There is a lot of personal insecurity out there, and I suspect that this prayer business is an expression of it, especially with people who don't own themselves. This is a pet peeve of mine: self-examination and self- understanding can lead to self-ownership, and our culture needs to do more of that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for understanding that you need help and asking for it when you do, and I would even be willing to say that there are healthy ways to gain emotional support from an imaginary friend.
But this apparent assumption of helplessness without spiritual guidance - not just for oneself, but for literally all others - seems unhealthy at best to me.
To Christians, people are broken things in need of salvation.
Mayhaps they should heed their savior's words and heal themselves before attempting to "help" others. Because it's the religious who desperately need saving.
These fuckers TEACH the rubes that they are broken and that only JEEEZUS can fix them! This is also what's wrong with Alcoholics Anonymous and all the other "higher-power" based treatment systems. And it goes back to something else:
Of course it's unhealthy, because it's based in unreality and wishful thinking. I think that with self-ownership, people can be strong enough to face unpleasant realities, rather than retreat into fantasy, which is precisely what religion promotes.
What, exactly, do they think they're going to accomplish here? How many prayers, do you suppose, were offered up during the Holocaust, and to what effect? Prayer works at exactly the same rate of effectiveness as random chance. In any event, this is really about rote conformity and entrenching Christian privilege in the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars.
The only thing they're really accomplishing here is virtue signaling. Mostly, it's the only thing they're interested in accomplishing, and at that, it ain't much.
Who thinks of this stuff? What school district employee says to themselves, "you know what? Crafting and posting a call for prayer must surely fall under my job as..." I'm baffled because doing this *on the job* would just never occur to me. If, hypothetically, I'm a school administrator, then I got tasks to perform. Schedules to develop, implement, or follow. Resources to corral. Parents to contact if they haven't got their forms in. More regular work than my day accommodates and certainly more work than I'm being paid to do. Where the frak does even the thought of spending my workplace time to do this come from?
I get the weekly newsletter from my parents' church. As Hemant says, something like this is totes cool coming from them. The pastor's into getting the congregation to pray for others, and school is starting soon. It's a natural fit, no problemo. But stick me in a dentist's office or a H.S. front office or a law firm or any other such white collar professional situation, it would never even occur to me to look outside the parameters of the actual job to do stuff like this. And this has 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑜 with my religion. Even when I was Christian this would've never occurred to me. It has to do with doing work stuff at work and personal stuff on my personal time. You know - professionalism.
In every office I've ever worked in there have been a few who had no idea what that means. Even when I'm not (I can get a little snapish when stressed), I know what it means.
Unfortunately one of the core tenets of most versions of Christianity is that being visibly pious is their most important job. How many times has someone done something of this sort and then started a “faith promoting rumor” that someone was saaayvED! because of it?
It seems as though the Freedom From Religion Foundation is being taken more and more seriously in the Lone Star State. That the Burnet School District responded as quickly as they did at least suggests to me that they understand what they're up against. That said, should parents in that school district decide to get upset that the prayers were canceled, I would fully expect that other parents who do not want to see religion spread in schools will come up on the side of the FFRF. At that point, of course, it's lawyers at 20 paces.
And in that game, I'll take Dan Barker and the points.
I would not be surprised if the quick response was because the original post was put up by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Another Christian who expected to put up the post, knew it would prompt a letter from that 'outside' group, ffrf and feign outrage that those 'other' people are interfering with their 'rights' as Christians to push their narrative. But then an adult who knew better responded correctly and quicker than expected.
The thing about the "outside group" is that the FFRF has no way of monitoring every e-mail that's sent out by every school district in America, so they had to have been tipped off to THIS one by somebody IN the community — somebody who quite understandably would rather not be known by name.
I would also not be surprised if the person who notified them was the same person who put it up in the first place. They do seem to enjoy looking like they are persecuted.
