An atheist has requested a chance to do the invocation at an upcoming Lubbock City Council meeting. Apparently, a large portion of Lubbock does not know what that word means.

Reading some of the comments on a local TV station's Facebook page (hey, I normally avoid it, but I knew this was going to be entertaining), I found out that having an atheist give an invocation is the same as having witches stir a cauldron on your front lawn.

Apparently, having this one person around is going to send us to hell, or the devil... Jesus...blah, blah, blah. Also, having one out of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of city council meetings, not start with a prayer will also turn us into pillars of salt or something. Seriously, get a grip. Maybe love a member of your community or something, alright?

On the other hand, I'm pretty proud of the group that stood up and pretty much said, 'so what?' because that's what it really is: a 'so what?'

Here's the deal with invocations. Traditionally, some religious person stepped up and said what amounts to 'may God guide you in your decisions.' With an atheist invocation, they'll say what amounts to 'may we all guide each other in our decisions.' (Do you see how even that allows godly people to be a part of the process?) It's just kind of like someone saying "good luck," and that's about it. Invocations just add gravitas to a meeting and officially start everything.

City leaders are not elected to show deference to one faith, but Lubbock has been around over 100 years and it's safe to assume that every meeting started with a Christian prayer. Since about a quarter of the U.S. population is atheist, or close to it, I think we might survive the flames of hell for having ONE atheist invocation.

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