4 cops murdered, child of one gives eulogy.
It's been all over the news in the states. Some dickhead shot and murdered 4 cops. Yesterday a massive funeral was held and one of the sons of the officer, 11 or 12 at the most, talked about his father "is happy watching the memorial"
Look kid, I am sorry some monster dickhead murdered your father. But he IS NOT watching you. He is dead. His brain died along with his body. His thoughts died when he died. He only exists in the memories of those who survived him.
It sucks that shit like this happens. It sucks that this kid is now without a father. But there is no after life and there is no god.
How sick is that? If his dad is happy? Then instead of shooting and killing the murderer, which is what the cops RIGHTFULLY DID, they should be happy that the cop was killed so he could be honored, the cops should also honor the killer who put the dead cop in the position of being honored? OF COURSE THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!
How selfish of our species to think, while all other biological life is finite without an afterlife, that somehow we are so special to escape the horrors of reality. To claim that this cop, who did the brave thing in protecting society, who gave his life, is up in a fictional heaven, is to cheapen his sacrifice to Superman vs Kriptonite status.
Most people reading this now, including me, will never be brave enough to do what this cop did or take the risk he did. But his death was not the result of a man with a pitchfork manipulating the neurons in the killer's head and he is dead. Sad and horrible, but hardly magical.
If one can accept that when a tree dies, there is no after life for it, considering that we are made up of the same amino acids, why do we think we are so damned special? This cop was special, but he is no more alive now, than any human who died 10,000 years ago is floating in a fictional place.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
- Login to post comments
I don't think this is something I personally could feel upset over.
It's a kid that is looking for any comfort he can get. I would just leave it at that.
Also, I wasn't aware of this event. It must be all over TV, because I haven't heard a whole lot about it.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
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.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Please don't accuse me of kicking puppies. (metaphorically)
I simply want to pull my hair out when I hear these things.
When you kill a fly or spider you don't assume that it will "live on" in some magical after life for it's species. What the fuck makes humans think they are so special?
The harsh reality is that bacteria rules our planet as far as numbers in the hundreds of trillions. The harsh reality is that the sun will expand and turn our planet into a cinder, IF bacteria or our own pollution, or a meteor don't kill our species off.
Neither you or I, or the Pope, or Jefferson, or Hitler, or Jesus or Allah or Thor or our species itself, will have any afterlife to perceive it. Once we face reality, our species can work on extending our finite ride. But we still have our collective heads up our asses, as a species thinking that magic exists and will save us.
That is all I am saying. I feel sorry for this kid, as any decent person would, but I am tired of magic and fiction being inserted to explain reality.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Oh, you mean by telling them the truth that Santa is really a war fugitive that collects children for his slave camps in the frozen wasteland building toys?
And then when the children slave workers become useless to him he sells them to the government to redistribute back in school cafeteria lunches?
Yeah, I always found that phasing to that helps.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Did you have a troubled childhood?
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Didn't everyone?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
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.
What does that have to do with this thread? Everyone's got problems. So?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
I've already said there are obviously things that harm a child when that lie is undone, and that the comfort of a lie isn't greater than the comfort of knowing the truth and how to react to it, so whatever good comes from it better be something amazing.
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.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I'm not "depressed" by the thought that this universe is all there is, becasue I have a realistic expectation about it.
Many (or just some) people de-converting go through a phase of depression, because their unrealistic expectation of gods and souls and reanimated corpses who ascend into heaven have been dashed.
I think the flat, plain truth is pretty amazing stuff, and see no need to garnish it with pretty dollops of bullshit - and I see how doing so makes for unnecessary misery.
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.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Do you know why kids see death as bad? Because they're imitating the reaction others around them are having. It's called socialization, part of how children learn. Why teach them something they will later have to "un-learn" (something we humans really suck at)? There's nothing wrong with mourning the loss of a loved one. Let the kids learn, support 'em while they do. That's what makes sense.
I feel this is on topic to the current discussion.
Oh yes, and I think kids should just be told the truth.
I don't see a point in lieing. The world is exciting enough experiencing everything, you don't need to be delusional at the same time.