I will hold out hope that this is one or a few idiot's screw-up, and the district's response is not "leadership's grudging fear of lawsuit" but rather "leadership's sincere desire to fix a problem as soon as it's brought to their attention."
They will always try to slip through the radar when no one is looking. It's just the nature of Christians. They must foist their beliefs by hook or by crook.
Dog experts say they hear those sirens and think it's another dog howling in the distance. The sympatico dog is howling to let that other "dog" know where it is.
I don't think it's an across-the-board thing. We've had fire engines in my neighborhood and none of the dogs around here seem to be doing it...mostly. :)
And this circles back around to the virtue signaling this is. Although other canine activity with different firefighting equipment is a better analogy.
Some days what I want to write flows easily. Other times I write, erase, write something else, erase and edit, pause while I check the spelling of a word, or just spend a few minutes reading what I wrote to make sure it makes sense. AI is going to think I have multiple personalities.
Why stop at 22 days? In the spirit of inclusiveness add a 23rd day of prayer for those instructors and staff with a taste for pederasty and simultaneously pay homage to the 23 Enigma.
If they want the community to be involved in the school district, setup a program where they can donate school supplies, or money for free and reduced lunches, or money for classroom necessities, offer to be teachers aides (this would require background checks, but those are easy to do when you’re a good person). There are many ways the community can get involved that actually does something that’s helpful. Praying does nothing at all. In fact, it keeps folks from doing useful stuff for the school because they already prayed, isn’t that enough.
It depends on whether an unpaid teacher's aide is worth the cost of the background check. And of course the cost depends on the thoroughness of the check.
But donating money to schools? "that's the government's job, that's why I pay so much property tax." 45-year-old 1920 sq ft house on a normal lot $5k a year. And still not enough.
I'd rather an income tax than killer property tax, but apparently I'm in the minority since we just passed a constitutional amendment to forbid an income tax by 74%
I was just trying to provide actions that are actually helpful in the system we have.
Better things would be to vote for representatives who actually care about governing across the board and state politicians and school bowed members who want to improve schools. Vote for effective funding and more staff. But none of that is realistic as the system is working as it’s setup to.
Can't vote for a 'godless' Democrat, so Republican no matter who it is. 78% for Abbott in the general, I'm curious how the primary went in Burnet. If they thought Governor 'let them freeze' is actually doing a good job, or just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Beto.
I've had family reunions in Burnet. I'm not surprised at this.
No idea how it works in Texas, but I can tell you that here in AZ, property taxes pay for schools but that fund is often raided by lawmakers with other projects anyway. Yes, we also have a lottery that's supposed to help support schools as well, but when lawmakers need money for something guess where that comes from? So while I don't object to paying more taxes (property or income) for better schools in principal, the truth is that most voters here in AZ very well know local schools won't see that money and well...they're right. Lawmakers then assume that people don't actually want better schools, and the cycle repeats itself, taking more and more money from schools.
There are times I honestly despise living in a red state.
Before the ubiquitous answering machine, cordless phone, and telemarketers, when ones phone rang they quickly moved their butt to answer it since the call was personal or important.
By the way, did you see they referenced another anime ? The name of the video is Uzumaki and the father had a tantrum because he wanted something* in his soup.
Looks like Substack fixed a common problem. When you had to edit a comment before, the comment vanished and you had to refresh the page to see the edited comment. Not now. Now the comment immediately appears in its edited form. No need to refresh.
Maybe they got a lot of complaints about that and took measures to correct it. That makes Substack far more responsive than OS.
So the bonobos notice when they mess up, unlike the howler monkeys that wrote ViaFoura. I was having trouble signing into OS just to get a feel for their new comment system.
Legitimately surprised that the district reversed so easily. Glad, of course, this should be the norm until it’s unnecessary. I bet a lawyer got wind of it. Heh.
Ahh, yes. Prayer: What Christians do to feel better without actually having to make any kind of effort to make the world a better place.
