What a crock
Is someone going to pop round and sprinkle some fairy-dust on it as well?
Supplies of road salt held at council depots in Lincolnshire are to be blessed by senior church figures in the hope that this will help in the expected winter battle against snow and icy roads. The Louth Leader has the story, reporting that no less an ecclesiastical figure than the Right Reverend Christopher Lowson, Bishop of …
Think of it, this gambit is the setup for a country-wide test for the workings of the Lord:
*some stock in the central depot is blessed, other not,
*salt trucks are randomly assigned their classic routes,
*salt truck gets filled from randomly chosen salt heap (so driver does not know if salt is blessed or not).
*effectiveness of de-icing is kept track of as usual and/or required amount of salt per mile for safe driveability.
Pretty much bullet-proof double-blind test setup as far as I can see. Now the only thing to do is to have kept track of what salt (via what truck) ended up working how well, some easy stats, and presto a publishable paper + newspaper articles and radio interviews all round the world... Some junior academic's career should be founded on this.
As MDava suggests, you can extend this to check whether placebo effects work here, with fairy-dust alternatives (or midichlorian-activated, for the Jedists), and so forth. Super!
Thus spoke the New Scientist a few years ago. Not the existence of randomness as an emergent property, e.g. the behaviour of dice which we all know to be random if unbiassed. But the laws of physics governing how dice behave are well known, such that a rigged casino dice-throwing robot design is entirely conceivable.
The question requiring faith in randomness as an inherent property of the universe concerns whether this exists or not at the quantum level. Einstein famously stated his view as, "at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice." usually restated as: God does not play dice with the universe".
Uncertainty is as effective as randomness.
When playing poker the next card to come can be:
1. Known because the deck has been stacked
2. Known because the card is marked
3. Known to external people through a camera
4. Unknown only to the players due to some combination of above
5. Unknown to everyone due to decent shuffling
The card is what it is, it is not in some quantum state, but the fact that it is unknown to the players allows them to play as if it was random and bet accordingly. With 1-4 above there is no quantum state for sure but the lack of knowledge of the players makes it as good as random for them. No faith required.
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Didn't we hang people for this kind of thing at one point in time.
Instead of praying for miraculous salt properties or for dry roads he should be praying that we don't take him away to an asylum.
Blessed are the ignorant ( this guy must be pretty well blessed then).
His is the one with the image of the great sky fairy on the back and little wings on the shoulders.
Yes we did hang people for things like this. We should bring it back.
Blessing salt? To do what exactly? Salt lowers the melting point of water. This is a scientific fact and Jesus is surplus to requirements.
They should bury a newt's tail with a lock of hair and a toenail if they really want to see results.
Reminds me of that great song that did the rounds many years ago (I am sure still available if you google 'plastic jesus')
lyrics started
I don't care if it rains or freezes
so long as I've got my plastic jesus
riding on the dashboard of my car
I can go 100 miles an hour
as long as I've got the almighty's power
glued up there with my pair of furry dice
Maybe if he blessed the power stations I would get better electricity and fewer bugs in my software?
The thing is, according to a friend who works in the Middle East, people there *do* drive like maniacs at high speeds with no seat-belts etc.
If you try to point out how dangerous this is they just shrug and say "Insh'Allah" (if God wills it), ie they believe that if it is Allah's will that they have a fatal crash, nothing they do can influence it anyway...!
I think a couple of human sacrifices would better incite the Gods to guarantee the effectiveness of our salt on ice. Or sexually abusing some kids? I have to admit I didn't keep up with what pleases the Gods in the last couple of decades.
Alternatively, the church could ask God to hold onto his holy white shite this winter, while hinting that "Duh, hello?" it causes massive disruptions.
Are blessings like Homeopathy?
Bless the salt bunker once.
The salt in the bunker gets used and you have bring more salt in, but you don't need to bless each truck load coming in because so long as 1 grain of salt that has been blessed remains in the salt bunker it passes the blessing on to all the other grains of salt, with the blessing becoming stronger each time you dilute the supply.
Religion is an extremely efficent method of protection.
Is this the idea of the bishop trying to garner support for an all but dead, antiquated superstition or has this come from the mind of a misguided council official?
Whatever the case, I really do hope that donations to the church, if any, for such a pointless task do not come out of the tax payers purse.
What new information are they going to impart to an omnipotent being?
Do they think God requires advice or encouragement?
Trivial requests epitomize the concept of taking the Lord's name in vain.
I presume that someone from the "Bishes" entourage must be reading this article, I am a little amazed at the amount of thumbs down.
The subject is just a little too touchy for some people and apparently don't like to have a little fun from time to time.
PS : Don't forget to leave your "tithes" as you pass the door...... The Sky Fairy is very powerfull but unfortunately is very poor....
If proof were needed that we're headed for a return trip to the 9th century at a stiff clip, indulging this retarded crap is it. What next? Government sponsored witch-burnings to cut winter fuel bills for the poor?
Give these people a minutes indulgence, and the next thing you know the Archbish of C is waxing lyrical about the increased relevance of religion to modern society in the Grauniad.
The Romans would have given us a specific salt god and another god for the gritter.
None of yer namby pamby generic mutterings that hope to hit the target - a few direct offerings of Ice Age DVDs and some burnt thermal underwear would do the trick.
How to differentiate between god of the snowdrift and god of the pile heaped up by your neighbour is a tricky one though.