Long ago, in a village, a villager sang a song with the rising of the sun every morning. The sun shone brightly on these days. Some mornings he would fall sick, or over sleep, or some other interference to his singing. The skys were grey or dark when he did not sing. This upset the villagers, and so they elected an apprentice to help sing on the days that the man could not. The sun did not always shine on the days that the apprentice sang, but he was a child, and learning the songs. Therefore could not be expected to get them right all the time.
While the man trained his apprentice, the farmers near the village took concern. For if the sun shone all the time, there would not be rain that the crops need, and then the village would starve. Taking head to their concerns, the man set up days where he would sing different songs. This lasted for many years.
Many years after the man's life left, an entire school had taken form. Its few chosen students sang to the sky, keeping the growing village in peace with the weather. There were so many singers with so many songs, that no one was quite sure which had the most effect any more. But they kept up their vigil, and sang every morning. The people of the village brought them food in exchange for the weather.
Many more years later, a city-state came with its army, and took over the land. They killed off the school as heretics. The sun still rose on some days. The sky was still clouded and raining on others. No one sang to the sky anymore.
I guess at one stance, this should go in the stories section, expect I'm sure it isn't mine. Though I cannot for the life of me remember where I heard this. Or maybe it was just something similar. Whichever. It is rattling in my head, so I am sharing.
It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what it is about, or what it is trying to do. It has the common theme that is used in failed attempts to shatter one's faith. It takes that combination of careful, lucky situations and leads them into a following. It picks something that is rather clearly, based on what we know about our world right now, a coincidence. And tries to show how coincidence can be misinterpret into something more.
This is a failed attempt. Two reasons exist for this. First is of what faith is. When someone is believing something based on faith, why should one story matter more than another? The entire argument becomes one of whose word to place trust in, this groups or thats. And they have already decided which group's word to trust. Arguing against someone's faith is always a loss. If the person is without faith, they can be convinced to a faith. Once they have faith, no other will replace it.
Second, the entire basis that they did not actually sing to control the weather in the story above is that we cannot control the weather today. Because we do not have the means to do that now, they could not have had the means then. Nothing in the story itself shows or proves, one way or the other, that the singing had any control. The story simply states that the man sang, and the weather was what he sang. And when the singers were gone, the weather still changed. But weather changing without the singers does not mean the singers were without control.
These are the things I think of when I cannot sleep.