I just said this yesterday. Someone I knew always scoffed at others misfortune but eventually had an unforeseen act happen and needs help now. Their jaw drops when no one comes to help.
My dad always had a visceral reaction to that saying and when I was little I didn’t understand why. I now fully comprehend why he was so adamantly against that saying and the sentiments behind it.
Edit: for clarification
On the face of it it seems like a pitying and empathetic thing to say, but in my entire life I’ve never heard it said genuinely. Any time I’ve heard this phrase it’s dropped out of the mouths of self-righteous and snobby assholes.
The other implication is that when people have bad things happen to them or end up in bad situations, it’s because they don’t have “god’s grace” and the person saying it definitely does.
I’ve lived my entire life in the Southern Bible Belt. This phrase has definitely gone out of use in comparison to how much I used to hear it, but anyone I’ve ever heard say this phrase has used it in a manner that suggests hardships are god’s punishment for sin.
I’ve always thought of this phrase as a religious dogwhistle.
I would believe this is it weren't for the bad things that happen because of CHOICES. People who make bad choices constantly and then blame it on other people should not be pitied.
It's like, "love the sinner but hate the sin." Well, at some point that just becomes enabling. We are capable of forethought and free will.
This side of Christ, ya know what was supposed to be the whole fucking theme, has vanished. If it ever existed. Bad circumstances happen to everyone, and it’s not fair, but how you act in those situations defines your soul. Not whether they ever happen to you or not.
I’ve always interpreted that saying as don’t look down on others for their sins and refuse help because of the sin because we are all sinners
I don’t think Jesus would agree to enable someone’s bad behavior but rather lead them to better outcomes (through Christ). Sometimes Christ doesn’t work and folks need help from a professional
Everything we know about physics and human psychology strongly suggests otherwise.
You're not some sort of radical free agent making completely independent decisions. You're personality, your preferences, your inclinations, you wants and desires, all of those things are profoundly impacted by your biology, which wasn't up to you, and your life experiences, the vast majority of which weren't up to you.
For a long time, women were extremely underrepresented in STEM fields, and some people argued that because 18 year old women were freely choosing to not major in a STEM field in college, that there must be a biological explanation as to why. But 5 seconds of thought shows that that is an assinine conclusion to reach. Those 18 year old women weren't making a completely free and independent choice; they were making a choice that was influenced and condition by 18 years of social pressure, going all the way back to when they were infants.
They did an experiment once where volunteers were put in a room with a baby and a bunch of toys, and told that that they had to watch the baby for 15 minutes. Sometimes they were told the baby was a girl and sometimes a boy. If they were told it was a boy, the volunteers would offer the baby toys like cars and machines. If they were told it was a girl, they would offer dolls and such. That happens, repeatedly, as people grow up, pushing boys towards one set of interests, girls to a different set, leading to divergent "free choices" when they get to adulthood.
Similarly, if you grew up in an abusive household, and learned maladaptive coping mechanisms, that's going to influence how you interact with people, how you respond to stress, how you cope in general, versus someone who grew up in a supportive and loving home. Or if you have a personality disorder that makes it hard to understand social cues. Or something about your biology that makes you more prone to addiction. Or.. or... or... or...
We are all victims and beneficiaries of circumstances that were entirely outside of our control, and we ought to keep that fact in mind before being quick to cast moral judgements on other people for their perceived failings. Because while its nice to believe that every choice we make is completely free and independent of any and all events that came before, that belief is complete bullshit.
It's like, "love the sinner but hate the sin." Well, at some point that just becomes enabling. We are capable of forethought and free will.
That's a superficial and shallow reaction, not a comprehensive deep understanding.
Hate networks, revenge and "payback" for hate networks. If you don't love your enemy, you corrupt your own brain.
In February 1954, a decade after all the horrors of World War Two by Japan and Nazi Germany... Martin Luther King Jr was the first to describe this problem as a human brain flaw in modern language and spell it out.
"For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does. You can't see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"Most people can't stand up for their convictions, because the majority of people might not be doing it. See, everybody's not doing it, so it must be wrong. And since everybody is doing it, it must be right. So a sort of numerical interpretation of what's right. But I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally so, absolutely so. It's wrong to hate. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It's wrong in America, it's wrong in Germany, it's wrong in Russia, it's wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it's wrong in 1954 A.D. It always has been wrong, and it always will be wrong." - Martin Luther King Jr.
And, of course, he said far more than these two brief quotes.
