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pecuniumI woke this morning to hear the miners in W.Virgnina hadn't been found alive.
From personal experience I know 1: that such rumors fly with speed beyond imagining. I can't really imagine the grief and despair at finding out it was wrong. I've only had the feeling when on search parties, when it was falsely reported the person being looked for had been found, and then wasn't.
Getting one's game face on to go back to searching is hard.
This must be so much harder. In the grand scheme of things this is as nothing. We're all going to die, and twelve people don't count for much; when measured against the whole. But we don't measure the lives of our loved ones against the whole. For them, for us, they are the whole. We get one life to live, and what comes after may be guessed, but never known.
Empathy is perhaps the greatest thing we have. It's the core message of the Gospels. Want to be saved? Obey the Law, and help others now. That's the Christian take. I can't speak to other faiths, but there seems to be a fair bit of that idea in them too.
Which is why this shit is wrong. This cretin takes advantage of this tragedy, to get on a soapbox and declaim they believed in the wrong god. Where, I wonder, does he get off? Darkpaganism indeed. Then again, reading his replies, it's more a case of shallow, self-involved, self-comfort (he, after all, knows what is right, and those who don't behave correctly get treated thus by fate. Those who disagree are told, "You are a person of low quality,saint_of_me; I am justified in doing whatever I do to your responses. I hope you've matured some." I wish I was able to croggle at the sheer hubris of it (from first to last) but such as this abide in every place.
He certainly deserved to be snarked, but this is wanking too, since I'm not going to waste my breath trying to correct him, it just pissed me off enough to want to vent.
Thank you all for induldging me.
From personal experience I know 1: that such rumors fly with speed beyond imagining. I can't really imagine the grief and despair at finding out it was wrong. I've only had the feeling when on search parties, when it was falsely reported the person being looked for had been found, and then wasn't.
Getting one's game face on to go back to searching is hard.
This must be so much harder. In the grand scheme of things this is as nothing. We're all going to die, and twelve people don't count for much; when measured against the whole. But we don't measure the lives of our loved ones against the whole. For them, for us, they are the whole. We get one life to live, and what comes after may be guessed, but never known.
Empathy is perhaps the greatest thing we have. It's the core message of the Gospels. Want to be saved? Obey the Law, and help others now. That's the Christian take. I can't speak to other faiths, but there seems to be a fair bit of that idea in them too.
Which is why this shit is wrong. This cretin takes advantage of this tragedy, to get on a soapbox and declaim they believed in the wrong god. Where, I wonder, does he get off? Darkpaganism indeed. Then again, reading his replies, it's more a case of shallow, self-involved, self-comfort (he, after all, knows what is right, and those who don't behave correctly get treated thus by fate. Those who disagree are told, "You are a person of low quality,
saint_of_me; I am justified in doing whatever I do to your responses. I hope you've matured some." I wish I was able to croggle at the sheer hubris of it (from first to last) but such as this abide in every place.He certainly deserved to be snarked, but this is wanking too, since I'm not going to waste my breath trying to correct him, it just pissed me off enough to want to vent.
Thank you all for induldging me.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 09:07 pm (UTC)That guy is an embarassment
Date: 2006-01-04 09:15 pm (UTC)My heart goes out to the people who lost loved ones in the mine. I hope whatever god or gods they believed in have accepted them into whatever good afterlife they had waiting.
Re: That guy is an embarassment
Date: 2006-01-04 09:22 pm (UTC)From visible evidence I am more than willing to grant him prick status.
TK
Re: That guy is an embarassment
Date: 2006-01-04 09:24 pm (UTC)It actually comes close to an "un-pagan" thing to say.
That reminds me of the quip, "Christianity is a nice idea. Pat Robertson should try it sometime" (which I think is a twist on something said by Gandhi). Clearly this guy has no idea of how to empathize with other people, which I personally consider the bedrock of most spirituality, religious or otherwise (love your neighbor as yourself, blahblah). That or he just likes stirring up shit on the internet because his eentsy little penis is obviously insufficient for his amusement.
Re: That guy is an embarassment
Date: 2006-01-04 09:47 pm (UTC)TK
Re: That guy is an embarassment
Date: 2006-01-04 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 09:16 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I did get to read this:
So, tell us. When you are a follower of a polytheistic, nature-based religion and 13 members of your community are trapped underground, what do you do? Pray to Gaia to release them? Just how happy do you think She is with miners in West Virginia? Do you look to the Iriquois Nation - Mohawk were prevalent in that area - and look to their traditions for help? How happy do you think their gods are with the white man's mining operations?
Score!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 09:28 pm (UTC)Every disaster has its carrion feeders; I can accept the feahered, invertebrate, and bacterial forms a lot more happily.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 11:02 pm (UTC)Hopes and prayers to those miners and their families.