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Permalink Reply by Joseph C.O'Regan on February 13, 2011 at 4:57pm

Nola with all due respect how a parent deals with the loss of a child may not seem rational, what do you expect her to say......"serves the stupid kid right" using any or all of the hypothetical reasons you supplied.

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Permalink Reply by Goz on February 19, 2011 at 10:48am

 I remember someone saying this when someone died:"God had an important job for him in heven."

Like god does not have trillions of people to choose from to do his so called jobs?

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Permalink Reply by Gina H on February 19, 2011 at 6:59pm

There are probably two possible reasons for the mother saying something like that. If she truly does believe in god and heaven, then it is much easier for her to think of her son 'living the good afterlife' than to focus on his possible suffering as he was drowning. It's a nice 'distraction' for her during a time of mourning.

On the other hand, many people say things like that because it's what everyone expects them to say.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on February 20, 2011 at 5:33pm

Years ago. More precisely 30 years ago I lost my best friend when he was hit by a truck and killed. He was 25 and left behind a wife ,2 children and one on the way. After the funeral the brother of one of my friends said "God must have needed a carpenter in heaven". I wanted to throttle this moron but another friend saw it in my eyes and talked me down.  Does anyone realize just how stupid that sounds. The God of the universe who holds every atom together needs someone to drive nails into some wood. He needs him so badly that he needs him more than a young woman with three small children and no means of support. I'm sorry. The "he's in a better place" comments seem to just get my goat.

  With that said I am willing to give this woman a pass because of the relationship. Mother/Son.

But I think the farther removed you are emotionally you have  an obligation not to say stupid stuff.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on March 26, 2011 at 7:48pm

At the family gathering the other night I started with the statement,"You know what I really hate about natural disasters?" before I could continue my son-in-law started laughing because he found that statement a little absurd but to my point. I hate natural disasters because inevitably some dopey news story comes out about the miracle so and so who survived under the ruble. Well thousands, maybe tens of thousands killed or missing in the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and Mika Brezinski starts off Morning Joe with "The miracle baby found alive in the debri". A miracle would have been if the tsunami had gone around the island of Japan leaving it unscathed. Not one random baby who lived while thousands perished. WTF?

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Permalink Reply by Phister Gagghol on March 26, 2011 at 8:40pm

Sorry to hear that, but you're absolutely right.  People have said the same load of crap to me about my brother.  He died of Hodgkin's when he was 29.  Had the same responses, "God needed him in heaven."  Well what the fuck for?  Another soul to kneel and kiss his ass for eternity?  Is God that self-serving and insecure?  So his widow can mourn him for the last 20 years, which the poor woman has?  And those were basically the responses I gave, just more politely.  I wanted to knock his damn teeth out, and if he was a stranger I probably would have. 

 

But when you live your life by a fairy tale that discourages you from using your brain, I guess it's pretty difficult for these people to think about what they say rather than just blindly regurgitating what they're programmed to say.  You can't expect people to think for themselves when every decision in their lives comes out of an owner's manual.  Following along like good little sheep.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on March 27, 2011 at 1:26pm

The weird thing is when I think about it I seem to be angry at a God that isn't even there.

Oh well 13 years of Catholic school scars the brain is ways we can only begin to imagine.

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Permalink Reply by Jen McVay on May 5, 2011 at 12:03pm

Right. It takes time and work to excise the scar tissue. Certain cues left me automatically raising my hand to begin the sign of the cross for years, but just now, I had to pause and work hard to come up with the term for that, because what originally came to mind was "that thing Catholics do with their hands."

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Permalink Reply by Azel Praer on April 12, 2011 at 9:10pm

this is just flat out being unsympathetic in my eyes who cares what she said she lost her child that is something no one should ever go through and has nothing to do with religion

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Permalink Reply by paul babcock on April 13, 2011 at 5:54am

It does seem reasonable to cut people some extra slack when berieving over a lost loved one. However the logic that they are needed by god for any reason is particularly lame.

I am reminded of how theists often back set from me when I state that I am a nonbeliever. Unabashedly they will admit that they are concerned that I will be struck by a lightning bolt. So what they are saying is that while they believe that this god of theirs is omnipotent and omniscient, they donot trust his aim while tossing his lightning bolts.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Wood on April 14, 2011 at 2:38pm

I believe that when I die, i will indeed "go to a better place"--annihilation, which is clearly better than this cesspool earth.  So when a religio-tard at a funeral says, "He's in a better place," I nod sagely.

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Permalink Reply by Hazel H. on May 6, 2011 at 3:18am

Well, this is how religion is being used, among other things. To comfort people. :)

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