So on the same day the NY post (see OrP's post) ran "MUSLIM KILLERS". You don't think both news papers know exactly what they are ****ing doing here? That they don't know the kinds of audiences the two different narratives are going to appeal to, the kinds of people likely to pick up theirs and not the other? That they don't consider this narrative among all the narratives, the one with a giant GOD and pools of blood, and "carefully craft" its presentation? They would be crazy not to.

My comparison to O'Reily wasn't to imply the situations are identical. Of course there is far more cross over and less homogeneity in newstand tabloids than fox's prime time shows.

Do I think they know what they're doing? Yes. But are they doing what you claim they are doing? Or do I think things happened the way you imagined them happening? No.

...

I don't think they have a "core audience" of liberals that are drawn in every morning to get their liberal self-righteousness fix. There is a "core audience" of liberals, but they act on different impulses that what you claim.

I'm pretty sure that they didn't lay out more than about two narratives. One was highly provocative and the other was less so. And they chose the highly provocative one. I doubt they spent more than 10 minutes discussing it, and that nobody was having heartburn over the decision to run it.

Do I think that the narrative was "carefully crafted"? Nope. It was merely created.

I think some people believe that you affect the energy surrounding a tragic event when you pray. You change the emotional energy for the victims and everyone suffering. People receive a healing when other people pray for them. I don't think prayer means that you are praying to God. For some it does but I don't think that's what they mean when they ask you to pray. You can even be an atheist.

If I had family who died in the Paris shooting and I see that people all over the world have me in their thoughts and prayers I will feel some relief from the suffering. Because they are indentifying with my tragedy and putting the intention out there to heal. Thought power grows with numbers. If people get together to heal from a tragedy, their intentions, what many call prayer, will have a strong psychological effect.

Prayer doesn't only benefit the direct victims. Those praying also heal themselves by praying for others. You can heal someone else's hurt by indentifying a matching hurt within yourself and healing it. That's why people go to AA. A bunch of alcoholics healing themselves will help them all heal.

Lol you can keep someone in your thoughts if you don't want to pray. Similar effect.

THIS

So do you. At least Mightyboosh admits to a fluidity of position and a lack of assurance that is a forever redeeming trait in someone who constantly wants to learn and debate.

I enjoy your condescension for reasons other posters/readers find pretty obvious.

You just ain't it.

What he admits to and what he actually does are not consistent with each other. Go read the pareidolia thread or any thread in which MB discusses his understanding of cognitive bias. It's hard to say that he does anything other than paying lip service to the possibility of being wrong, and it's really clear that he's very, very slow to admit error.

I'm just loud.

Edit: Or we can go all the way back to Thales of Miletus again...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13.../#post37060096

But apparently, he believes he wasn't discussing Christianity.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5&postcount=37

He has never admitted the error.

Eh, let's not get sidetracked here into a discussion of Mightyboosh's unobjectionable reading habits.

/carrots

idk why i bother.

cya around, 5th.

ya, gotta focus on whether or not "careful" is a reasonable adjective to apply to the editorial board's crafting of this front page

That's not what energy is.

I did not interpret this way. i read it as praying or worse only tweeting about prayer(*) to be a rather lazy way to affect the real world. Someone mentioned hashtags and that's a good comparison because in my opinion is indeed just some form of slacktivism. I will exclude people who are convinced their prayers can change something in a substantial manner. At least they think they are doing something useful.

(*) I am rather cynical and wonder how many people who someone is in their prayers actually includes them.

I don't get this. I grew up in a Christian home, in a Christian environment, and have many close friends and family that are Christians. This is the exact kind of language they'd use to express concern or sympathy for a person's hardship or difficulty. I've never understood it to mean, I'll pray and that'll fix your problems. It is a faith affirmation, a way of saying we are in this together, or that God is in control, or even just as simple as that I care for you. These are ordinary ways in which people express concern and affection for other people.

