And the Lord Laughed His Butt Off
Okay, so there’s this bald old white guy named Robert E Murray, who is a coal baron. He’s the guy who made his employees stand behind Mitt Romney for a speech and then didn’t pay them for their time.
Murray is also not real careful about what he puts in our air and our water.
But, dammit, he loves Jesus.
And we know he loves Jesus because he said a prayer before firing people – you know, right before Little Baby Jesus’ birthday party. Because now, right now this minute, money is just falling our of his pockets since Obama got re-elected in a darn landslide.
I’m gonna have to put the whole prayer here so if you hear laughter from the sky, you’ll know where it came from.
Dear Lord:
The American people have made their choice. They have decided that America must change its course, away from the principals of our Founders. And, away from the idea of individual freedom and individual responsibility. Away from capitalism, economic responsibility, and personal acceptance.
We are a Country in favor of redistribution, national weakness and reduced standard of living and lower and lower levels of personal freedom.
My regret, Lord, is that our young people, including those in my own family, never will know what America was like or might have been. They will pay the price in their reduced standard of living and, most especially, reduced freedom.
The takers outvoted the producers. In response to this, I have turned to my Bible and in II Peter, Chapter 1, verses 4-9 it says, “To faith we are to add goodness; to goodness, knowledge; to knowledge, self control; to self control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, kindness; to brotherly kindness, love.”
Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build. We ask for your guidance in this drastic time with the drastic decisions that will be made to have any hope of our survival as an American business enterprise.
Amen.
Dude, that there is some hard down dirty gall. You probably get a prize for that much gall.
Thanks to TexasTrailerParkTrash for the heads up.
If God get’s tired of laughing that Dude better watch out for a thunderbolt that might light him up good.
1Mr. Murray, please turn your bible to Matthew 19:24 where it is written (spoken by Jesus), “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” What you just did Mr. Murray, is probably one reason why that is true.
2Yeah – what both you and Rick say.
3Enough gall to divide into three parts…
4Oh and Lord: those coal slurry impoundments in Ohio, we make of them an offering to You. No backs!
5@Cindy, When the Almighty sends that lightning strike, I hope Mr Murray is standing alone in a mine..it would be a fitting end, incinerated in a mine full of burning coal.
6It is called chutzpah…
7Gee, I thought the reason coal was not doing well is because utilities are using less of it. Utilities in the USA are starting to use more natural gas because it’s cheaper than coal, the EU is moving towards green energy, and China is going with nuclear plants because they don’t want to depend on imported coal from the USA.
But then a conservative coal CEO would have to admit he is firing people because he can’t compete in a changing market place. So it’s gotta be Obama’s fault.
Why do conservatives who go on about responsibility always blame other people when something goes wrong? And how can someone that stupid become rich?
8Yeehaw! I just knew in my bones that this blame Obama thing was a distraction. This guy just doesn’t know how to compete. He never had to learn cuz his bizniz was all nice and warm and cozy for years and years. Now his feet are all ice cold!
9Man, I’m getting sick and tired of these hypocritical jerks, like Murray, utilizing their religion to lay-off hard working folks in order to increase their profits. Please let me in a locked room with them. Did I really say that? Probably.
10It’s the black guy’s fault!!!!!!
11Dear Mr. Murry,
Matthew 6:5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”
Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;” “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
12The devil hisownself couldn’t ask for a better advocate than Mr. Murray.
13Mahatma Gandhi must have been thinking about Murray when he said: “It is difficult but not impossible to conduct strictly honest business. What is true is that honesty is incompatible with the amassing of a large fortune.”
14This is the same idiot who expressed such concern when he had miners die in an accident several years ago. turns out he had multiple safety violations that lead to the miner’s deaths. I hope one of the laid off workers has an opportunity to give him a close up lesson in manners.
15Given that the burning of coal contributes to global warming, I would be happy to see this guy out of business.
16I seem to go around a lot these days with my mouth hanging open……….first Calista counseling on affairs, then Pat Robertson defending Ge. P., then Paul brenner standing up as a character witness for Gen. P; now this.Won’t somebody help me!!
17Oh good grief. The hysteria. The wailing and gnashing, the pulling of hair.
Get over your dang self, Murray.
18I was sort of taught that if I recognized that I had gone against something the Bible said I should do, I should ask forgiveness for what I had done, and I suppose I sort of referred to the Bible verses that taught me the error of my ways.
But I don’t think I ever preemptorally named the chapter and verse of the guidelines I was *planning* to go ahead and break in spite of the Bible.
Do you get special dispensation if you spell it out before you do it?
19I say again, has this guy ever even HEARD of Jesus?
20this has to be some kind of joke. no one has enough nuts to say something like this out loud where people can actually hear it!
