Monday, April 15, 2013

Prayer-a-thon

Two explosions in Boston today at the finish line of the Boston Marathon prompted an influx of media coverage and a flood to my facebook timeline of messages of hope for those affected by the tragedy.

And given how local it is (much like the shootings in Newtown earlier this year), my heart goes out to anyone who was personally affected or knows someone who was critically injured.

However, you’re not going to see me praying about it or requesting that others do the same. Prayer isn’t going to bring the two confirmed casualties back. It’s also not going to cause the amputees from the blast to regrow their limbs. As a matter of fact, prayer is not going to do anything except bolster the self-righteousness of those who announce that they’re doing it or begging others to do the same, only so they can join in on a sanctimonious circlejerk by co-opting yet another national tragedy to broadcast their façade of piousness. The only people the prayers are really helping are those who are doing it in the first place… and even then, there’s no tangible, relevant effects.

This alludes to what I said earlier today about the National Day of Prayer and how unnecessary it is. What about a National Day of Charity, or a National Day of Science, or a National Day of Compassion? Why are the theocrats who gave birth to such a sanctimonious national holiday not encouraging something that oh, I don’t know, CHRIST would advocate? Because compassion and action are what is needed right now.

Give money, even if it’s a little. Give blood, because you’re giving life.

Because if all you’re going to give is prayer, all you’re giving is the message that you want to help, but you’d rather plea to the whims of a deity that would invariably be responsible for letting the event happen in the first place.

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