"I Don't Care!"

[Rageaholic]

When people express their sorrow for the events which happened that happen to include "prayer", "god", or "heaven" they're highlighted by some people as "deplorable messages based on lies." To me it's analogous to going to a random funeral service and speaking those same messages to the mourners. And if you ask me it's just as mean-spirited and hateful to condemn believers for expressing their compassion toward the victims and their families with some spirituality and faith in mind as it is to condemn the victims themselves for being "casualties of getting rid of prayer from schools" and that other bullshit.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of religion, but offering prayers is a nice thing whether you believe it or not. At the very least it can provide comfort to the families.

On the other hand, Mike Fuckabee can piss off a cliff.

[Nekojin]

I've been saying for a long time that Huckabee is just as venomous as some of the other Religious Right nutbars. He seems a more civil sort (quite a few Democrats I know were talking about him as being the "best choice" among the Republican prez candidates), until his smooth veneer is disturbed. I like to say that it's the suave way he mops the foam from his lips that gets him so much adulation.

[HYHYBT]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of religion, but offering prayers is a nice thing whether you believe it or not.

There are, of course, ways to offer prayers that aren't at all nice, but this isn't them.

This has been going around Facebook lately (in image form, but it's just fancy text anyway.) Good chance y'all have seen it already, but it seems appropriate to put it here:

Being an Atheist is okay.
Being an Atheist who shames religions and spirituality as stupid and unreal is not okay.

Being a Christian is okay.
Being a Christian who is homophobic, misogynistic, racist, or otherwise hateful in the name of Christianity is not okay.

Being a Reindeer is okay.
Being a Reindeer who bullies and excludes another Reindeer because he has a shiny red nose is not okay.

[BlaqueKatt]

What I most hate about those comments is the hypocrisy of them saying stuff like "It doesn't help anything, they are still gone" when their very comments condemning religion are just as unhelpful and useless. .

What's angering me is the "field trip" poem people keep posting especially in light of this article:
Five Things NOT To Say And Five Things To Say In A Trauma Involving Children It goes against 1,3,4,and 5.

I left a group with a name similar to "people against legislating or politicizing person beliefs", because the page runner kept posting nothing but "pass a law to ban all weapons, posting pictures from the news pages with captions like "keep the victims in your thoughts, and please don't politicize this(captioned by MSNBC), she was sharing with horrific things about any group that didn't agree with her personal beliefs. I called her out on her hypocrisy, as did several others, she removed our posts, and starting saying horrible things about us(I believe I was referred to as a "wanna-be baby killer", simply because I don't believe in pushing my beliefs of any kind onto others-religious or not, it's wrong.)

[MrsEclipse]

I hate being told by ANYBODY how I should feel. If I should feel more upset because it was a big tragedy, or if I should feel less upset because I didn't know anyone personally and there's nothing I can do about it. Nobody should be the Feelings Police. Nobody should be around ordering people to be more outraged at this and to cry less about that. Nor should they be telling you to be feeling bad about something else, rather than what you're feeling bad about. Or berating you for feeling whatever you're feeling. Doing that is a good way to get punched in the junk.

Not feeling upset about this tragedy doesn't mean you're a better person, and crying over children you never met doesn't mean you're weak. And talking about something sensational doesn't mean you're ignoring every single other problem in the world. Some people just don't understand that we can think about more than one thing per day.

Personally, I have had no emotional reaction to this at all. My only thought at all is, "For something like this to happen, there is a breakdown in one part of our society that we need to identify and fix." I don't know what that is, or how to fix it. I don't know what I can do to make the world better. I just do what I think is best and keep my eyes open for the opportunity to do better.

[Amanita]

Another thing I've noticed- it's been happening a lot since 9/11, and we're seeing it again now- People who think that their particular way of coping is the ONLY acceptable way of coping.

In the wake of a traumatic event, some people don't want to talk about it. Others can't stop talking about it. Some people use creative outlets as a way to express their feelings, some use black humor. Others prefer to keep things serious. And all of those are alright! But unfortunately some can't let that be, they have to insist that their way of coping is the one true way and everyone else needs to be shamed or called down somehow.

[HYHYBT]

That reminds me of a post from somewhere or other after 9-11; that day, even channels that didn't even *have* news were airing other channels that did, and of course nobody would stop even though it quickly became "no, we don't know anything we didn't know ten minutes ago, but here's that awful footage again and again and again anyway." Which works for some people, but not so well for others. Anyway, the guy who posted was relieved to find GSN still running Press Your Luck, same as any other day. He didn't even like that show, but was glad to find it as the escape no other channel seemed willing to offer.