Clock, don't get me wrong. I am not upset that this kid is trying to find comfort. I am upset at our credulous majority of our species for spreading such absurdities. ESPECIALLY to pliable young minds who haven't had a chance to make up their own minds.

I am tired of hearing this shit when bad things happen, be it this kid's father, a tsunami, ect ect ect.

Reality, both good and bad are NATURAL, not magical.

Our species has not outgrown it's narcissism in thinking that it is infinite when the glaring obvious evidence all around us, in biological life and in the universe, is that everything is finite. It just frustrates me to see people sell this crap to the young and parade them around as an advertisement for their delusions.

I also accept that this IS natural, only in that people are capable of believing absurd things. But it doesn't mean I have to like it, or shouldn't challenge it.

 

 

 

Fair enough, but that said I would probably use the whole, the dead are watching over you in Hevan or what ever. and then phase it out much like you do with santa.

Did you have a troubled childhood?

Do you really think lying to kids is a good idea, no matter how comforting the lie may be?

It is my suspicion that much personal misery stems from unrealistic expectations. Santa Claus gives you the expectation of getting free good stuff one day a year. Later, you learn there's nothing free about getting things. That's a hell of a bummer, and though we all (well, most) learn to deal with that, it's still one sucky moment.

And for those who get the idea "embedded" by getting things without earning them all the time, what a shock adulthood and independence are.

I think it's much worse when you discover that all this promise of an afterlife and "daddy's not really dead" turns out to be bullshit.

Kids are flexible - they learn what's "good" and "bad" as they grow, and aren't socialized to common ideas yet. Teach them that death is the end, and that is not a bad thing, and that's just "how it is" to them. No unrealistic expectations, less misery.

Yes lying to kids is a good idea I think. Well maybe not lying but rather bending the truth, but lying is fine to. As long as when they get to an appropriate age you correct that lie. When a 5 year old asks where babies come from you don't show them a full penatration porn flik. You tell them something more age appropriate. There is many things like this where it is good to bend the truth or even lie.

I also get pissed off at people claiming that when we say, "This is all there is" somehow makes us depressed negative pessimistic people.

I hate that crap. Even outside the issue of religion, as a Redskins fan, and the skins have sucked for 17 years now, when some other fan says, "We are going to do great this season", I respond, "Well, considering how poorly we have done recently, that remains to be seen"

I get, "Why are you so negative?"

I FUCKING HATE THAT! Since when is recognizing reality negative? That is how you learn and improve.

 

Just because I don't buy superstitious bullshit and claims of beings with no body with super powers, means that I want the end of the world, or that I want to kill myself.

Religion and superstition rely on credulity that puts the person in the bad position of filling in the gaps without testing the things they want to fill the gaps in with.

This is all there is, both good and bad. The less we are afraid of reality, the more we observe and test reality, the more equipt we are to deal with it. That doesn't make us fatalistic or pessimistic, it merely makes us realistic.

 

I think a lot of good comes from telling the kids certain things. I don't think its good to let kids in on the harsher realities of life too early on. But with the babies example i wasn't talking about saying tell them anything magical. Even saying when two people love each other babies come, that is a lie fine tell them that. I don't think you should tell them the details at to young an age.

 

You were talking about geting things for free earlier on... why do you think you force teenagers to get jobs. Its a lesson that needs to be learned and a far more effective method than telling them santa isn't real from the go.  Now I see no harm in making sure kids no santa is make believe either. but death is one area that I think is nessicary to sugar coat. Hell you say teach them its not bad.. umm try telling that to anyone I can garentee you when someone close to them dies they will see it as bad. Who knows what is good or bad for a kid, after all each one is differant, I doubt there is a single piece of advise that fits all kids.

I feel this is on topic to the current discussion.

As i have some experience with this, I'll just say how I dealt with this.  So far it's going well for us.

When my daughter's father died, I told her that noone knows what, if anything, happens to us after we die.  And that I don't believe in a bad place like hell.  I told her that her Daddy wasn't afraid to die.  I tlkd her that if he could wish something for her, he would want her to be a good girl.  And that if he could see her, that he would be very proud of her.  I think leaving things tenative on things like that leaves enough room for a bit of wishful thinking and the unknown.  I guess I'm agnostic about some persistence  or some echo of a person after death.  I'll leave her in a similar position of not knowing for sure, as I don't see it causes harm either way.

you might think that's wishy washy.  That's OK.  It is a softer approach than some.