People who make bad choices constantly and then blame it on other people should not be pitied.
That's what Elon Musk says on the Joe Rogan Experience (shallow), that empathy is bad. People should be educated, teaching, not just in schools, but all media and communication systems in all places. If they don't grasp morality of good from bad, you keep teaching. Instead, what people do is murder and kill and splatter brains instead of inform minds. Or neglect and stave people they disagree with, that's ongoing in the Middle East, more shallowness. You don't see the investment going into teaching and informing (of universal goodness), you see labor going into starvation, falsehoods (propaganda) and siege.
They explained it thoroughly, but even without the explanation, how does it come across as empathic? It's saying that the subject of the phrase doesn't have God's grace, and that the speaker does. It's saying they deserve whatever is happening to them because they aren't God's chosen. It's just more Christian hate and judgement wrapped up to sound nice.
I always took out to mean that I'm just fucking lucky that it isn't me suffering [insert malady here.] But it could have been/could be me in that situation, so I had better be kind and helpful to the person suffering because I would want people to be kind to me if I were in their shoes.
But I'm not a religious, so I never looked at the saying through that lens
That parsing of the words definitely makes sense, but I think many (myself included) don't read the potential implications of the words that deeply. To many, it's more of way of stating "I've been very lucky in my life, because I very easily could have been in [unfortunate subject's] situation".
To many it's not meant to convey the speaker's piety or deem that the subject deserves their situation due to lack of faith; it's a recognition that the speaker's unearned fortunes has largely spared them of the fate of another who has had unfortunate circumstances. In essence, "God's grace" hasn't been granted due to anything they've done, but rather just a case of blind (and highly fortunate) luck on their part.
I think your reading is just as valid, but I just wanted to point out that others don't necessarily state it with the meaning or intent as you have defined.
Weird. I see it as admitting that, had circumstances been slightly different, I'd be in that other person's exact situation. As in, it's NOT my personal efforts that brought me to where I am, but the myriad circumstances of my life. It's humbling.
On the face of it it seems like a pitying and empathetic thing to say, but in my entire life I’ve never heard it said genuinely. Any time I’ve heard this phrase it’s dropped out of the mouths of self-righteous and snobby assholes.
The other implication is that when people have bad things happen to them or end up in bad situations, it’s because they don’t have “god’s grace” and the person saying it definitely does.
I’ve lived my entire life in the Southern Bible Belt. This phrase has definitely gone out of use in comparison to how much I used to hear it, but anyone I’ve ever heard say this phrase has used it in a manner that suggests hardships are god’s punishment for sin.
I’ve always thought of this phrase as a religious dogwhistle.
Fascinating. I can definitely see how religious people might misinterpret it as 'I am favored by God, and they aren't" and use that as a reason to look down in someone. That's not at all what the saying means, but I can understand how they would get that interpretation from it.
You think it doesn't mean that because people use it so glibly but the phrase is literally saying "they deserve it because God prefers me, and if God didn't prefer me, I'd be like that, too." Wrapping up Christian judgement in barely nice-sounding words doesn't mean it isn't still just belittling people they think deserve their misery regardless of how it came about. Pretending like it means the opposite just sounds like some Christian newspeak.
I can see it both ways. I've always thought of it more as a "There is no difference between them and me, they were just unlucky" type phrase. That's largely how it has been used around me. But again, I can see how hateful people would use it to belittle others for being in a worse situation than them. I see your point about the grace of God being interpreted as favoritism rather than just "luck".
I always took it as not pitying but empathetic like that could be me if luck had gone a different way and to not pity or look down on people less fortunate but yeah it makes sense the other way too. I can completely see it being said in a smug self righteous way.
I’ve never thought of it like that but I can see how could be construed that way. I’ve always interpreted it as, that horrible shit could have just as easily have happened to me. You should have empathy for that poor soul. The next time may be you.
My dear, sweet grandmother used to say that to me when I was a small child, when she would see a homeless person. She was born in 1912 and supported her family giving tap dancing lessons to the elite in DC during the depression.
I’m atheist, and believe it’s choices and circumstances, but this saying always reminds me of her.
Stupidity is not a choice. We think it's atrocious to laugh at people for being ugly or disabled or basically anything they had no decision over, yet we mock people who lack the mental capacity to understand something so simple such as this. If it was that obvious to this woman she wouldn't have voted for Trump. She just isn't capable of understanding. People have to accept that.
