As for why I started this thread, I’ve seen other things on the news which I found too disturbing to Pit, so I haven’t done so, only to find them turning up in the BBQ Pit a few days later, sometimes with information which contradicts what I know. I figured that since I was having a lousy morning anyway, I may as well be the one to start it. At least the local paper seems to be pretty good at getting their facts straight, or at least consistent with the news stories I hear on the local news before the paper arrives.
And this is exactly why I abandoned religion and am now an athiest. Because religion just plain doesn’t make sense and in my time of need (two of my daughters died in infancy) was not of any comfort. People kept telling me that it was “god’s will”.
It is a convenient way for the religious types to remove themselves from having empathy with human suffering and thus stay comfortably above it all. To me that’s weak and it’s selfish and it doesn’t help anyone.
My hard and jaded side answers your query. For too many, the desire for instant gratification trumps reason, logic, and rules of basic humanity. The assailant wanted a newborn without having to experience morning sickness, sleeping discomfort, stretch marks, OB visits, vaginal delivery, or postpartum depression. So what if she has to club someone in the head and cut them open? When we become so totally self-obsessed, others don’t factor into our thinking, and their sufferings are therefore, a non-issue. It’s prevalence is a sad comment on society, IMO.
There’s sometimes a similar double standard on the non-religious side though, where everything bad is God’s fault and anything good would have happened anyway. Neither side really plays fair.