It’s all explained in the Rules Of Tolerance which state, in part,
You have to respect and fawn over every stupid fucking thing we claim or pretend to believe in, no matter how far fetched. However, we retain the right to shit all over whatever you believe or disbelieve. If you do not cheerfuly accept our disrespect, you are disrespecting us.
Note: Snark and sarcasm are deliberate.
Is that the offense? I didn’t get any of that from any of it. Oh well. I managed to get an entire message board up in arms by suggesting once that the US might have been the teeniest bit responsible for the terrorist attacks on September 11th - I don’t always get the nuances.
Uh… we’re on a section of an internet message board specifically designed for people whining and bitching about other people, either passive-aggressively to a bunch of strangers, and behind the anonymity of a keyboard.
If you think people on Facebook are stupid and immature, it’s because your friends are stupid and immature.
Depends entirely on HOW it was said, and we don’t get a true picture of that from the OP.
Sure, you don’t have to believe what they believe, but the same applies to them. Your belief that you know what is right and what others believe that is different is offensive and contemptable is no different from any other asshole who thinks what they believe is the truth and everyone who thinks differently is stupid and contemptible.
I just respond
“Thanks, I’ll think for you”.
I believe in prayer, and I don’t think I’m crazy. Yes, bad stuff happens. I don’t expect life to be all chocolate and roses. Sometimes the answer to prayer is no.
I also believe in the God-given ability of doctors for healing. Your brain surgeon comment somewhat applies to my life: having a daughter with type 1 diabetes, I believe in the doctor’s ability to treat her disease and keep her not only alive, but thriving. There has been one too many cases in the news recently where parents have only trusted faith-healing to care for their diabetic children, and those children have died. I do not believe those children dying can be the will of God.
And, to answer the OP: I don’t find anything offensive in what she said, and I think if friendships were severed because of that, then some people have some growing up to do. And it being the least they could do: the Palins are in a position where they can help in other ways, so I agree totally with that statement.
I just stole this to use as my Facebook status. I hope you don’t mind.
Hell, I’ve done it because of Farmville requests.
Why do you hate sheep?
OP: “I posted this slightly controversial thing and my friends got upset. Then I said some stuff and now they’re really pissed and some aren’t my friends anymore! What’s wrong with them?”
Hmm. Methinks part of this story is conspicuously absent.
As an atheist I have an equivalent to prayer. It’s called “hoping real hard” and I’m guilty of doing it from time to time.
Something like that, anyway.
Hell, so did I. Godspeed. 
That must be cheaper than medical school. All my doctors had to study, work hard, and spend lots of money to become doctors when all they needed to do was have God give them the talent. I wonder why God gives people in richer countries more doctors than in poor countries. Maybe he hates brown people.
Me too. When I read “we are praying for …” I see it as “we are really hoping for …” But I’m not on Facebook and I don’t have pushy religious friends (any more). I guess I “defriended” them IRL, back before the interwebs got all middle school.
Not quite, but nice try.
I just don’t read it that way at all. I read the idea that praying is the least they can do as pointing out that prayer without changing your actions is pointless. It comes off as if the prayer is insincere.
IOW, if Palin really didn’t want violence to happen, she should be doing something about her rhetoric. As a Christian, I know that “I’ll pray for you” is often just rhetorical, and such a rhetorical remark really is “the least you can do.”
Yeah! And if she didn’t want starvation to happen, she should do something about her gym membership!
You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!
Personally I think expressing anything via facebook is not quite the least you could do - that’d be tweeting it - but it’s certainly right up there. “Something terrible happened. OMG! I’ll express my grief via status update right after I poke all my friends and check on my farmville. John McCain is my neighbor there.”
I feel that regardless of intent, a public figure wishing to make any sort of statement that is to be taken seriously should not use facebook to do it.