Christchurch shooting

[Tutorman]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

 

[devin553344]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

I don't think that makes you a bad person. I'm schizophrenic and have trouble with empathy. But I'm not a bad person in my opinion. I haven't ever killed anyone or even considered it. But I do have trouble being judgmental. So I'm a sinner. You could say I'm a bad person I suppose. I guess it's confession time?

 

[ArmenianJohn]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

What does God have to say about how you should feel?

 

[Haramis]

If you had personally known them, you most likely would feel bad.

Why would you feel bad when they are strangers? More children died of disease in the hour of that shooting and you also felt nothing. Because thousands of people are dying every hour. Your life would be pretty awful if every time someone died anywhere in the world you felt grief.

The only way I'd see this as a potential moral issue is you felt grief and sadness over Sandy Hook and Las Vegas, but not Christ Church. In that case, yes that seems like a lack of empathy based on your perception of the religious beliefs of the victims rather than the loss of human life. I personally felt no sadness over any of the above. Because they were as unknown to me as the millions of other people who died that year.

 

[redleghunter]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

I think like most Americans the sympathy or empathy is affected moments later by the ideological political high priests who engage in finger pointing and blame games.

As Christians we need to understand such vicious attacks for what they are.....Evil.

The secular media has no concept of evil so they have to blame some demographic as the “reason.”

That just may be “stealing” your emotional response.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

I think that perhaps because you are from the United States you may be simply desensitized from all the mass shootings in the States. I don't think it is anything to feel bad about. Just something that should be recognized.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

The level of sympathy or emotion we feel for people exploited or hurt usually comes down to our personalities, what our beliefs are and whom we identify with. While I'm sympathetic to the families who suffered as a result of this terrorist attack. I'm not particularly emotional about it either. The strongest emotional reaction I had to the event was to suggest we reintroduce the death penalty.

I think you need only worry about your feelings if you don't view what happened as evil. We can't typically control how we feel most of the time and trying to induce an emotional reaction where there is none naturally seems like a vanity effort to me. We think that we should feel something because everyone else apparently does and that's not reasonable, that's just emotion.

 

[FireDragon76]

I don't think that makes you a bad person. I'm schizophrenic and have trouble with empathy. But I'm not a bad person in my opinion. I haven't ever killed anyone or even considered it. But I do have trouble being judgmental. So I'm a sinner. You could say I'm a bad person I suppose. I guess it's confession time?

We all have growing to do.

 

[FireDragon76]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

At least it bothers you enough to reflect on it.

 

[Tutorman]

felt grief and sadness over Sandy Hook and Las Vegas

I felt great sadness over Las Vegas, we had just been in that exact spot earlier in the month. I felt much more sadness over 9/11 and even greater when I learned about the gentleman in the wheelchair an his best friend who died so others could live. I felt sadness when I found the young turks, muslims, committed genocide against my ancestors

 

[thecolorsblend]

I have been sitting here and not feeling anything directly. I feel bad for the people left behind but I don't feel nothing for what happened. Does that make me bad?

I don't think so. This isn't a swipe so don't take this the wrong way but empathy doesn't come naturally to a lot of people.

In particular, a lot of Americans have, shall we say, mixed feelings about the Moslem community because of our own history with them. I'm not suggesting that has anything to do with your lack of a reaction. I'm just tossing out an idea.

Personally, I've struggled with this as well. I deplore murder and the senseless loss of life through unnecessary violence. But that's more of a reflexive philosophical principle than any genuine heartbreak on my part for the Christchurch Moslems in particular.

On a bigger level, I'm concerned about what this tragedy might imply for our future. What else could be coming? It's all so senseless and things need to change.

 

[Haramis]

I felt great sadness over Las Vegas, we had just been in that exact spot earlier in the month. I felt much more sadness over 9/11 and even greater when I learned about the gentleman in the wheelchair an his best friend who died so others could live. I felt sadness when I found the young turks, muslims, committed genocide against my ancestors

Ok, then yeah it IS bad that you feel grief every time someone of your ethnicity or religion dies, but indifference when they don't have the same heritage or religion.

On a bigger level, I'm concerned about what this tragedy might imply for our future. What else could be coming? It's all so senseless and things need to change.

We're living in the safest time in history. During the 2+ weeks the media is going to cover this ad nauseam, somewhere around 1.8 million people will die throughout the world(of all causes). Meanwhile media attention will be laser focused on 47 of them (0.0000426%).

The only thing that needs to change is that the victim's families should be able to sue the media parent companies for profiting off of this.

