Paul Ryan Criticized over "Thoughts and Prayers" Comment

[Rev. Rye]

I suppose we can't absolutely prove that it's not divine intervention that is lowering the numbers as time goes by, so maybe prayer does work. It's about as likely as God existing in the first place, but can't entirely be ruled out I suppose.

The odds for divine intervention would have to be lower than the odds of the existence of a God, by definition.

Divine intervention would require the existence of God, but also multiple other conditions that would necessarily make the odds a lot less likely, most importantly that said God is an interventionist (as opposed to the deistic model) and that said God wouldn't just decide to make it worse, whether out of some sort of "for your own good" mentality or out of sheer spite, which some Christians have been known to attribute to God.

---

What's wrong with offering thoughts and prayers?

The people who died were all Christian, obviously. If it brings any sense of peace or comfort to their families to be offered prayers, then why would anyone have a problem with it?

That's the thing about "thoughts and prayers;" it's basically a line people who should be doing something about it (especially politicians) say so to distract other people from noticing they're not doing anything. Right-wingers complain about liberals who "virtue signal" displaying conspicuous displays of morality (I call it Veblen morality) but this is conservatives doing the same goddam thing, and it's no less insufferable.