By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
A 2014 video of an atheist praying to Satan, Allah, Jesus, Budha at the same and other gods has been circulating on the social media as the new America under Democratic President- Elect, Joe Biden.
The video was a 2014 event at the meeting of Florida city leaders being passed off as a new occurrence. Although it is not clear if the practice of praying to multiple deities still exist, but at the time the atheist, Preston Smith began the prayer, some of the Florida city leaders walked out of the meeting in opposition.
Former aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, a staunch supporter of the outgoing U.S. President, Donald Trump, also shared the video in a way that shows it was a recent event. He tweeted: “Listen to this ‘prayer’ at the opening of the Democratic State of Florida’s Congress! He ‘prays’ to satan, Buddha, Allah, god of the Earth, krishna etc. The Christians left the room before he started. This is the new American Government!”
At the start of the prayer, the atheist, Smith gave the opener by saying: “Loving empathy, scientific evidence, critical thinking leads us to believe that we can create a better more equal community without religious divisions.”
He then proceeded to offer the controversial prayer: “ Mother earth, we gather today in your redeeming and glorious presence to invoke your eternal guidance in the universe, the original creator of all things. May the righteousness of this council blend with the righteousness of Allah, with the all-knowing wisdom of Satan. May Zeus, the great god of justice grants us the strength tonight. Jesus forgive us our shortcoming, while Budha enlightens us through his divine affection. We pray to you Krishna for the sacrifice that freed us all, after all if almighty Thor is with us, who can ever be against us. And finally, for the bounty of logic, reason and science. We simply thank the atheist, agnostic, humanist who now account for one-fifth of Americans and growing rapidly. In closing, let us above all love one another not to obtain biblical reward for ourselves now, hereafter or based on superstitious threats of eternal damnation. But rather embrace secular principles of morality and do good for goodness sake. And so we pray.”
An analysis of Smith’s prayer, shows holes in many respect. First, atheists do not believe in the existence of God, so shouldn’t be praying because prayer, in the strict sense of the word means communication with God. Although Smith claims to be communicating to mother earth, atheists do not attribute creation to anyone or anything, but a mindless evolutionary process which curiously has remained static in our life time.
The prayer is also flawed by appealing to secular morality to do goodness for its sake, an argument Adolf Hitler held to be true with the genocide. Morality cannot be left for man to decide. He will poison it with his bias.
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