“Don’t Pray - Vote for a Gov’t that believes in science”. This is the line in a meme that was tweeted out by Sarah Silverman and retweeted almost 80,000 times, as can be seen below.

The meme was tweeted out a few weeks ago during a plethora of natural disasters. It offers the idea that rather than pray for those who have the misfortune of living in the areas afflicted by these natural disasters, we should vote for a government that believes in science.

As if prayer can be replaced with voting?

Considering the seriousness of these disasters and the implications of the meme, I think it is important to unpack everything this meme says, whether the meaning is intended or not. I know that at points this will seem nitpicky, but as a society, I think we should understand that sometimes the government and even science is being portrayed as an all-powerful force, which is a dangerous belief when applied to anything – especially government.

The first line says “Don’t pray."

I understand that this is in the context of disasters, and it is possible that the author is saying that we should not just pray. But if that is what they meant, it would have been more productive to write: “Don’t just pray” and then add an action in addition to prayer.

Rather than doing that, the writer wants those who are religious enough to pray for people living through disaster to stop praying. I think it is also really important to note here that Christians do more than just pray; they give money and their time to help those in need.

Although this poll is old, Pew Research showed in 2006 that people who attended church weekly voted more regularly than those who attended less or no church.

Let’s go onto the next word after pray: vote.

Clearly, the writer wants us to replace prayer with voting. In a sense, the author is not only telling us not to pray but is also telling us to make government into a new kind of religion.

Rather than turning to God in our time of need, we are supposed to turn to government. The idea here is that if we give the government enough power, it will be able to make our lives better than ever imaginable, and apparently, the government will have the ability to stop or mitigate natural disasters if it “Believes in science.”

This part about believing in science is yet another part of this meme that makes almost no sense. Science is not generally something that we are told to believe in; to believe in science is to be scientifically illiterate. Science is not a system of belief or worldview, it is the act of observation and experimentation to understand the world.

By its very definition, you should not have to believe in science, as it is supposed to be proven.

The closest we should get to belief using science is a working hypothesis.

Lastly, if the implication is that government can save us from natural disasters, does anyone actually believe that? The NOAA states here that “It is premature to conclude that human activities — and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming — have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations.”

Although this point is argued by some global warming scientists, we can see that the science is still hotly debated on whether these disasters are caused by human activity. Therefore it is hard to believe that a government that has a belief in science could stop these hurricanes or forest fires.

Memes like these are indicators of the cultural shift happening in America, where the government is your first line of defense and your supposed savior; and where religion is being replaced with a false sense of scientific truth. I believe a successful government will understand that science is an important tool to understanding the world, and when the evidence is conclusive, we should heed the warnings of that evidence.

I also believe that religion holds an important place in our country, because of the foundational Judeo-Christian values America was built on, and in the fact that the majority of our country is still religious. Therefore, it is wise to not alienate these people and the ideas that our country was founded on, rather appreciate they are doing their best to help those in need in whatever way they think they can, which likely means praying in addition to other actions.