There are still people in their 40s and 50s that think Santa is real because of this. I find that terribly disturbing.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
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.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right." Martin Luther King
I agree with your approach. There is no attempt to use deception in order to comfort the grieving child yet you have refrained from the hard slap across the face ( psychologically speaking ) in emphasizing the finality of death and that the separation from the loved one is permanent.
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.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right." Martin Luther King
But when kids are too young they don't exactly make sense of things. I think this is the main reason parents don't tell the truth; sometimes the truth is complicated to understand.
My Website About Roller Coaster Design
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.
You are letting her learn, and supporting her as she learns. If anything, you're illuminating the detail that we learn at different rates, and thus we need to take care not to overwhelm the kiddo with new information.
Thumbs up on some spectacular parenting.
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.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Someone is just frustrated that they got caught smoking pot once.
My Website About Roller Coaster Design
So it's to be the Nuremburg defense is it?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
I've actually never been arrested for that, but I did have to spend three days in jail speeding once which is ridiculous.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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 .
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Not sure why I'm bothering, since you Godwined right off the bat.
So, I'll leave ya with this:
You have no way to know their motivations or opinions. You can't possibly know what their thoughts were on laws an policies that existed when they joined the police force, or about laws and policies that came about while they were on the job. You can't know why they chose to stick with the job despite crappy laws and policies, or stuck with because of laws and policies they agreed with. Your placing blame at their feet is woefully simplistic, worthy of a grade-school debate club at best.
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.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
What your simplistic little take on the situation ignores, is that their chosen actions reflect only an end result. If you want to be stupid and pretend that all things are absolute, then go right ahead and blame them for their own deaths. Or, you could open your eyes a wee tiny bit and see that in the real world, you can't always walk away from a less than optimal situation in good conscience,'cuz us adults sometimes find ourselves having to deal with the bad (as in, idiot laws and policies) to do some good (as in, take action against criminals).
Simply put: Perhaps they died thanks in no small part to shit laws because they could not abandon the laws that do work.
See how that middle works? Not quite an absolute, not exactly the best of all worlds sort of thing? Yeah, real life is full of those nasty little gray areas.
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.
I guess we're even because I thought your clown avatar was meant to be ironic. Part of the "bad" that people must deal with are the repercussions of their own actions when they take part in a corrupt system for whatever reason.
So the middle in this false dichotomy as you call it is that some police officers believe what they are doing is wrong but they do it anyway which isn't actually redeeming. Maybe the people who were killed were crusaders for justice, perhaps they just wanted to pay their bills, or they could have been real bastards. It'd be a shame either way in my opinion, because they're victims as well I agree. But it would be more of a shame if an innocent person was killed because these guys weren't innocent.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Since clowns are usually sad and desperate individuals I just assumed that no one would admit to being one.
Anarchism is the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority. Since you believe that authority figures need only to be held to a standard of following orders I can see why you would say that.
And the thing that you'd like desperately to omit, deal with the consequences.
Are you serious? You imply that laws can't be wrong and accuse me of thinking in absolutes at the same time. That's special.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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 !
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
How do police officers have any control over that?
What? Karma?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
You mean how do they control who gets released from prison or how do they control who gets brutalized by people who get released from prison?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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.
My Website About Roller Coaster Design
Do you think that you can give me more examples of decriminalization bills that police didn't lobby against, or do you think I can give you more examples of police tasering people in the head or chest after the taser company acknowledged that it shouldn't be done because it can cause death?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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.
My Website About Roller Coaster Design
Google thinks you're wrong.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/10/21/20091021taser1021.html
here's video I know sometimes people don't believe things unless it's on tv.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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?
My Website About Roller Coaster Design
It's not really about just deserts, but if that's the impresssion you get or the way you want to frame it then...
But 350 people have died after that it sounds a little brutal to me especially when they are using it on children and old people and people with disabilities. Look at how many people are in prison in the US. Do you think that's normal? Do you think it's like that in other places. It's not. It's a system that's corrupt from the top and you take part in it at your own peril. I know you don't like me saying that but I'm just saying what people are thinking.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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.
My Website About Roller Coaster Design