The whole point of prayer is to make the faithful feel like they've done something about an issue without having people get into the messy business of actually doing anything. It works for the Christian, who gets a nice mental 'I accomplished something' type boost to their feelings; and it works for the people in charge who don't want to make any changes that might hurt their bottom line somewhere. The whole point is nothing changes but 'everyone' feels better about the situation.
Prayer isn't intended to actually work, it's just a mechanism for making people feel better about situations they can't change. The district asking for prayer means they've given up on fixing issues they should, by rights, be correcting ASAP. Hopefully, by sending a notice they've stopped, they'll get back to work.
Reminds me of a great moment in W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick. He's just about to wallop his little daughter for telling hm "You don't love me." His wife intervenes and stops him. Chastised, he mutters, "Well she's not going to tell me I don't love her." Fields was a more honest theologian than most.
Perhaps, if you are convinced you cannot succeed in your job without begging for the aid of an all-powerful deity... you're in the wrong job.
Just tossing this out there.
There is a lot of personal insecurity out there, and I suspect that this prayer business is an expression of it, especially with people who don't own themselves. This is a pet peeve of mine: self-examination and self- understanding can lead to self-ownership, and our culture needs to do more of that.
Yeah.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for understanding that you need help and asking for it when you do, and I would even be willing to say that there are healthy ways to gain emotional support from an imaginary friend.
But this apparent assumption of helplessness without spiritual guidance - not just for oneself, but for literally all others - seems unhealthy at best to me.
To Christians, people are broken things in need of salvation.
Mayhaps they should heed their savior's words and heal themselves before attempting to "help" others. Because it's the religious who desperately need saving.
Except that they've been taught that they CAN'T do it by themselves! You know the quote:
𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑎 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛, 𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑦 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙.
-- Christopher Hitchens
These fuckers TEACH the rubes that they are broken and that only JEEEZUS can fix them! This is also what's wrong with Alcoholics Anonymous and all the other "higher-power" based treatment systems. And it goes back to something else:
𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑢𝑠, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑠.
-- me
Of course it's unhealthy, because it's based in unreality and wishful thinking. I think that with self-ownership, people can be strong enough to face unpleasant realities, rather than retreat into fantasy, which is precisely what religion promotes.
What, exactly, do they think they're going to accomplish here? How many prayers, do you suppose, were offered up during the Holocaust, and to what effect? Prayer works at exactly the same rate of effectiveness as random chance. In any event, this is really about rote conformity and entrenching Christian privilege in the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars.
The only thing they're really accomplishing here is virtue signaling. Mostly, it's the only thing they're interested in accomplishing, and at that, it ain't much.
Especially when Jesus told his followers to pray in their closets, rather than be like the people who prayed in public "to be seen by men".
Those were the wrong kind of prayers, by Jews, and homosexuals, and Romani, black people and other undesirables.
Who thinks of this stuff? What school district employee says to themselves, "you know what? Crafting and posting a call for prayer must surely fall under my job as..." I'm baffled because doing this *on the job* would just never occur to me. If, hypothetically, I'm a school administrator, then I got tasks to perform. Schedules to develop, implement, or follow. Resources to corral. Parents to contact if they haven't got their forms in. More regular work than my day accommodates and certainly more work than I'm being paid to do. Where the frak does even the thought of spending my workplace time to do this come from?
I get the weekly newsletter from my parents' church. As Hemant says, something like this is totes cool coming from them. The pastor's into getting the congregation to pray for others, and school is starting soon. It's a natural fit, no problemo. But stick me in a dentist's office or a H.S. front office or a law firm or any other such white collar professional situation, it would never even occur to me to look outside the parameters of the actual job to do stuff like this. And this has 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑜 with my religion. Even when I was Christian this would've never occurred to me. It has to do with doing work stuff at work and personal stuff on my personal time. You know - professionalism.
It is never the job of the public schools to backstop anybody's religion.
In every office I've ever worked in there have been a few who had no idea what that means. Even when I'm not (I can get a little snapish when stressed), I know what it means.
