Pray For Our Troops

I have little to no self-restraint. It's just in my nature to get upset when I see asinine shit surrounding and boxing me in. I swear it'll be the death of me, as I can never let anything roll of my shoulders, and they say stress is an easy way to an early grave.

Walking out of Wal-Mart, post-soda run, a bumper sticker grabs my attention. Ironically, it's as bland as possible, it reads: 'Pray For Our Troops'.

For a slight moment, I'm so fucking irritated, that I think I'm on the verge of coughing blood.

Now, I'd like to think that from my 14 or so years of experience with Christianity, as well as a great deal of general knowledge, that I have a fair grasp on the Christians' core belief system. If I know as much as I presume I do, "God is perfect" and "God has a plan and purpose for everyone." From basic logic, one would be able to deduct that if "he is perfect" and "he has a plan" that his "plan" would have to be "perfect" as well. That all adds up quite cleanly, so far so good. Unfortunately, what doesn't seem to add up, is where prayer factors into his "perfect plan".

Prayer is a complete contradiction to the Christians' beliefs and is both disrespectful and incredibly vain. It'd only make sense for someone to pray if they believed their prayer would influence change in "God's perfect plan", a plan which could not feasibly change for the better if it were in fact "perfect". Making me assume that any good, praying Christian thinks they know better than their incompetent God, considering even they don't trust him to make the right decision on his own. God, the all-knowing, omnipotent being apparently needs to work off a fucking cheat sheet.

Even if prayer was an effective and reasonable tool, why would it ever be okay to use it in order to ask for success in going against God's will? 10% of God's commandments are "Thou Shalt Not Kill". You'd have to be insane to expect God to just fucking flip-flop on himself like that, and assist you in your blatant disobedience. That's on par with asking God to hold your hand through deceiving your spouse amidst an affair with your slutty assistant or wishing to be blessed with success in the armed-robbery of your local Mom N' Pop Gas Station.

I also struggle to believe that God would respond to hokey popularity contest like a fucking All-Star game. Where if the U.S. manages to pray-vote for its troop at a more dramatic rate than the Middle Easterners pray-vote for theirs, then God has no choice but to be partial to the U.S. This, of course, is despite him "creating all of his children equally" and already "having a (perfect) plan."

The irrationality and contradictions that are pathetically prevalent in Christianity never fail to baffle me. I wish just once a Christian had the balls to admit they're wrong, or at least contrive a respectable counter-argument, instead of copping out with the typical "I have faith" bullshit. Nobody is buying it.

- The Christian Pankow.


P.S. I've come down with a bit of the flu, your prayers are heavily appreciated.