Tag Archives: Fasting

News

Judge throws out atheist attempt to censor day of prayer and fasting

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Texas Governor Rick Perry
Texas Governor Rick Perry

From the Houston Chronicle.

Excerpt:

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop Gov. Rick Perry from sponsoring a national day of Christian prayer and fasting, ruling Thursday that the group of atheists and agnostics did not have legal standing to sue.

U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller said the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued against Perry’s involvement based merely on feelings of exclusion, but did not show sufficient harm to merit the injunction they sought.

“The governor has done nothing more than invite others who are willing to do so to pray,” Miller said.

I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned about militant atheism during the time I have been running this blog, and I think the whole atheistic fundamentalism view boils down to 3 things. The first is the desire to be immoral, usually dressed up by defining morality as being based on feelings or cultural conventions. The second is the desire to censor and coerce other people who make them feel bad about being immoral. And the third is the desire to tell other people how intelligent and moral they are, but without actually being intelligent or moral. But I digress.

More:

A day earlier, Perry defended the event, comparing it to President Barack Obama’s participation in the National Day of Prayer.

“My prayer is that the courts will find that the first amendment is still applicable to the governor no matter what they might be doing and that what we’ve done in the state of Texas or what we’ve done in the governor’s office is appropriate,” he said. “It’s no different than what George Washington or Abraham Linlcoln or President Truman or President Obama have done.”

Perry, an evangelical Christian, said he didn’t yet know what his role in the rally would be.

“I’m going to be there — I may be ushering for all I know — I haven’t gotten my marching orders,” he said. “It’s not about me and it’s not about the people on the stage either, this is truly about coming together as a state lifting up this nation in prayer, having a day of prayer and fasting. That’s all it is.”

Good for governor Perry, though. Sticking his neck out a bit. Good. But he has a ways to go to catch Michele.

Personal

ECM’s new blog will document a 40-day water fast that begins today

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ECM has decided to start a new 40 day fast, and he made a new blog to record his progress. He’s quite a funny writer and you may want to bookmark the site and check in there once in a while to make sure that he is still alive. So far, he’s explained a little bit about it in the first few posts.

Here’s what’s on his menu for the next 40 days:

Consuming:

  • 1 gallon of H2O/day.
  • Beef/chicken bullion spiked w/ added salt 3-5x/day.
  • Body fat, muscle tissue and major organs all day, every day, until I run out and/or die from severe internal bleeding.

Not consuming:

  • Everything else.

You might think that he is fasting 40 days for Lent, but he’s a Deist, not a Christian, so he has other reasons for fasting.

Q: Why are you doing a 40-day fast?

A: A couple of reasons:

1. I ate way way way too much over the holidays (the holidays, loosely defined as Halloween ‘09 through, uh, this Sunday) and have a lot more to lose than normal. (Normal being 10-15lbs; right now, though, I’m competing w/ King Hippo for bragging rights.)

2. To prove that I can.

(Yes, that’s right: this is primarily a misguided effort at proving to myself that I can, indeed, go the distance come hell or high water (or pass a McDonald’s without succumbing to the siren song of special sauce).)

And here is a picture of ECM, pre-fast:

ECM (pre-fast)

You might think that this picture cannot be ECM, since he’s actually a beaver with a helmet.

Who is this?

But I think the beaver is actually just some video game character, and not really ECM.

Does anyone know the name of this beaver? I think it’s Sherbet or something.