An atheist will offer the invocation prior to this weeks City Council Meeting in Hunstville, Alabama. It will be the first such invocation led by an atheist in the state of Alabama. I was curious about the exact definition of, invocation, in relation of such an opening statement/prayer before a meeting, so I googled it (the modern equivalent of looking it up in the dictionary). The headline for the article states that he plans to, invoke civic values and shared responsibility. According to what I found on the internet, an invocation, is, the action of invoking something or someone for assistance or as an authority. So, my questions are: What or to whom does an atheist call upon to invoke something? Will he perhaps call upon the council to check itself, before it wrecks itself? Will he state what he personally hopes the council will do? Im assuming he would remain a-political if that is the case, because otherwise he wont be speaking for Conservatives and Liberals equally. Will he call upon the dollar bill to bless the meeting because as an atheist-that would be the thing that would ultimately guide what the council is or is not able to do, if God doesnt guide them? I have attended dozens of council meetings in our little town of Springville. During the invocation, those in the audience are asked to stand while a prayer is offered--and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance--oh, the humanity. The little boy in me (yes, all men still have a little boy at their core) has sometimes glanced to my left or right and seen someone sitting there (not standing) with their head unbowed and their eyes wide open. I assumed that they either did not believe in prayer or chose not to pray because of the person doing the invocation. Their choice--their way of dealing with it. Im a Christian (Baptist by choice) and I can assure you that if I attended that Huntsville City Council meeting, Id be very much Catholic, in that Id be on my knees during such an atheist invocation--plus lightening tends to strike things higher up. The article below further states that the Huntsville City Council will allow the citys Interfaith Witness Service to select subsequent persons who will lead the opening invocations. That should be interesting. Maybe they will get the guy on the reality show who has 5 wives and believes very much in polygamy. The Satanist will probably offer a prayer while standing inside a pentagram and calling upon the devil to make them do it. I would personally choose to skip the meeting where they ask a member of the Islamic ISIS group because the military might have him painted for a tomahawk missile. Just a tip to any atheists out there who might have chosen not to attend a city council meeting because they might be offended by a prayer led by someone who prays to someone they dont believe in to begin with--the prayer is always offered first so just show up about 5 minutes later and it will all be over with anyway. al/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2014/09/atheist_prayer.html
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:30:54 +0000
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