God grants Georgia prayers, then attacks some kids for giggle.

God granted the prayers of the Georgia governor by producing one inch of rain which will do nearly nothing for the extreme drought experienced by the region. I question why a state with access to ocean water and strong evidence of climate change isn't investing a lot of money in desalinization plants and rather is resorting to begging mythological characters.

Certainly this is evidence of God, in the same sense that if you believed elves caused it to rain, every time it rains you would see evidence of elves.

Also in the same news story in Tennessee, it turns out that storms knocked out a Baptist church sending glass into children's faces and them to the hospital to have secular doctors patch them up.

*Update: In case anybody was slightly impressed, note, the rain was forecast by scientists prior to the event of praying for rain (again). A cynic would note that he prayed for rain previously and this second call for rain came seemingly out of the blue, but just after the prediction of some rain was forecast, and that he just saw the forecast and quickly arranged a prayer for it in order to give credit to God... at least a cynic would say that.

I don't think they actually do it...

Quite often when I share my views that rats and rabbits are members of the same order or that abortion rates have been shown to statistically be reduced by use of contraception, I get people who say that they will be praying for me. I don't think they actually do it. I think it's a cheap stunt and they just claim to be praying for me and really don't bother. I can never shake the feeling that their words, in this respect, are hollow.

I'll be praying for you. I honestly wonder how many of them actually do it. Also, it isn't I'll pray for you today or pray for you tomorrow. It's "be praying" like it will be a continuing thing. How long will this activity continue?

It just seems that since prayer has no effect at all, I can't verify this claim. And they always make it seem like their prayers will involve that one guy on that one forum that one time who cited a peer-reviewed study to backup a claim forever!

Science isn't naturalistic...

Science isn't naturalistic by its nature. To the contrary, if for some reason everybody born on a certain day were very similar in very definite ways, science would figure this out. If you could with a few words whether a spell, prayer, or incantation cause a very real consistent and repeatable effect on the natural world, even if these effects were, as far as we could tell causeless, we would still measure and study it. We could quite literally get prayers down to a science.

For example, quantum phenomenon are often uncaused. In reality there is no reason it should do what it does, but we can measure them very exactly. If supernatural things had such an effect on the real world, they would look identical to quantum effects.

Now, why then do we never find such supernatural causes for things? Why don't we prove astrology, religion, prayer, magic?

In science, we test our ideas about reality against the natural world and figure out what sticks. It isn't science that has a vendetta against your favorite pet fantasies, reality doesn't back them up because they are false. Sorry, but science just seems naturalistic because only naturalistic explanations exist as a part of reality.

Prayers in Senate... an abomination!

Senate prayers (which shouldn't exist anyway) were disrupted because they were given by a Hindu rather than your typical Christian prayer. Oddly this caused a stir. As if Christians only want Christian prayers rather than morality and religion of all types in the public square. That would be rather hypocritical.

As a staunch defender of kowtowing to Christian will, I would like to volunteer my services of giving a Christian prayer in congress.

I telepathically beseech you, first-century, wish-granting Jewish zombie. May your death which satisfied your vendetta against us for something not of our doing also satisfy your bloodlust within this hallowed chamber. Amen.