Claiming it is meant as a policy recommendation or is a form of slacktivism seems to me like a highly aggressive misreading. My father still tells me at the end of all of our phone calls that he prays for me. He knows I don't believe in God or the power of prayer, and that I already know that he prays for me. He is telling me this again because it is a way for him to communicate that he cares for me.

If you think this language is meant as a form of slacktivism, I think you are tone-deaf to how most Christians talk to each other.

Have you ever sent a 'thinking of you' card that you bought at Hallmark?

It's a standard gesture that humans make to each other. It's just a form of acknowledgement.

Maybe. It's possible. Is saying "you are in my prayers" and similar something that is particular to the US? I grew up Christian as well and that is just not something that is said anywhere I have been (that is not the US).

I understand. If it is only supposed to mean "thinking of you" and it is understood that way then it is fine I guess. Maybe I am nitpicky here but praying to me sounds like it is an act which is more than mere thinking. My gripe is that I perceive saying "my prayers are with you" as someone implying they are doing more than just thinking.

Ok since you are so keen on getting this clear. Lol

I think in the context of mass shootings, prayer is a gesture. It's a declaration of support and care for some individual or group or country or whatever.

For me these gestures can do a lot to affect a situation. When people hold a vigil for someone who was murdered it makes the situation better. Imagine if someone was murdered and the next day no one bothered to do anything about the grief and sadness that people were feeling.

The emotional 'energy' changes... It enables people to heal. Gestures of prayer are ways humans heal themselves and others.

Vigils are very different in my view than saying someone is in one's prayers.

It is, just as churches and social Christian groups aren't the doctrine but communities. There's a gestalt to gatherings. It can be defined, but it can't be quantified.

We eat our dead, and we forget who we are sometimes, and we dance. We sure as hell know though there's a God and he's a pikey.

Aaron W.,

I don't give a **** how you define yourself as long as your supposed sense of superiority and "loudness" is built on the inferiority of others. Until you learn to get past that...

You never do though. Funnily enough, we're fine with that.

So NYT ran, for the first time since 1920, an above the fold front page editorial pushing for gun regulations. In wapos response they were saying there was a preaching to the choir effect factor involved. A few parallels to daily news/ny post. In some ways I think what the daily news did might actually make the stronger case by forcing the juxtaposition.....but I got my choir blinders on so who knows

I don't know if it is particular to the US. Here are the first five links from google of "my prayers are with you." An ad for a condolence card, what seems to be a page for people to express condolences after someone's death, a page listing appropriate phrases to use to express condolence, an explanation what this means for Jews (sample: "When they say that thoughts and prayers are with someone, it really means, “we are not ignoring your pain, even though we cannot end it; we are thinking of you and maybe even praying for help that is beyond our capacity to give.”").

You might be thinking too narrowly about it.

So some people might be trying to 'change the energy', some might be not have a better way to say something as simple as 'You have my sympathy for what happened to you' so they use the 'prayer' word, but some people must actually be praying, i.e. communicating with their god. What do those people think they're doing/achieving when they pray?

If you say 'I'm thinking about you', both atheists and theists are going to appreciate that. If you say 'pray for you' it's going to mean nothing to atheists. So it seems like not saying 'pray' has a greater effect for good. I'm wondering how much of saying 'I'm praying for you' is actually about promoting your own view?

That's on you then. Read Original Positions post. If his father tells him that he is praying for him, Original Position is very likely correct to interpret this as an expression of caring and empathy towards him, that it transfers meaning, at least in part, rather similar to "i'm thinking about you and wishing you the best".

Don't get me wrong, I obviously don't believe in the efficacy of prayer, I don't believe in the larger metaphysics that is being appealed to when people say they are going to pray. But these very human tendencies to convey empathy towards others is, for some religious people, often expressed through this religious lens. So while the lens doesn't mean anything to me, the empathy underlying it certainly does.

Exactly none. This is error is no different from the one you made when you made this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...hools-1463545/

Some believers use prayers as a weapon. But mostly they are just wishing you well.