{"id":1359,"date":"2008-10-12T16:50:44","date_gmt":"2008-10-12T15:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/"},"modified":"2008-10-12T16:50:44","modified_gmt":"2008-10-12T15:50:44","slug":"the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battle of the Invisible Friends (aka &quot;Supreme Being Smackdown&quot;)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Can things get any dumber? Don\u2019t answer that question.<\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\" style=\"margin-right: 0px\"><p>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/nation\/la-na-campaign12-2008oct12,0,4050738.story\">&#8220;There are millions of people around this world praying to their God <\/a>&#8212; whether it&#8217;s Hindu, Buddha, Allah &#8212; that [McCain&#8217;s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons,&#8221; Pastor Arnold Conrad said. &#8220;And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they&#8217;re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(eyeroll) It\u2019s like something out of that old Ken-L-Ration jingle. <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/kenal-ration-my-dogs-better-child-sings.wav\">\u201cMy God\u2019s better than your God, my God\u2019s better than yours\u2026\u201d<\/a> I leave it to others to tease out the five or six hilarious and possibly\u00a0offensive assumptions and logical fallacies underpinning the above statements.\u00a0 \u2026But\u00a0the whole thing factors down to: <em>Please, God, don\u2019t embarrass us.<\/em> Is it just me, or is there\u00a0something extremely wrong with that entire line of reasoning\u2026and this guy \u2014 a clergyman \u2014 doesn\u2019t even see it?<\/p>\n<p>Also:\u00a0 has it genuinely <em>never<\/em>\u00a0occurred to this\u00a0cleric\u00a0that somewhere in America there might possibly be <em>someone<\/em> praying to the very same God he\u2019s (theoretically) praying to that the Unnamed Opponent should <em>win?<\/em>\u00a0 And that (to take a slightly different tack) if it turns out to happen that way, that this would\u00a0\u2014 in his theology \u2014 be because of his very own God\u2019s will, not as the result of some sublime hyperdimensional WWF match? \u2026No, probably if that concept crept into the guy&#8217;s head, said head would explode. Was he perhaps trying to be funny? If so, <em>FAIL.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 1px solid #cccccc; margin: 10px 0px 10px 10px; padding: 8px; float: right\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/images\/VoldemortThatOne.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u2026And here again we have this weirdness about\u00a0not naming the other guy even at a distance, let alone\u00a0when he\u2019s standing\u00a0six feet away.\u00a0(\u201cThat one?\u201d Tsk tsk.) \u00a0I mean, surely there\u2019s no point in not-naming even the Lone Power <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/images\/LPThatOne.jpg\">(click here for his version of the icon to the right) <\/a>or Voldemort when they\u2019re\u00a0already sitting there waiting for you to finish speaking.\u00a0Strikes me as rude.<\/p>\n<p>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. <em>Imagine<\/em> the response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can things get any dumber? Don\u2019t answer that question. \u00a0&#8220;There are millions of people around this world praying to their God &#8212; whether it&#8217;s Hindu, Buddha, Allah &#8212; that [McCain&#8217;s]&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,47,54,58],"tags":[83,129,249,279,316,334,704,404,706,520],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-news","category-politics","category-religion","tag-allah","tag-buddha","tag-god","tag-hindu","tag-ken-l-ration","tag-lone-power","tag-politics","tag-prayer","tag-religion","tag-voldemort"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Battle of the Invisible Friends (aka &quot;Supreme Being Smackdown&quot;) - Out of Ambit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Battle of the Invisible Friends (aka &quot;Supreme Being Smackdown&quot;) - Out of Ambit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can things get any dumber? Don\u2019t answer that question. \u00a0&#8220;There are millions of people around this world praying to their God &#8212; whether it&#8217;s Hindu, Buddha, Allah &#8212; that [McCain&#8217;s]&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Out of Ambit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-12T15:50:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/images\/VoldemortThatOne.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Diane Duane\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@dduane\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Diane Duane\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/ff54e1fb35d68dee5a5bf83f6070e2d1\"},\"headline\":\"The Battle of the Invisible Friends (aka &quot;Supreme Being Smackdown&quot;)\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-10-12T15:50:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/\"},\"wordCount\":372,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/images\/VoldemortThatOne.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Allah\",\"Buddha\",\"God\",\"Hindu\",\"Ken-L-Ration\",\"Lone Power\",\"Politics\",\"prayer\",\"religion\",\"Voldemort\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Current events\",\"News\",\"Politics\",\"religion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/10\/12\/the-battle-of-the-invisible-friends-aka-supreme-being-smackdown\/\",\"name\":\"The Battle of the Invisible Friends (aka &quot;Supreme Being Smackdown&quot;) - 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