who is a very religious man (the rest of my extremely large family is also very religious) lives in Florida. He knows I simply don't believe in Gods and so he calls me every time Florida dodges a hurricane to tell me how it was the collective prayers of friends and family that pushed the storm away. No matter how many times I bring the point up that if his prayer pushed the storm away from him, it also pushed the storm into the path of other people, it just doesn't register with him. In fact, if I wanted to, I could spend an hour dissecting what I could consider to be the contradictions and poor assumptions at the heart of his "prayer = God helps me" scenario. But I am fully aware after all this time that it would be a waste of time. Indeed at the end of these discussions, we both just end up laughing at our inability to see the other's point of view.
Well, you kinda asked for it Ta-Nehisi, but folks need to take stuff like that in context. Anybody who thinks that "god" doesn't have a sense of either irony or humor doesn't get out much.
I think many of the comments miss the point -- this is a manifestly unattractive form of political discourse. If we take offense at Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, but take our own petty and nasty shots, how are we any better? Any more persuasive? I understand that the post was not written in "seriousness," but the idea that this sort of humor is appropriate or justifiable is what gives rise to the Ann Coulters of the world. It is fodder for them. You're feeding their machine.
I hear you, but--and not to backtrack--isn't the difference that the Falwellites literally claimed that the feminists caused 9/11 and the sodomites caused Katrina. I don't literally think that dude's prayer caused the hurricane.
I made a joke--in poor taste, given that a lot of pain is about to be visited on that region. But I don't literally claim that this is God's revenge on the GOP/
I think many of the comments miss the point -- this is a manifestly unattractive form of political discourse.
The first thing I would say is that I don't think this is meant as political discourse as much as religious discourse. The argument "behind the joke" is that there is an inherent absurdity in arguing that God agrees with your politics and acts as a bully to those that don't accept your worldview.
If we take offense at Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, but take our own petty and nasty shots, how are we any better? Any more persuasive?
What is the petty or nasty shot here? The joke is that the petty attacks of Robertson, Falwell etc don't seem to hold up well in the face of real world events. I would feel perfectly comfortable telling that to either of those gentleman, if I could, using humor or otherwise.
If there is anything inappropriate about this joke (and I don't really concede that there is) it has nothing to do with taking a shot at Falwell. It has to do with using a potentially tragic event as the backdrop for that joke. If one takes offense at that then OK, fair enough, but pointing out that reality consistently contradicts Dobson's pathetic arguments is no "sin." Moreover, I hardly think it is akin to what Coulter does which is randomly lie about, insult and demean anyone who disagrees with her for shock effect.
Dude, I respect you and your writing and all, but saying "there is a God" because a hurricane that could kill hundreds and make thousands more homeless is a good thing because the GOP might be adversely affected...grow up. This hurricane is nothing to joke about, in any context.
And if we're going to pursue this hypothetical, I don't think the Palin pick would have much to do with God's displeasure. Call it a proverbial drop in the bucket.
Ta-Nehisi- your point is well taken. My last comment wasn't directed to you at all, and I'm sorry for failing to note that. Certainly wasn't my intention to heap criticism upon you or this forum, but rather to point out that this tit-for-tat generally has the net effect of entrenching people's opinions.
Cheers.
Actually I think that there's a very important point here. Christianists appear to believe that some natural disasters are God's punishment to certain groups for certain actions. (And a literal belief in the OT shows that this was, indeed, a frequent form of the expression of divine displeasure back in the day.) However, and this is what is important, this line of reasoning only goes one way - it only expresses God's displeasure at liberals and liberal causes. Here's what I mean - when the Boy Scout camp in the midwest was destroyed by a tornado earlier this year, did we see a parade of evangelical preachers stating "God must be punishing the Boy Scouts for something. Maybe it's that they're anti-gay bigots. Repent of your bigotry, sinners!"?
I really feel terrible because I, for one second, thought about the dude who was praying for the rain on Barrack's day. Does God has humor or just giving a second change to the GOP, to redeem themsleves for Katrina?
Mother nature is a bitch. My prays and thoughts are with those wonderful people in those areas. I really hope they take care of themselves.
See, I live in up in Canada and was wondering how I can donate, should there be a need, through Barrack's channels, since it is a illegal for foreigners to donate to political parties. Does anyone knonws? email me at HermanB52@yahoo.ca
My thing is that I know they're gonna find a way to spin this. They're gonna actually pay attention, they're gonna turn the convention into a telethon or something, and Bush will have redeemed himself and this will all be evidence that Republicans (Jindal, Ritter) can handle crises better than those corrupt, elitist Democrats (Landrieu, Nagin).
As far as disasters demonstrating God's displeasure or punishing people for sins, there are a couple verses of the New Testament in which Jesus explicitly says this isn't so.
OTOH, if we keep putting clowns in charge of the federal government (and the state and local governments), and they keep screwing up to our cost when a crisis comes, it's hard to see that we have anyone but ourselves to blame. The crisis isn't punishment for sins or God trying to change the election outcome, but if we mishandle it again, that's a pretty clear sign that we've got the wrong guys running things. (Though it's easier to see you've got the wrong guys running things than to correctly identify the right guys.)
