I wasn’t going to throw my hat into this ring. Another voice wouldn’t make any difference to the already far-too noisy circus swirling around the Sandy Hook massacre, but I just can’t let this one go. I’ve tried to ignore it, but it now seems I’m unable to pull that trick off. So please, take a moment to digest the email below. I mean really digest it. Let it swash around in your head and give the words enough time to be tasted by every synaptic bundle you’re in possession of. It was sent on Friday the 14th of December by a Kristin of Virginia to a FB page I follow, Global Secular Humanist Movement.
“You and people like you are responsible for the shootings that happened in Connecticut school, you took GOD away from our schools and now he is not there to help us. Please God have mercy on America.”
I’m assuming this Kristin is an adult. I’m also assuming those around her – her family, work colleagues and friends – think her to be of a sound mind; a sane, presumably able-bodied human being. Well, I have news for Kristin’s family, work colleagues and friends: she’s not. She’s ill. She is a sociopathic delusional hazard, a deranged individual living inside a fantasy no less frightening or potentially destructive than the sickness that riddled the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza. Kristin of Virginia needs help. Adults conducting relationships with imaginary friends need help.
Now don’t get me wrong. Inventing and engaging with imaginary companions in early childhood is a vital part of developmental psychology. Those who dream up friends are found to be more creative and socially advanced. They use more complex sentence structure, have more diverse and richer vocabularies, and get along better with classmates. The explanation arrived at by Evan Kidd of Melbourne’s La Trobe Universe is that children who create imaginary companions (an activity centered in the frontal cortex, the last great physical evolutionary shift completed around 6,600 generations ago) give themselves a chance to practice both sides of the conversation. They try on different roles, wear different hats, think abstractly, and by doing so tease out more original ideas. That type of creativity is wonderful. It’s socially useful, a magnificent craft, a priceless Paleolithic artifact, but that talent turns positively putrid when adults with adult-sensibilities, responsibilities and powers drag those imaginary friends into adulthood and ascribe to them new names like ‘angels’ and ‘god’ and then pit them against elaborate imaginary foes who go by names like ‘demons’ and ‘satan.’
To Kristin of Virginia I can only say this: grow the fuck up.
Amen
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I hear you!
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Seconded.
Great post. I see more than my fair share of the godbag speak here on the wp blogs. I wonder if those who engage in the such active confabulation know how ludicrous they sound? I’m wearing out my forehead with the amount of *facepalm* necessary when dealing with the deluded.
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I know the feeling. Engage strategically, mock and ridicule when necessary, let them know the ground they think is solid is actually less dense than smoke.
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Good post!
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Thanks!
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I am an atheist and I refrained from making any comments regarding religion and much less link this tragedy to religion (heck for all we know the shooter was prolly Christian himself)…. for the simple reason that the proper thing to do is to shut up and just be quiet.
Leave it to the Christians though to look for and blame the “enemies” where there is none. We’ve already established that they are delusional…
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It’s a sign of weakness, Joseph.
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Don’t hold your breath.
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I won’t, but we can hope. After seeing that email i just couldn’t get it out of my head. I know Bryan Fischer, Huckabee and other “Christian figureheads” have said the exact same thing, but this Kristin got under my skin for some reason. Perhaps its because she’s not a figurehead earning Bazzilions from this sick religious game. This poor hopeless creature actually believed that shit. Made me sad, and that makes me angry.
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I understand John and I sympathise. I guess, as I get older, I’m just becoming “comfortably numb”.
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It really is hard to be still about such foolish things. I for one am glad you didn’t ‘shut the xxxx up’.
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Thanks Mixedupmeme
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Emails like hers are the reason we NEED to remove God from schools. People like her were raised believing in God and now as an adult feel that God could have protected those Sandy Hook children. Neither the presence nor absence of God would have change the outcome of this shooting. It still would have happened. God wasn’t going to save them. It’s a harsh reality to a world who for so long believed in this all-powerful creator/protector, but the problem then is that when bad things happen, people point a finger. Kristin is BLAMING the school for what happened. She’s trying to say it’s the school’s fault that some derranged psychopath came in a murdered everyone, and that is probably the most disgusting part of all.
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Agreed
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EXCELLENT post. Really glad I came across this.
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Glad you found it! I’m loving the shitstorm you’ve stirred up over on your blog. Excellent work, sir!
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Haha. If you’re interested in stirring up a shitstorm, then we both seem to enjoy the same things.
Larry
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Kristin is ill. Indeed. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that people like this exist. It is a tad bit scary.
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The Kristins of this world scare me.
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Couldn’t agree more.
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Brilliant post! Thanks to Meme for bringing me here 🙂
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She’s a good woman that Meme!
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Very special! 🙂
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They need to grow up really fast!
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🙂
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But you can understand the appeal … my imaginary friend has superpowers and know you’re sinning!
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That sounds like the script pitch for a 1970’s German porno 😉
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Interesting field of expertise to have!! 🙂
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🙂
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