21Mr. Murray is utilizing one of the dreadful, but perfectly human flaws in Christianity . . . . which is forgiveness of sin. Most people like the Murrays of the world or the criminals sitting in prison or the politicians who lie or the women who sleep with them are under the impression that they can ask Jesus’ forgiveness of their sins and be freed of all guilt for their bad behavior. It eliminates responsibility for their errors.They can do this over and over again. What a marvelous way to destroy one’s conscience, eliminate all guilt, and go forth to sin over and over again, always careful to ask forgiveness before venturing into the next crime. I don’t believe they recall anything about “go forth and sin no more.” Well, that’s such a short phrase; it’s easily overlooked. They believe they are good people who always ask for Jesus’ forgiveness for one bad behavior before engaging in the next one. They feel happy with themselves, forgiven of their sins, secure in their religion, certain of their upright standing in society, and have no shame at all for any wrongs they commit.
22I doubt that Mr. Murray would even understand the question if anyone should ask if he had to wrestle with his conscience over firing those people. Of course he didn’t ! He is a good man who knows his Bible, loves Jesus, and lives an anointed and forgiven life. His billions are being theatened somehow and he just cannot afford these workers any longer. Surely no one would fault a man for trying to save his empire ! That would be un-American because in America, it is everyone’s dream to have an empire, isn’t it?
Oh, phooey !
What would Jesus do? Why, lay off a bunch of people just before Christmas in order to protect profits.
23This guy is a piece of work. May all of his laid off workers find new ways to make their living without having to live with Mr. Murray’s lax safety standards.
24Hope Santa leaves Murray a large piece of jagged coal. Sticks it a stocking made of cactus needles and shoves it in deep where the sun don’t shine. Sorry, Mama. Sorry Juanita. Couldn’t stop myself.
25As an atheist, sometimes I say to myself, “I’m sure glad his god doesn’t really exist!”
26I don’t do religion myself but I do facts.
“The U.S. civilian labor force totaled 141,730,000 workers in 2005; thus, permanent blue-collar coal industry employees represent 0.12% of the U.S. workforce.[1] (Compare this percentage with the 1.89% of U.S. workers who worked in coal mining alone in 1920.)”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States
The implosion of coal jobs and the continued shedding of that workforce is because Mr. Murray and his ilk started blowing the tops off mountains. It takes alot fewer people to do that coal mining when there’s relatively little actual mining involved – it’s mostly boom and scoop these days. And their rush toward ever higher “productivity” (aka horrific environmental destruction) will assure that number continues to decline. Eventually coal employment will be a hundred guys in Mumbai making $5/hr., each operating a dozen house sized trucks with a joystick.
27The “principals” of our founders? That’s some mental image, dude. I think the principals should come back and give you Saturday detention……
28Y’all, that’s NOT a PRAYER, it’s an EDITORIAL. Nothing prayer-like about it. Then there is his very faulty exegesis of the Holy Word of God included in said editorial. Yes, the words of Peter are in the Bible and all well and good but Peter wasn’t Jesus the Christ. Christ. The one from whom CHRISTians get their name. I would think that if you claim to be a CHRISTian the words of Jesus would take precedence.
Alacrity gave us some most excellent references of the words of Jesus. I will add Matthew 22:34-40, (paraphrased) love God with all your heart soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments. And Matthew 22: 37-45, v 40 I tell you the truth, whatever you did it for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did it for me.
Jesus seems to be sorely lacking from Murray’s CHRISTianity.
29“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.” – New King James / Revised Standard / New American Standard
30Don’t these people have anything better to do all day but practice being stupid? Sheesh!
31Looking at the expanded version, the thing that struck me was his comment “All coal companies are performing drastically worse than their CEOs and Boards want to report,” which sounds a lot to me like he’s admitting to lying about his profits in his public statements. Wouldn’t that get him in a lot of trouble with the IRS or the SEC or somebody?
32I am so glad to know there are so many wonderful, sincere, enlightened Christians around. I thought they had all been brainwashed by the kinds of Mr. Murray and Limbaugh, etc. It blows my mind how these people lack insight and understanding of Jesus’ simple Gospel of loving God above all, and loving others as yourself. So simple! And it just goes over their highfalutin heads! Yet, they are the ones who will find themselves on the wrong side of the Lord’s hands when he says to them — Ï never knew you. Depart from me, your workers of iniquity.
33AJ, can we send his progeny with him? Two reasons: the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children and the apples don’t fall far from the tree!
34Ellen Childress you might be out. It is now “go forth and avoid the near occasion of sin” if you are talking about confession, which is what it sounds like. And some of us do our best to adhere to it, it’s just that our beat isn’t very good. I think you might be a little mixed up with the magic born-again words. That’s where you sit down on a bench in the woods or maybe you go up to the altar steps at the church in front of the congregation and “accept Jesus as your personal Savior.” After you say the magic words you are “saved” and you apparently never have to worry about committing a sin ever, ever again because you are “justified” by Christ. That would be some very powerful magic. I have managed to resist being “saved” so far; the “avoiding the near occasion of sin” thing? Not so much, I am afraid! 🙂
35No need to get all lathered up confusing religion and Robert E. Murray. In this so- called “prayer,” the Lord is just a bit player in Murray’s business designs. Quite an interesting character, Murray – a fourth generation coal miner who built his own business from the ground up. He’s a living throwback to the first Rockefeller and to Henry Frick, classic industrial barons who created their own reality distortion fields. The difference is that Murray has no vast business fiefdom, so his autocratic style makes him less feared and more the object of ridicule.
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