Unfortunately one of the core tenets of most versions of Christianity is that being visibly pious is their most important job. How many times has someone done something of this sort and then started a “faith promoting rumor” that someone was saaayvED! because of it?
It seems as though the Freedom From Religion Foundation is being taken more and more seriously in the Lone Star State. That the Burnet School District responded as quickly as they did at least suggests to me that they understand what they're up against. That said, should parents in that school district decide to get upset that the prayers were canceled, I would fully expect that other parents who do not want to see religion spread in schools will come up on the side of the FFRF. At that point, of course, it's lawyers at 20 paces.
And in that game, I'll take Dan Barker and the points.
You have a better chance of a deity actually answering the prayers with a booming voice from the sky.
I would not be surprised if the quick response was because the original post was put up by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Another Christian who expected to put up the post, knew it would prompt a letter from that 'outside' group, ffrf and feign outrage that those 'other' people are interfering with their 'rights' as Christians to push their narrative. But then an adult who knew better responded correctly and quicker than expected.
The thing about the "outside group" is that the FFRF has no way of monitoring every e-mail that's sent out by every school district in America, so they had to have been tipped off to THIS one by somebody IN the community — somebody who quite understandably would rather not be known by name.
I would also not be surprised if the person who notified them was the same person who put it up in the first place. They do seem to enjoy looking like they are persecuted.
I will hold out hope that this is one or a few idiot's screw-up, and the district's response is not "leadership's grudging fear of lawsuit" but rather "leadership's sincere desire to fix a problem as soon as it's brought to their attention."
I would never have taken you for an optimist.
They will always try to slip through the radar when no one is looking. It's just the nature of Christians. They must foist their beliefs by hook or by crook.
Prayer defeated by a mildly worded letter.
Puny prayer.
https://www.zentaur.org/memes/puny_god.gif
But they'll be back with Thanos.
“It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.”
—Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), “The Great Agnostic”, "Which Way?" (1884)
Dogs howl at fire engines that have their sirens going because they think they're helping.
More likely because it hurts their ears.
There's that. Also this:
Dog experts say they hear those sirens and think it's another dog howling in the distance. The sympatico dog is howling to let that other "dog" know where it is.
I may have a problem. Neither my dogs (3) or the ones I dogsitted (4) did that 🤔
I don't think it's an across-the-board thing. We've had fire engines in my neighborhood and none of the dogs around here seem to be doing it...mostly. :)
My first dog I can understand why. She was used to be called back to our boat by a fog horn. Sirens wouldn't faze her.
And this circles back around to the virtue signaling this is. Although other canine activity with different firefighting equipment is a better analogy.
Yup. The dog think it's helping another dog.
More likely, they are saying, "Stay the hell away from my territory!"
Had to edit that several times for typing boo-boos.
Some days what I want to write flows easily. Other times I write, erase, write something else, erase and edit, pause while I check the spelling of a word, or just spend a few minutes reading what I wrote to make sure it makes sense. AI is going to think I have multiple personalities.
Sounds like me and my typing stylings.
Why stop at 22 days? In the spirit of inclusiveness add a 23rd day of prayer for those instructors and staff with a taste for pederasty and simultaneously pay homage to the 23 Enigma.
If they want the community to be involved in the school district, setup a program where they can donate school supplies, or money for free and reduced lunches, or money for classroom necessities, offer to be teachers aides (this would require background checks, but those are easy to do when you’re a good person). There are many ways the community can get involved that actually does something that’s helpful. Praying does nothing at all. In fact, it keeps folks from doing useful stuff for the school because they already prayed, isn’t that enough.
It depends on whether an unpaid teacher's aide is worth the cost of the background check. And of course the cost depends on the thoroughness of the check.
But donating money to schools? "that's the government's job, that's why I pay so much property tax." 45-year-old 1920 sq ft house on a normal lot $5k a year. And still not enough.
