shaking my head---wil wheaton

[Robovski]

That is essentially all expressions of sympathy for someone else's loss that you aren't strongly connected to. Your co-worker's mom dies, you say you are sorry, or that we're thinking of you and everybody pretty much moves on. Maybe some people put money in the card that Betty bought and passed around. This is a social obligation/convention and you just come off as a jerk when you flout it even if the words make no difference whatsoever.

[Rocketboy1313]

When someone says, "Thoughts and Prayers" it is not SUPPOSED to be an empty gesture.

See, it used to be, when people prayed about a subject, they would come away with a sort of personal insight that would allow them to act proactively in their own tiny corner of the world. You would THINK and PRAY... AND THEN YOU ACT.

The reason "Thoughts and Prayers" has become a joke is because it is a meaningless gesture. No one is giving any thought, no one is offering any prayers. They just say that and then continue doing bad things or nothing and the cycle keeps going.

Mass shootings are not tornados or earthquakes. They are not natural phenomenon like the unknowable will of god. They are events by people against people and there are macro level legislative actions that can be taken in regards to reducing gun violence, but no one is actually doing anything. They are just making the jerk-off motion while saying "Thoughts and Prayers".

[The Romulan Republic]

As noted above, the reason so many people are sick of hearing "thoughts and prayers" is because it is so often treated as the be-all and end-all of what we're supposed to do in this sort of situation: as a substitute for actually trying to do something difficult or substantive to solve the problem.

Thoughts and prayers are all very well. If they are followed by actions. Otherwise, they're just an excuse for apathy.

I'm not even saying you have to support more gun control. Gun control is not the ONLY part of the solution, though it is in my opinion part of it. Improving mental health care, improving treatment for drug abusers, strengthening the social safety net, resolving racial tensions, and addressing the underlying culture of glorifying violence in America would ALL help.

But the Right, by and large, does not want to do ANY of these things.

[Madner Kami]

That is essentially all expressions of sympathy for someone else's loss that you aren't strongly connected to. Your co-worker's mom dies, you say you are sorry, or that we're thinking of you and everybody pretty much moves on. Maybe some people put money in the card that Betty bought and passed around. This is a social obligation/convention and you just come off as a jerk when you flout it even if the words make no difference whatsoever.

If I don't have a connection to the people who are suffering, I neither give a pointless gesture nor do I ridicule their loss, I just remain silent and, if they are within my personal proximity, I offer them a chance to talk about their loss. You don't have to flout it, but you can choose to remain silent. This is both honest and respectful.

What is both dishonest and disrespectful however is, "sending thoughts and prayers". In my experience, the vast majority of "believers" don't believe what they pretend to believe, but go to church and pay lip-service when asked, out of peer-pressure. A notable amount of believers are fucking crooks, liars and schemers and those are usually the most vocal ones and the ones most up high in their respective community's echolons and those can go fuck right off and die in a fire, right after someone stuffed their fucking feet into their mouth.
The few ones that truely believe, I have a hard time taking serious. See, I am an atheist. There are no gods and if there were a god like these people believe or "believe", than he is clearly ok with what happened there, as he didn't intervene. Their thoughts and prayers, however honest they are, aren't going to change the basic fact, that their god either didn't care about the evil that has happened or choose not to do anything about it. Whether it's mal intend or wilfull neglect (remember, he is omnipresent and knows everything), doesn't really matter to me, as the result is the same: Pointless suffering. Such an entity is evil in my book, which makes "sending thoughts and prayers" either laughably stupid or outright offensive and the only situation where this gets any worse is, when either a religious nutjob blows himself and others up in the name of %god%, or if this happens to a community of believers.

It doesn't matter how you turn it. Either "sending thoughts and prayers" is an empty gesture, done by people who pretend to care but clearly don't or it's a gesture sent by people who support what happened, because Deus Vult and the best part about that is, that even if I weren't an atheist, the same principle would still hold true. Either I only pretend to beleive, which makes me a hypocrite or I truely believe and I'd have to go through some serious mental gymnastics to both feel sorry for those people and still unconditionally love a god who is ok with pointless suffering like that.