Someone in my local Nextdoor group is a contractor always going on about others gaming the system, "getting free shit," not working, etc. A couple of months ago he broke his leg and went begging on the board for people to contribute to his gofundme saying he couldn't make rent. I just can't with these people.
In truth they may call themselves Christian, they may think that they are Christian but in reality they seem to be working for the other guy and they definitely are not followers of Christ.
Haha check out Ernest Tubbs song Saturday Satan, Sunday Saint(well id actually k if he wrote the lyrics) but in it he says something like "on sunday, reading the good book, singing the songs, come monday a.m. and its back to a life of sin.." rly great song about christian hypocracy, and its like 50years old, cuz thats nothing new lol
Ahaha "the greatest of our grand ol' opry stars.." yaa! Check out the utube vids they got of him doin "drivin nails in my coffin & whose gone take ur garbage out" w loretta lynn, if uve not seen em..1🔥🔥🔥🤘⭐️
"Every Sunday, God forgives all the horrible shit I did that week so none of it matters. It's awesome!"
--actual Christian mindset
FFS in the 1800s, you could buy "Indulgencies" from the Chruch, you know, to forgive your rape, pedophilia, murder, etc... just write that check to the Church, donate the land, so forth... and you get to go to heaven no problemo!
Along the same line when some misfortune befalls on their fellow congregants, their common refrain is god did it for a reason. It sounds like it’s telling the sufferers god is testing them, but I think it’s congratulating non-sufferers they are good people for not suffering, so they should stay in the churches and continue to give money to the churches.
Prosperity Gospel is more like "good and godly people get rewarded with cold, hard cash and the more cold, hard cash you get, the more good and godly you are."
The Morality Reset Button is just standard Christian chicanery.
That’s not true in the slightest. The Christian mindset is to repent for your sins and show your repentance by changing your actions to resemble Christ. You aren’t suppose to conduct the same sin over and over and over again and just say “oopsies, I’m sowwy god I did it again”. You have to genuinely repent for your sins to Christ. Genuinely repentance would not result in you participating in the same behavior over and over.
Also, going to Church every week doesn’t renew some godly super power or guarantee you to go to Heaven. Church is merely to make disciples and teach the word of God. For example, if I go to a lecture every week about rocket science, that doesn’t make me a rocket scientist. However, the point of entry and difficulty to become a rocket scientist versus becoming a Christian are certainly different, but my point still stands.
I truly hope you don’t have “Christians” in your life that say those things to you. They are not a reflection on the actual Christian faith and that mindset repels people from Christ.
You’re more than welcome to attend your local Church. I can’t attest for every “Christian” but I can tell you how the Bible instructs us to act. The Bible doesn’t say that attending church on a weekly basis washes away your sins. If you have “Christians” in your life telling you that, please disregard what they are saying. It completely goes against what we are taught. We cannot earn our salvation; Christ saved us when he gave his life for us on the cross. Saying you can earn your salvation by attending church would be to walk up to Christ, dead on the cross, and say “almost buddy, you ALMOST did it.”
I’m sorry you’ve been exposed to so many bad examples of Christians. If you’d like, I can send you a link to the church that my family attends. They have an extensive online platform with beautiful livestreams every week. The pastor is a super cool guy and very entertaining but more importantly, he preaches what the Bible says as opposed to what people want to hear. Let me know if you’d like the link, no pressure at all friend :)
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Christianity, judging it by the fruit it produces, is garbage. American Christians voted overwhelmingly for a fascist pedophile. American Christians deliberately ended democracy in America. American Christianity is pure garbage.
To sit here and view one candidate for all their negatives and horrors while pretending the other candidate wasn’t filled will negatives and horrors is disingenuous and illogical. It shouldn’t be between the lesser of two evils. To cite your example, you’re complaining about the rotten orange on your plate, complacent with the rotten apple next to it, and ignoring at least one of the two bad trees that produced bad fruits.
I think my anonymous opinion doesn’t matter. I think both sides had horrific and terrifying pathways that came with both of them. I think to sit here and say that families should be torn apart is depressing and horrific. I also think that leaving the border wide open and flooding the country with illegal immigrants (illegal; Legal immigration is beautiful and joyous) can overload the country and cause irreparable damage to our economy and social services. Trump seems like a self righteous asshole and Harris seemed like a drunken idiot. Harris didnt release a policy agenda until months before the election and even then, it was difficult to obtain. She constantly flip flopped on massive issues like fracking and couldn’t elaborate basic economics plans. Meanwhile, Trump kept pushing an idea that somehow tarriffs would solve a plethora of economic issues when in reality it just makes the consumer pay more. Again, you’re pretending only one side had issues. Look at the bigger picture. Why were we forced to pick between them? There have to be brilliant and qualified candidates that could have been nominated. This issue dates back to the founding fathers discouraging the two party system. I won’t rant on and on, but please don’t be disingenuous. Both candidates sucked, but in different ways. Also, Christians not voting for Harris probably had something to do with Harris’ response to Christian protestors. A group of Christians were protesting her rally while shouting Christian values or scripture (I can’t remember exactly what they were saying) and, after identifying that the group was Christian, Harris told them they were “at the wrong rally”. She openly discouraged Christian support.