 

[Tutorman]

Ok, then yeah it IS bad that you feel grief every time someone of your ethnicity or religion dies, but indifference when they don't have the same heritage or religion.

Not ethnicity, but American and I have been thinking about it and I don't think it's bad. When people feel just as bad when Christians get killed like the Nigerian Christians than I will feel a bit more bad for others. I think it'sawful that people are stumbling all over themselves to feel bad for muslims but not for Christians that get killed.

 

[ArmenianJohn]

I felt great sadness over Las Vegas, we had just been in that exact spot earlier in the month. I felt much more sadness over 9/11 and even greater when I learned about the gentleman in the wheelchair an his best friend who died so others could live. I felt sadness when I found the young turks, muslims, committed genocide against my ancestors

Interesting. I've known all my life about the genocide against my own ancestors committed by the Young Turk party in Turkey.

I've also known my whole life that my ancestors who survived it did so because of the other muslim peoples, particularly the Syrians. I've also known very, very well how Muslims in Syria and other countries (particularly Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq) allowed my relatives to start over with assistance and aid, and to benefit from their societies and grow into prosperous members of their societies. Even in Beirut (where most of my family is from), which was majority Christian (Maronite Catholic Lebanese) the Muslim neighbors of my family typically proved to be the more kind and helpful to us Christian Armenians.

So, as an Armenian Christian whose family escaped the genocide (except for my great-grandparents who were killed) I know that it is not simply Muslim vs. Christian. This is why I and any Armenian Christian who is from the Middle East has a great appreciation and respect for our wonderful Muslim neighbors who were there to help us when Christian nations like the USA and UK and others fell short. We know the truth.

I don't know what your background is but to blame all Muslims for the Young Turks is based in religious bigotry and not in fact.

 

[Tutorman]

I can never see muslims as wonderful after what they did on 9/11

 

[ArmenianJohn]

I can never see muslims as wonderful after what they did on 9/11

You're obviously not Armenian.

 

[Tutorman]

You're obviously not Armenian.

You obvious don't know me so stop pretending you do and never question my ancestry

 

[ArmenianJohn]

You obvious don't know me so stop pretending you do and never question my ancestry

Regardless of what ancestry you are, I am Armenian and I know that our survival was because of Muslims. Anyone in my community knows and appreciates that. The Turks drove my ancestors into the deserts of Syria and Syrian people, villagers, assisted our people. Those who made it to Aleppo were given food, clothing, shelter, and a life. If not for Syria and Aleppo, we'd have died out. This is a majority Muslim nation.

From Aleppo, most Armenians went to Lebanon as well as Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Iran. None of them committed genocide but rather assisted our people to become part of their societies. They could have just deported us Trump-style back to Turkey to let Turkey finish their genocide. Indeed, these Muslim societies were in many ways morally superior to the American society of today.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Ok, then yeah it IS bad that you feel grief every time someone of your ethnicity or religion dies, but indifference when they don't have the same heritage or religion.

Why is it necessarily bad? It would seem to be bad only if that indifference leads to immoral treatment of the other, rather than be in of itself a bad thing to feel no emotion or little emotion when the other suffers a tragedy.

To imply that it's bad is to suggest that we ought to respond to a certain way, but we don't do that at all. Someone close to my Mum died recently, I don't really feel anything but if my Mother or someone close to me were to die i know I would be devastated. Am I at fault for not feeling deep emotional distress over a stranger's death?

Our emotional compassion is a limited resource and not something we can easily control. What we do would seems to matter more than how we feel in any particular instance.

I don't think Muslims are wrong to care more about their coreligionists dying than Christians dying at the hands of Muslim Extremists. I don't think some Christians are wrong to care more about Christians dying or being persecuted than other groups. Luckily God has built us all differently and there are those within the Church with the necessary compassion to minister to Non-Christian while there are also those within the Church to minister to Christian concerns. Both seem to be to exhibit two kinds of love, one for the enemy and one for the brother.

 

[Haramis]

When people feel just as bad when Christians get killed like the Nigerian Christians than I will feel a bit more bad for others.

I don't really feel anything but if my Mother or someone close to me were to die i know I would be devastated. Am I at fault for not feeling deep emotional distress over a stranger's death?

Nope, but I covered that. I don't care about any of the above. You have no real concept of the six billion other people on the planet. What's weird is that OP doesn't care about strange people dying(normal), but suddenly does when you add "They were the same ethnicity/nationality/religion as you".

Obviously OP is dealing with some type of internal doubt or he wouldn't make this thread. My opinion is it's a call from the Spirit to untangle feelings for people based on the actions of others.