I am a dying woman of 49 suffering from cancer. I have decided to donate what i have of the sum of $4.6 Million to any body who will promise to use these funds in propagating the word of God and give help to mankind as this is my final wish.
Pls if you can handle this project on my behalf send me and email on j49e.maccarthy@gmail.com with your subject as (project for charity)
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Just FYI, Michael Moore is getting a little bit of heat, over at PZ' place for instance, for telling almost exactly the same joke. I don't particularly care. Just a heads up.
When I was a kid, we used to pray that the ground would open up and swallow our foes whole.
We would pray not for water from the skies, but fire.
That's the problem with you children today.
You pray small.
I do care a little more than Brent, as a religious man. I enjoy your blog very much and I have great respect for your writing. But as a Christian who supports Obama, I cannot see how a large hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast can remotely be characterized as a heavenly blessing. A lot of brothers are going to suffer because of this storm. While the GOP is savvy enough to deal with its political impact, a lot of people are going to suffer under heavy wind, rain, and flooding.
Yes, got it. The headline--and to some extent the post--was tongue in cheek. I probably should have thought about actual victims before posting. My bad guys.
During Katrina we heard from some (not all) religious conservatives that God had sent to hurricane to punish New Orleans for its sinful lifestyle. (To which Roy Blount so memorably protested "But He missed the French quarter!") So I think the jokes are within bounds--God sends a hurricane at New Orleans on the first day of the Republican convention--go ahead, "God sends the weather" people, explain his messaging.
Totally inappropriate. I'd like to think God cares more about my neighbors than about the political ramifications for Republicans.
Signed,
alli,
a NOLAfugee
this reader got your point. don't mind the commenters. no one thinks you are an a-hole.
lol @ jaybird btw.
A friend told me earlier that the hurricane proves that God does not approve of the GOP.
I told him that God doesn't approve of anything.
Anyway I think God is too busy spinning planets to be worried about what we're doing down here.
Well, Karma can be a bitch. Weren't the AmTalibangelicals praying for rains of "biblical proportions" to come down on Denver during the DNC, especially for Obama's stadium speech? Sure looked like a clear lovely night to me.
Maybe they should just stick to praying for their football team to win and leave the weather up to nature.
Hope this isn't too much thread drift, but what offends me more is when people from Notre Dame claim God is on their side, or those who say that Cowboy Stadium has a hole in the roof so God can watch his favorite team (sorry to all you Cowboy fans here )
Since you closed comments on the earlier post re: no comments on other Atlantic bloggers, I will post it here:
I enjoy the comments. Please keep them. I believe they add to the conversation. I like the interaction.
Sometimes I read the other blogs here, but mainly I read McArdle and Coates.
I am sure that the comments may often seem like more trouble then they are worth (McArdle sure puts up with lots of ...), but if I want opinions, and that's all they are, stuffed down my throat, I can just read the daily newspaper, if I subscribed to it.
Without comments, bloggers just seem so holier than thou, so insulated, so from the mountain top to the swamp. You know what I mean?
Hell, I even enjoy your typos.
So consider this a vote for McArdle and Coates.
LOL. Despite my comment, I really didn't think there was much likelihood that this thread would turn into a debate on the appropriateness of your joke. I suppose if one actually believes in God, and further, has some specific notion of how God manifests in particular earthly acts, I could see where there might be some sort of offense taken. But I guess from my perspective, even if I believed in some deity, I really don't see how I could ever believe that some particular storm or any natural event was due to a specific act of will of that deity. I am simply not capable of taking that sort of talk seriously, whether it is intended as a joke or not.
My uncle, who is a very religious man (the rest of my extremely large family is also very religious) lives in Florida. He knows I simply don't believe in Gods and so he calls me every time Florida dodges a hurricane to tell me how it was the collective prayers of friends and family that pushed the storm away. No matter how many times I bring the point up that if his prayer pushed the storm away from him, it also pushed the storm into the path of other people, it just doesn't register with him. In fact, if I wanted to, I could spend an hour dissecting what I could consider to be the contradictions and poor assumptions at the heart of his "prayer = God helps me" scenario. But I am fully aware after all this time that it would be a waste of time. Indeed at the end of these discussions, we both just end up laughing at our inability to see the other's point of view.
So... joke away man. I ain't mad at ya.
The hurricane's helping us Republicans anyway. No more Bush or Cheney at the convention.
Well, you kinda asked for it Ta-Nehisi, but folks need to take stuff like that in context. Anybody who thinks that "god" doesn't have a sense of either irony or humor doesn't get out much.
I think many of the comments miss the point -- this is a manifestly unattractive form of political discourse. If we take offense at Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, but take our own petty and nasty shots, how are we any better? Any more persuasive? I understand that the post was not written in "seriousness," but the idea that this sort of humor is appropriate or justifiable is what gives rise to the Ann Coulters of the world. It is fodder for them. You're feeding their machine.