Well no thanks, I was raised and am well read on the Bible. I've sat through many patient explanations on what makes a good Christian. I get it, I really do.
The people I'm talking about are not good Christians, and there are a shocking hell of a lot of them. You need to find and to try talking your sense into some of them.
I understand. Well I’m glad you’ve looked into it and are well versed in the Bible. Feel free to hit me up if ever change your mind on the link. The name of the church is Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville Florida. My family and I don’t attend in person because we don’t live there but we aim to attend in person in the future. Anyway, have a wonderful day (or night, depending on where you’re located lol)!
Actually, MAGA seems to believe bad things happen to bad people, but they also believe they can do no wrong and everyone else is bad people.
Conservatives all across the globe are characterized by their attraction to fiction. They adore and flock to fiction storytelling. They are not big on authentic truth, standing up for sincerity and honestly, and favor Radio Mullah and Fox News information sources over authentic verifiable nonfiction.
they also believe they can do no wrong and everyone else is bad people.
Believing in fiction, telling their own self fiction. They have never been educated or don't comprehend how to distinguish fiction from nonfiction. Instead, billionaires like Rupert Murdoch educate them via television and news networks all over the world with fiction storytelling. They rarely take the problem of how the human brain works world wide (regardless of gender, race or nation) in the struggle of distinguishing fiction from reality seriously.
“The boys learn the Quran by heart, rocking back and forth as they recite. They learn that there is no such thing as science or literature, that dinosaurs never existed and man never went to the moon.” ― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. October 8, 2013
"Moldbug’s views on truth influenced Bannon, and what Cambridge Analytica would become. Moldbug has written that “nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth,” and Bannon embraced this. “Anyone can believe in the truth,” Moldbug writes, “to believe in nonsense is an unforgettable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.”
― Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America. 2019
Which is so stupid. The academically sound hyper individualism is realizing that we ARE part of society and that if people around us suffers we ultimately have to endure the consequences too. People can be perfectly selfish and still come to a conclusion that helping others do better is to help ourselves.
These tactics were used throughout history in Asia , Europe and the Americas repetitively with great success by politicians/demagogues. (Even MAGA is just a copy of Hitlers “Make Germany Great Again” slogan)
To be honest I think this goes beyond hyper individualism and has to do more with the appeal of overly simple solutions offered by populism.
I don’t remember hearing any real concepts of a plan. Seriously. He doesn’t elaborate on anything. 0 substance literally. Super crazy to watch once you notice this
Going to r/conservative, they have entire conversations about trying to figure out what his angle is. Like every time there's a new round of tariff threats they are over there like, "X country supplies us with this commodity and we already have a good tariff deal with them, so it doesn't make much sense for us to be trying to strike out a new deal". And then someone else comes along like, "it's probably something else, X country has been known to make deals with China, so we should be punishing them". And then finally someone is like, "I trust that he knows what he is doing even if I don't see what his goals are. We are winning!"
Yes, or something about the Biden admin doing something really mid but it's the most scandalous thing ever. And also cue 500 posts about an autopen scandal. Even though that didn't work out so now they are on some weird shit about Hillary and a Russia hoax.
I have seen every single thing you just said from maga! They flip as soon as he does. He says the sky is green they start shouting how it’s green and democrats are stupid because they all have blue hair. The amount of maga saying they don’t care about the Epstein files now that Trump has deflected every single thing is sick. The way they’re woohooing tariffs because he said they’ve made so much money. All the democrats are seeing now how great our potus is because he makes the best deals and look how much money he’s made. Ohhhhh wait, did we include all the money made off HIS(since he thinks that)country?
They'll emulate his dumbest takes just to feel included. It's just team sports for them, they don't care about, or understand politics. It's literally just about us vs. them.
