Nov 14 2007
Praying for Rain and Wet T-Shirts
BlackSun commented yesterday on the news that Ga Governor would hold an open call for prayer on the steps of the capitol. The prayer was to be for rain.
“What Sonny Perdue is accomplishing with this (either uber-cynical or mind-bendingly stupid) stunt is the diversion of attention of citizens from their own accountability–for the dunce governor they elected, bad water infrastructure decisions over decades, and for the continued cheating and waste of now-scarce water by Georgians,” writes BlackSun.
In the irreverent anti-religious tradition of Skepticum, let me put a more entertaining spin on this. I’d prefer, instead of boring capitol prayers, that we do an old Eastern European ceremony, that involves skimpily dressed virgins, wet t-shirts and lots of dancing. I’ll admit that religious rituals are more fun than atheism in certain instances, especially when they involve dancing and naked people.
In the Romanian agrarian rite of Paparuda, young women are nude or dressed in rags covered in leaves, and are paraded dancing through the village, while older women throw water on them. This Summer-time rite is meant to function as a fertility ritual to bring about rain and help the crops grow.
What better way than to bring prayer and wet t-shirt contests into one? It would probably provide more entertainment than such a poor excuse for irresponsible entitlement as displayed by Perdue.
5 responses so far
Great idea! But I think the fun of such rituals is that they invoke known fictional gods and archetypes such as Dionysus (as you suggest). It’s the idea of gods as real beings we have to ‘worship’ or behave a certain way which takes the fun out of it. I have no problem with revelry. Bring it on!
Ultimately, my point is, whether we pray for rain or parade skimpily-dressed young women and throw water on them, the odds of rain falling are the same. And the skirting of personal social responsibilities, as you said, is just as disturbing, regardless of what religious facade they may hide behind.
Great post. One of my problems with organized religion (I am an agnostic leaning towards athiest but consider myself a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church (which my atheist wife says doesn’t count as organized religion, anyway)) is that is provides a cop out.
When a Christian commits a crime, you can always count on somebody being quoted in the newspaper saying, “But he/she is a good Christian, how could they do this.” Well, in my humble opinion, I think that the reason they can do it is because they ARE ‘Christians’. Remember, as the bumper sticker says, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” Every time I see that, my first thought is, so if you murder, rape, pilfer, pillage, steal, destroy the environment, support torture, commit torture, etc., it is okay because the invisible guy up in the sky will forgive you?
I have met many people in my almost 42 years. I have been in all bur five US states. I have met many ‘Christians’ who are in legal, financial, ethical trouble because of bad judgement (a neighbor who lost her house because she tried prayer rather than actual therapy for alcoholism). I have met zero (let me repeat that, zero) atheists who are in similar trouble becaue of bad judgement (I do know of one who is in trouble just because she thought she could get away with a theft, and it was pure chance that the theft was noticed).
The forgiveness factor in Christianity has always struck me as a way to avoid the consequences of ones personal decisions. I know if I screw up, I answer to my wife, family, law (depending on the screw up). I also know that when I die, the only part of me which survives my death is the work I have done, and the memories (good or bad) left with the living. I have no magic ‘get out of the consequences’ card.
I think this relates (obliquely) to your wonderful post because since the 1980s, Americans have embraced this bizarre idea of faith based politics. The problem with faith is, no evidence is required. And if your decision (let’s not expand Georgia’s public water supply because we would rather cut taxes on mcmansions) produces failure, you can always say, “god is punishing us”, or “we have not been pure enough,” or whatever. Faith based decision making means not having to face the consequences of your decision.
On another subject, do any eastern European towns still celebrate this festival? Unless the exchange rate becomes horrifying, sounds like a fun vacation.
Sorry for the long post. I tend to ramble. Occupational hazard, I guess.
[…] here); maybe it’s because he recently convened a prayer group to pray for rain (and here). Both of these examples seem stupid on the face of it, but may turn out to be sheer genius upon […]
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