 

I agree to some extent.   

Most people would keep children away from someone who was dying, especially a parent.  I made a choice that even at 4 years old, I would not shield her from the workings of dying and death.  At least not much.  She got to see her Dad fade and was able to see the deterioration of his condition.  She understands death better than most children, and I think that helped her deal with her grief some.  I didn't remove her from the palliative ward, because children can't really be protected from the death of someone they care about.  I couldn't shield her from it.  Leaving her in a kind of scary, confusing ignorance seemed more harmful to me than seeing the reality of dying.  She got to see that the nurses and doctors took good care of her Daddy and that he was just failing.

Kids do become attached to certain people, even at a very young age.  My daughter was quite attached to her Dad, and it didn't take anyone telling her that dying was bad for her to know that she missed her Dad.  And this was at age 4.  She wouldn't think dying was necessarily a bad thing.  She even talked about what she would want on her own head stone when we were at the cemetary.  She still feels pain over the absence of her dad, but doesn't have any unhealthy fear of death in itself.  She is gradually starting to understand that death is a permanent thing, not temporary.   

Nope. Parents lie like dogs because they've been socialized to do so.

 

It's the same reason folks think there's a psychological trauma involved with facing death for the first time. That's how we've been socialized - the idea that death = scary bad. The fact is that the only built-in negative reaction to a loved one's death comes from the separation, which whether you face the facts or come up with a comforting lie is going to be essentially the same.

The fact is, a child can be told the truth about it, and his or her reaction to the truth of it is going to depend almost entirely on the reactions of the adults around her or him. Again, this is standard socialization. The same process of learning behaviors that makes for how the resulting adult deals with the rest of their life.

It's too bad those police officers were killed I guess, but they didn't really seem to have any problem with shoveling millions of non-violent offenders into the prison system to be brutalized or turning hardened criminals back onto the streets to brutalize the general public so I can't have too much sympathy for them. They were killed by their own treachery in a sense.

 

Someone is just frustrated that they got caught smoking pot once. 

No, it's the "they're the arm of law enforcement, sensibly we'd rather they not just decide to do what they think is right on their own" defense.

No one is forced to be a police officer, if they don't believe what they're doing is right or just they can do something else for a living. So they have decided to do what they think is right on their own. The fact that it came back to bite them in the ass is a tragedy I suppose but if one chooses such actions it's a foreseeable consequence. To be an innocent bystander you have to first actually be a bystander but they're active participants as much as a bureaucrat who makes train schedules to carry people to internment camps or a soldier who's ordered to shoot civilians. Whether or not they make the policies is rather irrelevant .

In the real world people are judged by their actions not their motivations and opinions (talk about childish notions). But I'm sure that your insights about how we can't read the minds of each individual will one day be taken hold of by the legal system and eventually everyone will be declared innocent. And what a wonderful world that will be.

So is this the new thing you're leaving me with?

 

Don't judge people by their actions and the things they take part in when there are much better measures like their opinions and motivations and beware of the excluded middle.

Gotcha

I'm just amazed that this kid was able to deliver a eulogy at all.  Most children of one have a vocabulary consisting of a handful of words at most.

Why would you think that? Have you read my sig? Hello, McFly?

It's so cute how you think in black-n-white. I'd love to see how it works out if everyone stopped participating in thier society because parts of it need reform. Oh wait, no I wouldn't, I don't want anarchy.

Nor is it damning. It's "we gotta live our lives, run our society, even when it's not perfect".

 

Or maybe it's a bit clearer when it comes to "did you break the law?", given those represent enforced societal standards. But someone who thinks in absolutes wouldn't be able to see that, huh?

1.)  You have no idea what they did or did not do or supported or did not support.  You're simply making an assumption based on your own prejudice and I'm always disheartened to find that "left wing prejudice" is every bit as blind, ignorant and discompassionate as that from the right wing.