I'd rather an income tax than killer property tax, but apparently I'm in the minority since we just passed a constitutional amendment to forbid an income tax by 74%
I was just trying to provide actions that are actually helpful in the system we have.
Better things would be to vote for representatives who actually care about governing across the board and state politicians and school bowed members who want to improve schools. Vote for effective funding and more staff. But none of that is realistic as the system is working as it’s setup to.
"I was just trying to provide actions that are actually helpful in the system we have."
That's just crazy talk!
Can't vote for a 'godless' Democrat, so Republican no matter who it is. 78% for Abbott in the general, I'm curious how the primary went in Burnet. If they thought Governor 'let them freeze' is actually doing a good job, or just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Beto.
I've had family reunions in Burnet. I'm not surprised at this.
No idea how it works in Texas, but I can tell you that here in AZ, property taxes pay for schools but that fund is often raided by lawmakers with other projects anyway. Yes, we also have a lottery that's supposed to help support schools as well, but when lawmakers need money for something guess where that comes from? So while I don't object to paying more taxes (property or income) for better schools in principal, the truth is that most voters here in AZ very well know local schools won't see that money and well...they're right. Lawmakers then assume that people don't actually want better schools, and the cycle repeats itself, taking more and more money from schools.
There are times I honestly despise living in a red state.
Just times? I'm pretty sure I'm the proverbial frog. I need to hop.
Ninety minutes? The goldfish brain of the religionists is improving!
Yet they want to LOOK as though they ARE doing something. Thus the whole prayer schmear. 🤢🤮
OT - So that is what those things are!!!
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2023-07-12-historical-landmark.jpg
Before the ubiquitous answering machine, cordless phone, and telemarketers, when ones phone rang they quickly moved their butt to answer it since the call was personal or important.
One ringey-dingey, two ringey-dingey, ….
"Is this the party to whom I am speaking?"
May I speak to….
This is a machine, you know the routine. BEEP!
Flashbacks. Can still hear the sounds they make.
… I rented my apartment
On a Monday at one
A-singin' do lolly, lolly
Shicky bum, shicky bum
… Started movin' in it
On a Tuesday at two
A-singin' do lolly, lolly
Shicky do, shicky do
… Wednesday at three
I called the phone company, singin'
Hey baby, put a phone in for me
… Thursday at four
He came a-knockin' at my door, singin'
… Hey, baby, I'm your telephone man
You just show me where you want it
And I'll put it where I can
I can put it in the bedroom
I can put it in the hall
I can put it in the bathroom
I can hang it on the wall
… You can have it with the buzz
You can have it with the ring
And if you really want it
You can have a ding-a-ling
Because-a hey baby
I'm your telephone man
… Can you believe that?
And then he says
Now when other fellas call ya
Tell 'em how it all began
Well, can you imagine?
… My heart began a-thumpin'
And my mind began to fly
And I knew I wasn't dealin'
With no ordinary guy
… So while he was a-talking
I was thinkin' up my plan
Then my fingers did the walkin'
On the telephone man
… Singin hey lolly, lolly
Hey lolly, lolly
Hey lolly, lolly
Get it any way you can
Right? Ha, ha, ha, so
… I got it in the bedroom
And I got it in the hall
And I got it in the bathroom
And he hung it on the wall
… I got it with a buzz
And I got it with a ring
And when he told me
What my number was
I got a ding-a-ling
… A-singin hey lolly, lolly
Hey lolly, lolly
Hey lolly, lolly
Just-a doin' my thing
… Ha, ha... I've never done anything
Like this before
Meri Wilson - Telephone Man
If I could get a telephone man like that, I might even consider getting a land-line from AT&T again.
Back in the day if I could have got a telephone man within 6 weeks I would have sacrificed my 1st born child.
https://youtu.be/MahswYBewb0
Whether on-hook or off-hook that is one happy customer.
First heard this on Dr. Demento, praise be him.
403 for Bidden.
