Empathy

So this has been floating around facebook in regard to the earthquake/tsunami that ripped Japan apart:

It's not often I speak about my beliefs and I know a lot of people don't agree with me but..

Mother nature is a force to be reckoned with. She is the one thing that no human being can control. You can only abuse and beat her so much before she will retaliate. Earth quakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, etc. She's one pissed off mama and anyone knows you do not piss off a mama.

Lest there be any confusion - the above is pure, unmitigated horseshit.

File this away under "the-other-side-has-anti-science-garbage-too." It's rare, but it happens. much like the anti-vaccers, the folks who spout this nonsense are callous idiots.

It was an earthquake. It was not malicious, or intentional, or brought about by supernatural forces to punish anybody you don't happen to like for doing things you think they ought not be doing. It was naturally occurring, and we know how and why it happened. We have an explanation, and any speculation on "why" it happened that does not include phrases like "thrust faulting" or "subduction zone interface plate boundary" are unnecessary and cruel. We know why earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, lightening, floods, avalanches, volcanoes, blizzards, seasons, rain, snow and sunshine happen. They're amazing, and they inspire awe, but they aren't mysterious.

But let us assume for a moment that there is some supernatural force driving these events. Let's deconstruct the quote above based on that premise.

I can only assume if nature, or the Earth, is a "mother" that her "children" are the organisms living on her. This quote bestows on her not only sentience but also intent. Based on that, what sort of mother slaughters some of her children as retaliation for anything? The very notion means that you believe in a being that is not only aware of its actions but is also psychotic. And apparently you do so willingly and happily.

And these aren't the days of pantheons full of gods and goddesses who were intentionally depicted as horrifically twisted and cruel. Whether you believe in a god who casts swaths of his metaphorical children into hell to be tortured for eternity or an Earth Mother who slaughters literal children for actions they have no say in or control over (drilling, deforestation, over population, etc) your focus of worship is awful and sociopathic. And yet that isn't the framing it's given. The framing is that it does those terrible things and it loves you and you love it.

I guess it just doesn't love any of those other people who're suffering. So, by extension, why should you?

If the thing you believe, whatever it is, means that when you see suffering your inclination is not to mourn and seek ways to help assuage pain, but rather to point out that perhaps those in agony may deserve it somehow or brought it on themselves in any way, then something is very wrong with your worldview.

Your beliefs have eaten a hole in your brain where empathy should be.

In case anyone was worried, the Bizarro Christians and fascistspatriots are getting on board with this kind of sociopathy as well.

ETA: Glen Beck has gotten in on it as well. Of course, being an insufferable tool is kind of his modus operandi.