Tesco, a UK based grocery chain, has seen its share price slump and has also reported that their sales over Christmas were flat. “So what”, you might comment, “So has almost every other fracking business out there”. Ah but this is special, while it might indeed have been due to a tough retail environment in which many other businesses have seen something similar happen, apparently Tesco is special because God did it!!

The Guardian Reports … A fringe Christian pressure group has attributed Tesco’s recent poor sales to divine intervention, claiming that “God has answered our prayers for confusion in the Tesco boardroom”. Christian Voice, a prayer and campaigning organisation that claims to have nearly 2,000 members across the UK, protested outside Tesco shops towards the end of last year over the company’s decision to sponsor a family area at the Gay Pride celebrations in London. Tesco’s stock market value plunged by almost £5bn this week after disappointing Christmas sales. The company’s £500m Big Price Drop promotion apparently failed to tempt consumers away from rivals, and it has now warned of a drop in profit growth. Christian Voice welcomed the developments, and claimed part of the responsibility for them. “As the Big Price Drop was launched in September, it seems that almighty God, who operates outside space and time, was well ahead of us, anticipating our prayers, and seeing by our actions that our prayers were serious,” Stephen Green, Christian Voice’s National Director, said. “Significantly, we prayed for a drop in their share price, which … has been answered on what you could describe as a biblical scale. “I now call on Tesco to see sense before their company is ruined. Don’t display the arrogance of Pharaoh. Withdraw the grant to Gay Pride.”

So there you have it then, their profits are down, but they are still profitable because god stepping in. In fact they made profits of £3.7bn on nearly £68bn of sales last year. Yikes, profits down to a humble £3.7 Billion, yep they have indeed felt the wrath of the almighty there.

What is the real story here, well whenever you are faced with supernatural claims, the very first question to ask yourself is this, “Is there a more natural explanation?”. OK, lets see:

Option 1: Tesco, as part of its charitable giving, sponsored an event at Gay Pride for £30,000 and as a result the Judo-Christian God (for whom we do not have one single jot of evidence) intervened and motivated lots of people to not spend as much as they previously did, and so Tesco profits slumped as a judgment against them.

Option 2: last year saw one of the fiercest-ever squeezes in UK household income and as a result, people did not spend as much as they did in previous years.

Ooooh that is such a challenging choice, nope I just have no idea which of these options is the most rational logical choice, can anybody help me out?

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