Since that didn't work for you, how about some adult anime coming soon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrqvjjKlOs
In black-and-white, yet. Like a manga come to animated life. Wonder if I should look at it from right to left? 😉
It's all in your b̸o̸o̸k̸ tome.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/paper_sorcerer
With my atrophied gaming skills, "The only winning move is not to play."
😵
Bet that emoji sees swirls now. 😊
By the way, did you see they referenced another anime ? The name of the video is Uzumaki and the father had a tantrum because he wanted something* in his soup.
* Spiraled fish paste also know as...
I'm so far behind on my anime and manga. This despite the fact that we have anime/manga stores here, not to mention the annual Sakura-Con.
Naruto. I used to watch it with my nephew.
I've seen maybe one episode of the 9-tailed fox. The one where he gets eaten by an enormous snake.
I am in mood to kill anyone who makes decision at HBO Max 🤬
And you to show me an anime I can't seem to watch legally 😝
I just alert you to them. Airing them on a platform you can utilize is somebody else's department. 💻
Too late. I am a "kill the messenger" gal 😁
To me, my ninja cats
🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤🐱👤
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6dbe1d2e24be9a3600cd0625b2a3c63dd69b45fe0c2033cc1e238580100f52fd.jpg
OT
Looks like Substack fixed a common problem. When you had to edit a comment before, the comment vanished and you had to refresh the page to see the edited comment. Not now. Now the comment immediately appears in its edited form. No need to refresh.
Maybe they got a lot of complaints about that and took measures to correct it. That makes Substack far more responsive than OS.
So the bonobos notice when they mess up, unlike the howler monkeys that wrote ViaFoura. I was having trouble signing into OS just to get a feel for their new comment system.
Last time I tried to log in over there, I came up a big fat goose egg.
Yeah, they're really going to encourage people to stick around and even donate. Good luck on both those things.
Page refreshes to Top First in middle of comment. Content lost. Shitty programming rules.
Maybe they'll see to this as well if enough people speak up.
There are things floating belly-up in ponds that are more responsive than OS.
Dead parrots are more responsive (especially if you pick them up and whack them a few times. Or smack the side of their cages).
They're not dead, they're resting.
Pinin'.
Hey ! os gave us a whooping 15 minutes to edit our comments.
Substack laughs and says "Puny OS. We give people all the time they need."
Just edited a comment from 2021 😁
See? Substack beats OS 7 ways to Sunday. 😃
That bar is somewhere in the Marianas Trench.
James Cameron saw that bar on his last dive down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
The last paragraph is great.
It is. It's like a coda of Childhood's End.
"most of the adults in their lives have no WILL how to fix the problems they’ve created."
Legitimately surprised that the district reversed so easily. Glad, of course, this should be the norm until it’s unnecessary. I bet a lawyer got wind of it. Heh.
Ahh, yes. Prayer: What Christians do to feel better without actually having to make any kind of effort to make the world a better place.
The whole point of prayer is to make the faithful feel like they've done something about an issue without having people get into the messy business of actually doing anything. It works for the Christian, who gets a nice mental 'I accomplished something' type boost to their feelings; and it works for the people in charge who don't want to make any changes that might hurt their bottom line somewhere. The whole point is nothing changes but 'everyone' feels better about the situation.
Prayer isn't intended to actually work, it's just a mechanism for making people feel better about situations they can't change. The district asking for prayer means they've given up on fixing issues they should, by rights, be correcting ASAP. Hopefully, by sending a notice they've stopped, they'll get back to work.
People pray and pray and pray and the hospitals of this country still have pediatric cancer wards.
Some benevolent deity. "I know, let's give toddlers cancer. That'll show them how much I love them."
Reminds me of a great moment in W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick. He's just about to wallop his little daughter for telling hm "You don't love me." His wife intervenes and stops him. Chastised, he mutters, "Well she's not going to tell me I don't love her." Fields was a more honest theologian than most.
https://i.imgur.com/4n6o4XE.jpeg
Bet his hands are filthy and he smells like fish.