In the end, all there is to say is, that people who "send their thoughts and prayers" largely do so out of social obligation, which makes the gesture entirley hollow. It doesn't change what happened, it doesn't do anything to prevent it from happening again and in most cases, it's going to border heavily on mocking the people who suffer either directly or indirectly. If you really feel sorry for the people who suffered, but do not feel you can do anything to help them, instead of "sending thoughts and prayers", just shut the hell up.

[Robovski]

It is literally a variation on ''my condolences'' but with a religious aspect. Your disbelief in god does not require you to tell those who do believe that their condolences are invalid; you just look like a jerk for doing that.

[Madner Kami]

It is literally a variation on ''my condolences'' but with a religious aspect. Your disbelief in god does not require you to tell those who do believe that their condolences are invalid; you just look like a jerk for doing that.

If "my condolences" is used as an empty gesture, it ain't good either and should just remain where it was before it was uttered. If, however, "my condolences" is stated in earnest, it's an honest gesture that does not need to do live in co-existance with praising the very being responsible for the terrible deeds. It should be obvious why one of the two options should be called out.

[Rocketboy1313]

It is literally a variation on ''my condolences'' but with a religious aspect. Your disbelief in god does not require you to tell those who do believe that their condolences are invalid; you just look like a jerk for doing that.

I will accept condolences from those who have nothing else to offer.

Paul Ryan is the chief policy wonk of the Republican party and Speaker of the House. He can do more than jerk off and tell me he is praying.

Pass a bill. There are a half dozen that would have a functional impact on gun violence in the US. Maybe not mass shootings, but certainly gun violence on the macro scale.

His empty (forgive the phrase) Virtue Signalling, does not do anyone any good.

[Admiral X]

As I said, I would rather politicians continue to send their thoughts and prayers than pass more pointless legislation when we can't even enforce the laws we already have on the books, and will only serve to further erode civil liberties.

[Mindworm]

Wil Wheaton joins the long, long list of people on every side of every issue who stick their foot in their mouths via a tweet.

Modified "infinite monkey hypothesis"---on a long enough tweeting timeline, everyone on your tweeter feed will be offended.

{edit, providing link....and not supporting or denouncing Wil, other people can flame it out if they want. just observing that it seems like having a Twitter account, especially if you have any type of fame, creates more headaches than its worth. ymmv}

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -Ryan.html

The fact that you're willing to quote the Daily Heil* doesn't help your argument. Anything from a source of news.

*The Mail has famously never repudiated nor apologised for its support of Hitler between 1933-1940 (not the last year, after the UK entered a state of war with Germany).

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Madner Kami, you are being needlessly cruel.

First, you claim that most believers are insincere in their beliefs, just going out of social pressure, without presenting any evidence for the case.

Second, there are more than two options here. Some people believe that bad things make sense on a cosmic scale that we mortals cannot comprehend, or that Yaweh refrains from intervening in certain areas because of a compact with mankind about free will, or various other "mental gymnastics". Just because YOU, personally, cannot reconcile an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing deity with these tragedies, that doesn't mean other people can't.

Terry Pratchett framed prayer as "something you can do when there's nothing you can do."

This, I feel, is why the Thoughts and Prayers message is so offensive.

I pray for an end to gun violence because I, personally, as Joe Fuckwad, an under-employed millenial living in a crowded row-house, have very little power to affect national policy and can do fuckall to prevent the next mass shooting. I called up my senators, begging them to pass ANY kind of basic gun regulation, for much the same reason. I, a powerless person, am petitioning inscrutable supernatural beings to act on my behalf. I ask those with power to do things for those who have none.

That is why it is insulting coming from these senators, while they deposite their fat NRA bribery checks.

At this point? I'm not even convinced they ARE praying for the shooting victims. I think they are praying thanks to God for rewarding their Seed in accordance with prosperity doctrine, and intend to keep doing whatever brings them more money because they've convinced themselves that earthly riches are a sign of divine favor.