Maybe the ‘R’ got stuck in there on accident.  Hmm… Nah, that would just go back to that whole ‘usher training’ issue.

(submit word = could)

Bad driving habits is my guess.

Gee, it’s all about them, isn’t it?  Me, me, me.  Gimme a Cadillac AND God’s special grace.  If I were going to pray, it would certainly be for someone who COULDN’T afford a car.  Asshats.

(Submission word:  drive.  I kid you not.)

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Apparently, this person with their fancy car knows where they are likely to end up going after they die and they’re hoping somebody else’s prayers will help them change their fate.

Submit word: game

DO YOU HAVE A PRAYER?

Ever since Ronald Reagan and the Religious Right came to a suspiciously mutual agreement over access to government I have watched a resurgence of religiosity in the media, and particularly in government circles. Incessant proclamations concerning prayer and other intrusive Christian expressions of devotion to Christian dogma are found everywhere in every media. Fundamentalist organizations, en masse, have repaid Republicans by generously giving their votes, their work, their cash, and overwhelming support. And Republicans, in quid pro quo have responded generously by allowing fundamentalist pretensions to religious dominance to take place.

Governors and Presidents seem to feel a need to declare a day or a year of prayer. It is apparent that they mean “Christian Prayer.�? They do not intend to encourage any other religion to get rewards from prayer. They also issue proclamations concerning reading the Christian Bible, but never recommend that people read any other “sacred�? book of any other religion. In other words, they are establishing fundamentalist religion by executive orders and legislative acts strongly commending Christian slogans, icons, symbols, and material items to be placed in all possible public areas.

It is fully apparent and demonstrated that Christians do not believe in any god other than their own.  The beliefs, writings, and practices of non-Christians are treated as nonsensical or mythological and to be disregarded. The superiority of the Christian triple-God, the excellence of the Christian Bible, and the Truth of Christian Dogma are declared to be paramount to all others. The proselytizing and missionizing insistence of Christianity in foisting off their beliefs and practices on everyone around them has been responsible for much blood spilled, for discrimination against non-Christians, and for incessant demands that Christianity be recognized as superior. Christians are atheists toward all religions except their own.

Several thousand televangelists vociferously charge on all available media that the reason America is engulfed in crime, lowered educational attainments, terrorism, and other undesirable features, is supposedly because Christians are not allowed to pray whenever or wherever they wish.  The televangelists, who absolutely know that they are absolutely right, want to save the sinful soul of America.  They will do this by hook or crook or force if necessary.

They want to start by having everybody pray to their God. They firmly believe that will solve all problems in the world: economic, political, environmental, psychological, social. Their God will be so pleased at their efforts that he will bring on the Apocalypse for them, and True Believers will go to a non-specific place for harpsichordists, while Non-believers will go to a very nasty place where they will eternally regret not listening to Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell.

Their God, a puzzling three-in-one supernatural entity with a thousand wonderful attributes assigned to it, is a rather Old Testament version of a whimsical, jealous, arbitrary, angry entity. The Fundamentalists intend to establish their religious views as supreme, obligatory, and superceding bothersome constitutional provisions of the democracy in which they live. In fact, their ultimate goal, using prayer as a stepping-stone, is to install a theocracy in the United States.

I have watched the George W. Bush administration, and that of several predecessors, deliberately skirt the limits of our constitution, appointing True Believers, War Hawks and fascist-minded individuals in crucial government posts, allowing True Believers the greatest access to government since the Vatican declared itself the maker of emperors in the Middle Ages.

President Bush has avoided “unnecessary�? legislative action by using Executive Orders for a “fait acompli�? regarding the intrusion of his religious views on the American public.

I have watched the steady dismantling of the Wall of Separation, erected by wise forefathers of our country, to allow Fundamentalists to install a theocracy.  I have heard George Dubya Bush declare that God has chosen him, and that this country is “Under God.�? Of course, his God is the Southern Fundamentalist Old Testament God with the New Testament Jesus in attendance. Any other gods of any other religion are declared nonsensical, and their followers deemed to be unworthy and suspicious people.

I have seen George Dubya Bush use deception to make war on an Islamic nation, and then allow fundamentalists to proselytize at will, (not to mention giving his corporate cronies control of oil resources. I have heard George Dubya Bush declare other nations and persons to be “evil.�? I have heard George Dubya Bush declare National Days of Prayer, and have watched as he found many ways to funnel taxpayer money into Fundamentalist coffers.

George W. Bush has used his power to issue Executive Orders to evade legislative controversy and by a fait accompli install Charismatic Christian views into government and pave the way for legislation undermining democracy.

I have seen the gradual erosion of freedom in the United States under a fascist-minded Attorney General, and I have seen the ultra-conservative appointments of George Dubya Bush to vital judicial posts.  I have seen, with disbelief, the lack of protest by congressional and state officials to the installation of a theocracy.  I have seen the televangelist empire quickly expand to embrace all media with several thousand radio and television stations, magazine and newspaper outlets, to control thought.

Many “information outlets�? blare religious propaganda 24 hours a day. There now are many “faith healers�? that declare they can cure any illness or impairment by prayer and clapping someone on the forehead, practicing medicine without a license, without any supervision or investigation by any government official. Economic woes of the nation are attributed by fundamentalists and politicians to a lack of religiosity.  Foreign woes are ascribed to “EVIL�? rampant in the world, the remedy for which is prayer, faith and Christian soldiers with tanks, cannon and nuclear bombs in reserve.

Thousands of True Believer priests, reverends, ministers and parsons pay no taxes, do no military service, and get free advertising, but control public sentiment. In short, a theocracy is well underway, any protest is labeled “treason�?, and an American version of the Afghan Taliban has been successfully inaugurated.