Out of Ambit
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Travel
  • Home life
  • Media
  • Obscure interests
  • Hobbyhorses and General Ranting
Maluns
Owl Be Home For Christmas
Vintage Scots Christmas recipes: “Good Fare Christmas”
From the Young Wizards universe: an update
Irish life: The things you don’t discuss, Halloween...
Q&A: Why is my Malt-O-Meal lumpy and how...
From the Baking-While-You-Write Department: Spicy Apple Pie
Peter Morwood on Moroccan preserved lemons
Greek mythology, feminist reclamation of lost/ancient tradition, and...
Changes coming at YoungWizards.com: your opinion(s) solicited
Outlining: one writer’s approach
A project in progress: translating “La Patissière des...
Pulling The Lever
Weird bread
Peter’s Isolation Goulasch
Business As (un)Usual
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Travel
  • Home life
  • Media
  • Obscure interests
  • Hobbyhorses and General Ranting
Out of Ambit

Diane Duane's weblog

Tag:

prayer

Current eventsNewsPoliticsreligion

The Battle of the Invisible Friends (aka "Supreme Being Smackdown")

by Diane Duane October 12, 2008

Can things get any dumber? Don’t answer that question.

 “There are millions of people around this world praying to their God — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons,” Pastor Arnold Conrad said. “And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens.”

(eyeroll) It’s like something out of that old Ken-L-Ration jingle. “My God’s better than your God, my God’s better than yours…” I leave it to others to tease out the five or six hilarious and possibly offensive assumptions and logical fallacies underpinning the above statements.  …But the whole thing factors down to: Please, God, don’t embarrass us. Is it just me, or is there something extremely wrong with that entire line of reasoning…and this guy — a clergyman — doesn’t even see it?

Also:  has it genuinely never occurred to this cleric that somewhere in America there might possibly be someone praying to the very same God he’s (theoretically) praying to that the Unnamed Opponent should win?  And that (to take a slightly different tack) if it turns out to happen that way, that this would — in his theology — be because of his very own God’s will, not as the result of some sublime hyperdimensional WWF match? …No, probably if that concept crept into the guy’s head, said head would explode. Was he perhaps trying to be funny? If so, FAIL.

…And here again we have this weirdness about not naming the other guy even at a distance, let alone when he’s standing six feet away. (“That one?” Tsk tsk.)  I mean, surely there’s no point in not-naming even the Lone Power (click here for his version of the icon to the right) or Voldemort when they’re already sitting there waiting for you to finish speaking. Strikes me as rude.

I really, really wish I could just stop reading the news until sometime in December. (mutter) I also really wish I could email stuff like this to C.S. Lewis. Imagine the response.

October 12, 2008
6 FacebookTwitterTumblrEmail

The blogger


40 years in print, 50+ novels, assorted TV/movies, NYT Bestseller List a few times, blah blah blah. Young Wizards series, 1983-2020 and beyond; Middle Kingdoms series, 1979-2019. And now, also: Proud past Guest of Honour at Dublin2019, the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland.

Archive

On sale at Ebooks Direct

Recent comments

  • From the Young Wizards universe: an update - Out of Ambit on Changes coming at YoungWizards.com: your opinion(s) solicited
  • Review: <em>A Wizard Alone</em> by Diane Duane – Disability in Kidlit on Young Wizards New Millennium Editions: a little more info
  • Top Ten Tuesday ~ Books that Make Me Hungry – BookWyrm Knits on Seed cake: a recipe
  • Dr. John Watson's CV: Searching for the Secrets on Dr. John Watson’s CV
  • Dr. John Watson's CV: Searching for the Secrets on The Starship and the Upstairs Flat

Now at Ebooks Direct

 

Feel like buying the writer a coffee?


That's kind of you! Just click here.

Popular Posts

  • 1

    What part of the cow does corned beef come from

    March 16, 2006
  • 2

    Lahey No-Knead Bread recipe: one baker’s experiences so far

    December 9, 2006
  • 3

    Seed cake: a recipe

    January 1, 2013
  • 4

    Young Wizards New Millennium Editions: a little more info

    May 30, 2011
  • 5

    The Affair of the Black Armbands (or, The Death of Sherlock Holmes and How The World Took It)

    January 17, 2012

Associated websites


...all divisions of the
Owl Springs Partnership

Previously on “Out Of Ambit”…

Maluns

Owl Be Home For Christmas

Vintage Scots Christmas recipes: “Good Fare Christmas”

From the Young Wizards universe: an update

Irish life: The things you don’t discuss, Halloween...

Q&A: Why is my Malt-O-Meal lumpy and how...

From the Baking-While-You-Write Department: Spicy Apple Pie

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Tumblr
  • RSS
Footer Logo

(c) 2020 Diane Duane | all rights reserved | WP theme: PenciDesign's "Soledad"


Back To Top