Maybe this ‘sniper’ is really the ‘Hand of God’ like in ‘Frailty’ ??  I mean, in the movie, the killer was supposedly killing these people because of the sins they did - and who knows, these people may be “sinners” too.  LOL

Whatever the reason, I doubt that ‘praying’ will find this man/woman/alien.  If anything, it’ll have more people keeping their eyes closed to the killings around them.

Amen!! Oops, can I say that here?? ;o)

PREACH IT BROTHA!

I’ve held off on speculating on what the motives for the sniper happen to be because, frankly, I don’t have a clue. I’m almost half expecting it to be a pissed of Palestinian, but it’s probably just your garden variety, highly skilled, nutcase marksman.

I like your motto best. Hands that help are better than lips that pray. Of course, that goes out the window if you’re talking about blowjobs. (Did I say that?)

Hi - thanks for the link.  When I finally get off my ass (god-willing, heh heh) and update the blogroll in full, make sure I include your site.

I found this at K5 today and thought you might enjoy it. It’s an Op-Ed piece about the existence of god argument.

Matt, that was an excellent article. Thanks for pointing it out. I think I might even make an entry later pointing to it as a good starting point for debating the topic of God’s existence.

*eye roll*  Oh yes, because prayer is such a powerful crime fighter. Ahem.

By all means pray if it will make you more calm and help you to handle situations. But people, come on… it’s not a panacea, it won’t solve the actual problem, it just helps some people cope.

And I was thinking this sniper thing was such a reality check for everyone. Guess not.

I think that this is all crap!  i mean, of course prayer works!  what the hell is wrong with you.  I mean, obviously u r just weak in faith, and I WILL BE PRAYING FOR YOU!

Gee Sarah, thanks.

Ah! Such real reasoned and thought out arguments such as Sarah’s are so refreshing to behold. Her grasp of the English language and the nuances of debate are certainly staggering.

Go on and pray for me. You’ll be joining a couple of hundred other people who have already done so to no discernible effect, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts.

As a response to the note about not praying. God desires no one to go around shooting people or for people to be murdered. We pray because Jesus did and because God tells us to. We were created with a free will. God did not want puppets, He wanted people who chose to love him. The reason there is sin in the world is because we chose it. Because God is not an intruding God, because we have a free will and because He said to we ask Him to intervene. Jen

I almost was able to follow that line of logic, but it gets a little garbled there at the end.

Jen, if God wants us to have free will then why does he tell us to do anything at all? What good is free will if we’re required to do what God wants us to do anyway otherwise we’ll suffer unimaginable punishment?

What the hell kind of choice is: You’re free not to love me or do what I say, but if you don’t then I’ll toss you in a pit and let you rot in eternal torment. Yeah, that’s the sound of a loving and just God. If I said that to my daughter they’d come and lock my ass up.

If there was stuff God didn’t want us to do why didn’t he just design us so that we would be incapable of doing the things he doesn’t want us to do? We’d still have free will to do anything we wanted within the realm of acceptable behavior and we wouldn’t be robots either. Surely if God can do anything he could design us so we’re just naturally good. This implies to me that either A) God isn’t capable of designing people who are just naturally good in which case his power is not unlimited or B) He introduced an intentional design flaw in his creation which would make it wrong to hold us accountable for the results of that flaw. When your car has a design flaw in the brake system you don’t sue the car, you sue the car maker. It’s not the car’s fault it has a badly designed brake system.