Once upon a time, in a small conservative town, a business owner began constructing a building for a new bar.

The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers.

Work progressed, however, right up until the week before the bar's grand opening, when a lightning strike hit the bar and burned it to the ground.

The church folks were rather smug after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect means.

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility for the bar's demise.

As the case made its way to court, the judge commented, "I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that doesn't!"