The National Day of Prayer: Do It or Satan Will Eat Your Head:
Okay, this shit just blew the Rude Pundit's mind. According to the website of the National Day of Prayer Task Force (motto: "Pray, motherfuckers"), one part of the answer to the question "Why Pray?" is "Much sin is the result of the sin of prayerlessness. Through lack of prayer, we are weak, others are weaker and Satan gains the advantage in our lives." But, wait, let's see, in tallying up the total number of sins, are you including "prayerlessness"? And who's the "we" and who's the "others"? Mostly, though, why the fuck does the National Day of Prayer need a "task force"? Are there Prayer SEALs ready to do a night landing on your beach of sin?

Then the NDPTF explains that the real reason for prayer is that God is kind of an egotistical douchebag: "We must invite God to work here. If no-one invites God to work here, Satan...will dominate the affairs of men and eventually the judgment of God will come." So let's get this straight: if nobody invites God to the party, he'll get all pissy because Satan crashed it, and then get all smitey on our wicked asses. Time to tell Franklin Graham, "Dude, your God's a dick."

By the way, just because you pray, it doesn't mean that Satan's done bugging you yet. After prayer (and the Rude Pundit dares you to read this without laughing), "Usually Satan will try to suggest to you that your prayers were not heard. He will encourage you to look to the problems again and get your eyes off God. He will try to get you to talk as if you are not sure if your prayer is answered. If he succeeds in getting you to express doubt it is likely that your mouth confession will cancel the effect of your prayer." Honestly, the Rude Pundit's trying to come up with a joke involving a cock and a mouth confession, but he can't stop shaking his head at the sad idea that people actually believe that any kind of doubt is just Satan whispering in their ears. The DSM-IV lists that as "fucking crazy."

Yes, today is that National Day of Prayer, and the prayergasms are being yelped around the country, from soon to be oil-edged Alabama to newly immigrant-free Arizona, who answer the question of "What would Jesus do?" with "Round 'em up and deport 'em." Of course, many of the praying peoples, primarily of the Christian flavor, are het up about the recent district court in Wisconsin ruling that the National Day o' Prayer is unconstitutional. How the hell can you say that it's establishing a religion when the President proclaims, "On this day, let us give thanks for the many blessings God has bestowed upon our Nation." That's non-denominational, no? It's absolutely not secular, but it's definitely non-denominational.

But then we get back to those who wish to make the NDP into their own party. Whatever meaning the day was supposed to have, it's been hijacked by the nutzoid Christians into becoming an evangelical-fest. If they actually gave a good goddamn about faith and prayer, well, they wouldn't just cheer on their team. Instead, we get the task force telling us about how "Jesus taught us to pray," that "We are told by Jesus not to make meaningless repetitions of words when we pray," and that you need to "Begin your prayer with confession of your unconfessed sins. In this way the blood of Jesus cleanses us and prepares us to really relate to God."

You could say that Jews and Muslims and Zoroastrians or who the fuck ever could throw up their own little website and tell people how to pray most righteously Jew-y or Muslim-y or Zoroastri....oh, fuck it. But those aren't the faiths agitating for the National Day of Prayer in its current statute form. They aren't calling for us to pray, as the Family Research Council is, "May God visit America with great power as we cry out to Him tomorrow and every day. May He revive our churches, heal our land; convert the 7 mountains of our culture to Himself and make America a gospel light in the World yet again. In Jesus' Name, Amen!" Imagine for a second if a large Muslim group asked Allah to convert the nation to Islam. Imagine if the Pentagon had invited an Imam who condemns Christianity as the faith of murderers. Sorry. Maybe that's just Satan's suggestion.