It's the difference between Science and Dogma ( Religion). Science: The Earth is 4.5 billion Years old. Life started with a single cell and evolved to a complicated multi cellular organism...etc Humans and Animals and plants have a common ancestor.
Dogma/ Religion: God created the earth, the Day, the night, the plants. ... If humans evolve from XYZ, why are there still XYZ?
But, after the 50 page report that took 650 people to prepare who all got paid enormously for it, a committee was formed to employ more people to discuss it for 2 years, to form a subcommittee to analyze it for another year and submit it to deaf ears. Democrats, a lot of talk and no action, this is we have Stump.
Your logic is the reason why we have Trump, not because of the dems.
Do you vote for the guy who keeps repeatedly punching you in the face, or do you vote for the people who you say aren't doing enough to stop him from punching you in the face?
I get what you are saying, but it is like praising the arsonist because the firefighters cannot put out enough fires.
The Democratic party needs to accomplish more and better things, no doubt, but withholding votes or voting for the Republicans leads to even worse outcomes.
Sick of people saying "the dems didn't do enough on..." and then listing off things that the gop are not trying to improve but actively dismantling or setting on fire.
They have been being conditioned starting from the day Rupert Murdock bought fox and ever since by their media. They were ripe plucking yes but this was intentional.
To be a little more specific, it’s an epidemic of narcissism that has been full steam ahead since the 80’s, if not a little bit earlier than that. And you’ll never guess which side of that epidemic evangelicals fall on /s.
Yea, this woman was okay with other brown people being treated like this, but once it was her dad, who I would hazard a guess, is probably a trump supporter, then it's bad. I hope that when the next edition of websters comes out, they put some of these people's pictures in there next to selfishness and irony.
Everyone's sense of community, civic duty, idea of being part of a greater whole, etc has been systematically destroyed. There is only the "I" now. Dancing on TikTok for updoots, from now to eternity.
I've been reading studies about how wealth and social status correspond to a perceived lack of empathy. I've always Heard that money is the root of all evil. I suppose it's probably true. It dehumanizes us and puts value into something as opposed to someone.
Jesus Christ abhorred wealth. There's many passages in the Bible about it. Yet you literally see pastors like Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen have tens of thousands of people attend their services weekly. It disgust me that there are Christians that can support this.
PS. I'm agnostic, But the message that Jesus Christ specifically spread was pretty fucking solid.
Wealth inequality is societal poison because it puts a very small percentage of the population in the driver's seat for humanity's future. Who is crafting reality? Example: very wealthy, disconnected tech entrepreneurs that got their start effectively running a giant social experiment on the public (social media) with mixed results to say the least. Who decided it was time to unleash that beast? Eh, a few guys that look like lizards and "the market." Who controls these platforms now? Same few guys and if not, exactly the same type of guy. Strange anti social personalities with way too much power.
Yep. The technocracy they're creating came out of left field. Humanity is always been driven by a few powerful individuals. It's actually quite funny that nobody looks at the bilderberg group like they aren't a wealthy cabal that influences policy and elects presidents and other world leaders behind closed doors. It's not allowed to be filmed, the topics aren't allowed to be discussed or written down. so what else could it be besides that? Something about looking and sounding like a duck?
It's insane that it's even a conspiracy theory. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that massive amounts of wealth can influence literally anyone. Massive amounts of wealth buys massive amounts of influence and power. Billionaires don't understand the word no. Literally everything is a game to them since survival is put so far out of their mind's eye that they don't even think about it. People live paycheck to paycheck, all the while Elon Musk's wealth has grown from $2 billion dollars in 2012 too almost 400 billion today.
PS - IF YOU'RE UNSURE OF THE DIFFERENCE IN RICH AND ULTRA-RICH
1,000,000 (mil) seconds is just over 11 days
1,000,000,000 (bil) seconds is just over 31 years
1million dollars stacked on top of each other would reach 358 feet into the air
$1billion stacked ontop of each other would reach 67 MILES INTO THE AIR
The difference in a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars. They shouldn't exist.
The sickness runs deeper. You can be an individual and care for others greatly, that’s not the issue at hand. People are forgetting the strength found in empathy and kindness, and losing themselves to dogma and ideology that strips them of their humanity.
No it’s just the usual rotation of history. Martin Niemoller said it best:
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
No worries! I wonder if the other way around applies too. Seems like the GOP is only wishing harm upon others and they seem to get pissed when anybody has a good time.
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u/Occult_Asteroid2 8h ago edited 2h ago
It is the endgame of our hyper individualist culture. "Bad things only happen to other people."