2.) I have no problem with police officers shoveling millions of "non-violent offfenders" into the prison system should they break into my house, steal my personal items, traffic in child porn,  etc. etc. 

3.)  "to be brutalized", only illustrates the aforementioned prejudice and your apparent love for overdramatization.  Oh and also your ignorance...as police officers do not run the prison system, although a member here does take a part in running that system.  Feel free to expound on your "superior knowledge" of that as well.     

4.)  "or turning hardened criminals back onto the street to brutalize the general public"  ....Once again, police officers do not run the prison system, so they have virtually no say in who gets released or when.  If you're not aware of even the most basic aspects of law enforcement/incarceration, maybe you should shut your mouth on the subject until you take the time to learn at least something about it.  But just to clarify.....You're pissed when a police officer has a hand in incarcerating a criminal, but still pissed and can still blame them when one is  released ?  I guess there's really no winning when one holds as deep a prejudice as you do.   

5.)  "They were killed by their own treachery in a sense"..  All you've shown is that you have no idea what you're talking about and that you apparently hold a prejudice and hate cops.  I got it and good for you! I'm sure they were more than thrilled when they had to deal with you.

They were 4 people having coffee in a coffee shop when a violent lifelong career criminal (who believed god was guiding him, incidentally) slaughtered them without mercy and left 9 children without a parent.

If I thought most atheists on this site held your viewpoint, I wouldn't spend another minute here.  I'd rather sit in a fucking church than be associated with that level of ignorance. 

Oh and also..

You're a fucking douche !

Have a nice day !

Well it might be news to you and Ronald McDonald over there but police have unions and lobbies. They're not exactly incapable of effecting laws or policies in fact they do it all the time. Usually to keep drug laws on the books because they like the revenue. So it's wrong from the start to say that police have no control over policy. I was just entertaining that for the sake of argument.

But yeah, it's pretty easy for cops to say "Hey we don't make the prisons we just fill em." It's a lame excuse. There are more poeple in US prisons for drug offenses than there are in western Europe for all crimes combined even though there are more people in western Europe. The US is a prison state constantly feeding non-violent people in and churning violent people out because people have to be violent in prison it's a matter of survival.

So if a police officer gets ventilated by some ex-con while he's trying to get his donut then he's having as bad a time as the people he's fucking over, fuck him, and fuck you too.

 

It doesn't matter; cops don't have control over either of those.  And honestly, police unions and lobbyists do not have enough power to put into effect any law they want; it sounds like you are just trying to justify your absurdly prejudiced opinion.

 

Taser did not say that cops shouldn't shoot the target in the chest.  That is where you are SUPPOSED to aim the taser, to make sure both leads come in contact with the target.  Also, taser would never acknowledge the connection with heart problems because then they'd go out of business, so I am calling BS on your claims of taser ever saying targets shouldn't be tasered.

 

Even if police officers oppose your political stance to a certain policy, it is still a bit extreme to say, "they deserved it" when one of them gets murdered in cold blood.

Ok, so I was wrong.  But I still think you're views are so ridiculously over the top that you think tasers, which have yet to be proven to be directly connected to heart failure, are an example of "police brutality." 

 

Do you feel justified in your beliefs because of an extremely low risk of cardiac issues?  Also I saw on a show where they hooked up a guy to an EKG and shot him with a taser.  The taser produced crazy interference on the ekg, but the doctor pointed out how the heartbeat had the same rhythm right before and after the interference, something he saw as unlikely if the taser were to affect the heart.  He also claimed that a colleague had used ultrasound to find that there were no effects on the heart whatsoever.

 

But again, is this why you think these cops deserved to die?  Because of a yet to be proved connection between tasers and heart problems?  In may I add very few cases? 

 

But as more than one person has pointed out, cops don't control who gets in and out of prison.  And as far as tasers go, what would you rather them use?  Guns?  Brute force?  It goes without saying that tasers are safer than guns.

 

 

You're saying what you are thinking.  No cop deserves the prejudice and stereotypes your earlier posts make clear that you have.  Yes, some are corrupt.  Yes, the system has flaws.  But even so, to actually sound pleased that 4 cops were murdered is appalling to me.