I take that back. Those folks would exist regardless of this. My apologies.
Nat,
I hear you, but--and not to backtrack--isn't the difference that the Falwellites literally claimed that the feminists caused 9/11 and the sodomites caused Katrina. I don't literally think that dude's prayer caused the hurricane.
I made a joke--in poor taste, given that a lot of pain is about to be visited on that region. But I don't literally claim that this is God's revenge on the GOP/
Not for nothing, but it does kinda seem like God is trying to tell us something, doesn't it?
I think many of the comments miss the point -- this is a manifestly unattractive form of political discourse.
The first thing I would say is that I don't think this is meant as political discourse as much as religious discourse. The argument "behind the joke" is that there is an inherent absurdity in arguing that God agrees with your politics and acts as a bully to those that don't accept your worldview.
If we take offense at Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, but take our own petty and nasty shots, how are we any better? Any more persuasive?
What is the petty or nasty shot here? The joke is that the petty attacks of Robertson, Falwell etc don't seem to hold up well in the face of real world events. I would feel perfectly comfortable telling that to either of those gentleman, if I could, using humor or otherwise.
If there is anything inappropriate about this joke (and I don't really concede that there is) it has nothing to do with taking a shot at Falwell. It has to do with using a potentially tragic event as the backdrop for that joke. If one takes offense at that then OK, fair enough, but pointing out that reality consistently contradicts Dobson's pathetic arguments is no "sin." Moreover, I hardly think it is akin to what Coulter does which is randomly lie about, insult and demean anyone who disagrees with her for shock effect.
Yes, dannity, clearly he's displeased with the Palin pick. Even though he knew billions of years ago that it was predestined to happen.
Dude, I respect you and your writing and all, but saying "there is a God" because a hurricane that could kill hundreds and make thousands more homeless is a good thing because the GOP might be adversely affected...grow up. This hurricane is nothing to joke about, in any context.
He does indeed work in mysterious ways.
And if we're going to pursue this hypothetical, I don't think the Palin pick would have much to do with God's displeasure. Call it a proverbial drop in the bucket.
Ta-Nehisi- your point is well taken. My last comment wasn't directed to you at all, and I'm sorry for failing to note that. Certainly wasn't my intention to heap criticism upon you or this forum, but rather to point out that this tit-for-tat generally has the net effect of entrenching people's opinions.
Cheers.
No offense, but if the Lord was so heavy, he wouldn’t have had to rest on the seventh day. Seems like he’s still tired.
Actually I think that there's a very important point here. Christianists appear to believe that some natural disasters are God's punishment to certain groups for certain actions. (And a literal belief in the OT shows that this was, indeed, a frequent form of the expression of divine displeasure back in the day.) However, and this is what is important, this line of reasoning only goes one way - it only expresses God's displeasure at liberals and liberal causes. Here's what I mean - when the Boy Scout camp in the midwest was destroyed by a tornado earlier this year, did we see a parade of evangelical preachers stating "God must be punishing the Boy Scouts for something. Maybe it's that they're anti-gay bigots. Repent of your bigotry, sinners!"?
I really feel terrible because I, for one second, thought about the dude who was praying for the rain on Barrack's day. Does God has humor or just giving a second change to the GOP, to redeem themsleves for Katrina?
Mother nature is a bitch. My prays and thoughts are with those wonderful people in those areas. I really hope they take care of themselves.
See, I live in up in Canada and was wondering how I can donate, should there be a need, through Barrack's channels, since it is a illegal for foreigners to donate to political parties. Does anyone knonws? email me at HermanB52@yahoo.ca
My thing is that I know they're gonna find a way to spin this. They're gonna actually pay attention, they're gonna turn the convention into a telethon or something, and Bush will have redeemed himself and this will all be evidence that Republicans (Jindal, Ritter) can handle crises better than those corrupt, elitist Democrats (Landrieu, Nagin).
And the worst part is, it'll probably work.
As far as disasters demonstrating God's displeasure or punishing people for sins, there are a couple verses of the New Testament in which Jesus explicitly says this isn't so.
OTOH, if we keep putting clowns in charge of the federal government (and the state and local governments), and they keep screwing up to our cost when a crisis comes, it's hard to see that we have anyone but ourselves to blame. The crisis isn't punishment for sins or God trying to change the election outcome, but if we mishandle it again, that's a pretty clear sign that we've got the wrong guys running things. (Though it's easier to see you've got the wrong guys running things than to correctly identify the right guys.)
katrina karma is gods sense of humor
praise the lord
I am a dying woman of 49 suffering from cancer. I have decided to donate what i have of the sum of $4.6 Million to any body who will promise to use these funds in propagating the word of God and give help to mankind as this is my final wish.
Pls if you can handle this project on my behalf send me and email on j49e.maccarthy@gmail.com with your subject as (project for charity)
May God Bless You.
Mrs McCarthy.