Imprecatory Prayer, Redux - one more time!

<sigh>

Somehow, I had this crazy thought that perhaps after the election, the crazy would kind of fade away.

I'm a dreamer, aren't I?

On November 24th, a gas explosion leveled a strip club in Boston.  Fortunately, the gas company, Fire Department and Police had already been called and workers had evacuated the block while they waited for the building to vent when the explosion occurred.  The blast leveled the building completely, but because of the evacuation, the building was empty - nobody associated with the building was killed or injured.

Unfortunately, 18 first responders, including gas workers, firefighters, police, and others were injured, some badly enough to be transported to the hospital.  A number of nearby buildings were severely damaged, and a large hole was punched into the street in front of the building.

Ok so far?  Nothing particularly crazy about that story, now is there?  Just wait, it gets better.

Enter Scott Lively and the Scott Lively Ministries.  Apparently, Mr. Scott is a big, big opponent of the local red light scene in town, and has been busily making sure that everybody - especially god - knows it.

On his web page, the one entitled Scott Lively Ministries appropriately enough, he published a post on the same day that the explosion occurred, claiming credit for the explosion that leveled the strip club.

No, he didn't admit involvement in arson, nor did he claim to have paid some arsonist to set up the explosion or to blow up the building - he claimed that he had prayed for god to destroy the strip clubs in town, and the explosion was god's answer to his imprecatory prayer.

I believe this was the hand of God at work in answer to our prayers.  We are giving Him all the glory and praise for this occurrence, since it is only by His power that any of our prayers can have any effect.  We also thank God that no one was seriously injured in this blast, though it was enormous.

 Nobody was seriously injured, huh?  But 18 people were transported to the hospital, numerous buildings adjacent to the strip club were severely damaged and the publicly funded and maintained street in front of the building had a huge hole punched out of it.  Lots of people were injured economically, many who will most likely miss some work days, some who may be scarred for life - fire injuries do that, you know.

And all this jerk can do is say nobody got seriously injured.

He is willing, no, he is proud, to claim responsibility for this disaster, and asks once again, for his followers to pray again, and he posts another prayer for them to repeat.  This man is clearly acting like a sociopath.  He shows no empathy, no sense of right or wrong, and he has allowed his very ethical framework to be skewed and twisted out of all proportion in order to further the worship of his god.

This is not merely crazy, this is mentally unstable activity, it is disgusting and way beyond alarming.  By his own admission, he willing to ask that a power he trusts and believes in to harm others in order to advance his fantasy.  He is willing to claim that it was his prayer that caused the explosion and that he is willing to do it again and again and again, until everything he opposes is destroyed.

Oh, he covers his ass by noting that he isn't asking for the people to be harmed, but when people - unrelated to the activities he is opposed to - are injured, his reply is that "at least nobody was seriously injured".

He may as well have lit a fuse, because he has demonstrated clear intent to do harm.  He has demonstrated a clear lack of remorse and a clear lack of concern for the safety of the public or innocent bystanders in his maniacal campaign to rid his city of what he believes are immoral influences.  He has set himself up as the moral conscience of the city in a plain state of arrogance and hubris that he has made clear is his duty because of his own belief.  Not because of a shared belief, but because he has determined the right and wrong of the situation.

He covers himself, as usual for such cretins, by claiming that it is god who makes that determination.

But it is his prayer, by his own admission, that he believes caused this disaster.  A prayer he decided to pray, and one he determined should be one  that would ask for harm to occur.  It wasn't good enough to ask god to turn the hearts of his opponents.  It wasn't enough for him to ask god to turn the hearts and minds of the people of Boston so they would vote to turn these "dens of iniquity" out by law.

No.  It had to include actual, real harm.  Destruction.  Harm that could endanger the innocent and harm property belonging to people with no connection to the "guilty".

The depths of depravity, coldness and sociopathic lack of empathy to these actions are hard to understand.

Damn hard.