Imprecatory Prayer - let's look at the ethics for a minute.

Now, the last couple of days, I’ve beat a bit on the dark horse of religion, and I’d like to deflect the focus a bit.

While religion, in this country especially, gives charlatans the ability to use it as a vehicle of chicanery, the focus on imprecatory prayer has another, darker twist.  It does use religious belief twisted into it, but again, as a vehicle.

The most horrible part of this entire idea of asking god to “smite” one’s enemies is that it equates, directly, with the quite illegal activity of contract killing, and the conspiracy behind it.  Boiled down to its essence, imprecatory prayer is just that, contracting with your god to dispose of someone you are opposed to.  The exact wording of the prayers these guys use today is slippery, designed to insulate the folks praying from any, shall we say, fatal results.  Because, they say, by leaving the exact method of disposal to god, it isn’t their fault the opponent died…

People, this is America.  The birthplace of modern democracy.  We have a proud history of exchanging power between often diametrically opposed political parties...peacefully.  At no point within the last 236 some odd years has anybody even tried to take control of the government by force.

It is appalling, disgusting and about 500 other words of similar derogatory meaning that there are any Americans at all who espouse the idea of killing a political opponent.

Because that is what these people are doing.  They are proposing that their god kill the President!

This is wrong on so many counts.  Whether they actually believe in the possibility that their prayers could ever be carried out in their request doesn’t matter.  What matters is intent.  If they believe, then their intent is basically criminal.  There are people serving life terms in State and Federal prisons for actions taken with similar intent.

On the other hand, if these clerics do not really believe, then their intent, while different, is even worse, because they do not intend to kill a man, but a political tradition of peaceful transfer of power between opposing parties.  They are doing it by teaching, indeed, leading, their followers in accepting that the desire to have their political opponents eliminated by death is not only ok, but something they can, in reality, ask their god to do for them.  Thereby, of course, removing the stain of a man’s death from their lily white hands.

Remember, it’s intent.  If these followers believe in the veracity of their theology, if they believe that if they ask god to kill Obama on a weekly basis, eventually, he will.

And that’s ok.  Ethically, politically and morally, they. think. it’s. ok!

This Wiley Drake, this moron of biblical proportions, is teaching Americans to contract with god to kill their political opponents!  He is teaching them to think that is an acceptable thing to do!

This is outrageous, it is so depraved and immoral, it is blindingly horrible that in the 21st century, Americans could think that it is ok to kill an opponent - even worse, that it is ok to essentially hire someone else to do it for them!  That takes the depravity a step further.

No.  Full stop.  This. is. NOT. Ok.  This is in full opposition to everything that America stands for, whether you are christian or not.  It is full on depravity, and is why the Irish spent 90 years shooting and blowing each other up, often times in front of wives and children!  The idea that people can believe that the christian god of the new testament could approve of a follower asking him to kill someone is appalling.  The idea that anybody in this country in this century could think so is simply unthinkable.

This needs to be shouted out from the rooftops.  These people need to be called out, shouted down and shown the errors in their ethical thinking.

His phone number is on my last post, call him and let him know.