A toddler is run over, in plain view. Twice. Then pedestrians and motorists pass right on by. 18 of them.
The article talks about the cultural split (trust vs distrust) in these regions, but ultimately we’re talking about two cultures comprised of human beings. How do human beings, individually or culturally, get to this point?
Two hit-and-run drivers ran over Yueyue, one after another, after she wandered into the alley outside her father’s hardware store. Both fled the scene but are now under arrest.
But there was one thing more shocking than the double hit-and-run: the seeming apathy by pedestrians, cyclists and drivers—18 of them—who did not stop to help.
Yueyue laid motionless in the street for 10 minutes until Chen Xianmei, a 58-year-old woman who collects trash for a living, passed by. She moved her to safety and called for help.
You know my answer already. Communism/atheism teaches that humans are accidental (evolution) and therefore incidental (have no real worth). The state teaches this by example, “running folks over” or subduing them for the needs of the state. Under Communism/atheism, people have no individual worth. Since there is no eternity, you act in the here and now without morality.
I suppose our American culture of atheism explains the Kitty Genovese case as well, eh? Or why atheists constitute the lowest percent of those incarcerated.
YOU ARE STUPID!!! (Sang in that Oprah singing/yelling way. Like “It’s my favorite things show!”) No one thinks that evolution is an accident.
“therefore incidental (have no real worth)”
YOU ARE WORTHLESS!!! (Said in the same Oprah way.) Evolution has nothing to do with the value of something.
"Under Communism/atheism, people have no individual worth. "
YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT!!! (Again Oprah style.)
Atheism doesn’t not teach individual worth. Atheism is the disbelief in god and that is all it is. It is one thing and one thing only that does not mean anything else. How your family loves you is beyond me.
"Since there is no eternity, you act in the here and now without morality. "
YOU ARE A CANCER ON HUMANITY!!! (Oprah style)
Morality has nothing to do with eternity. This has all been explained to you over and over and your dead brain can not even begin to process it. I am afraid for the people you fly. They sit there having no idea their pilot in the front drooling and just staring out the window.
I would like to make the point again that if you are saying these things for comic effect you are terrible at it and all the things I say about you still stand.
His brain is broken. The funny thing is he manages to dehumanize atheists, despite his supposed superior morality. If christ were real he would be ashamed. Guru should also take a step back and read about the reported behaviour of Paul and realize he is so far off the mark it is comical.
I get the feeling that maybe he is trying to be satirical (satire being the highest form of comedy) but he is so awful at that as well I still see him as a sub human piece of shit.
I suppose our American culture of atheism explains the case as well, eh? Or why atheists constitute the lowest percent of those incarcerated.
You never cease to amaze me.
Atheists are a low percentage in the general population too…
Many prisoners also adopt religion while incarcerated
It’s a throw-away talking point, about as relevant to the discussion as is Guru’s, dare I say, asinine assessment of the China situation. Yes, atheists are a small percent of the population (10-20%), but if his godless = amoral/immoral argument is true, then we should see a disproportionately high number of non-believers in prison, should we not?
And yes, people do find faith in prison. Most people, probably, to some extent. So I suppose we should assume that since the majority of parolees recitivise, that they’ve reverted to atheism upon release? Or maybe we can just accept that believers and nonbelievers are both capable of doing bad things, and that whether or not they believe in the existence of a god or gods has little practical bearing on their behavior, in terms of how they treat their fellow man.
His blaming atheism is about as defensible as if I were to blame religious faith as the primary motivation for the attacks on 9/11. Sure, I can draw a line, or connect the dots, but it doesn’t advance the discussion toward a genuine and thorough understanding why what happened, happened.
Isn’t this just an extreme case of the bystander effect? I mean, this is a seriously sickening case, but certainly not out of our human (in)capacity. Sadly.
I read about this yesterday, though, and it did make feel like someone punched me in the gut. The height and depth of humanity…
I’ve thought of the Genovese case as a point of reference, but they’re too dissimilar to draw any relevant inferences. I can understand how people get so conditioned to certain occurrences (sick or injured homeless people, assaults being captured on video rather than interrupted, etc) so that they’re apathetic to the suffering of certain others, but this is an entirely different animal, and I truly don’t know what to make of it.
I may be naive, but I just don’t see that happening here, even in the worst of cases. Not with a child.
Chainpin posted this a couple days ago. One thing mentioned is there are no good samaritian laws in china and people who have helped in the past are force to pay for long term care of the people they helped.
It is very sad, I’m surprised no one mentioned the parents in eather thread. In the US the parents might be held accountable since they let the chlld play in an open air market with trucks running by. There part is minor compared to truck driver, but here the parants are often vilified.
I’m not sure that I’m as confident as you are that such a thing couldn’t happen here, but if you think so, how do you explain the difference? Why do you find guru’s explanation so ridiculous?
**I can understand how people get so conditioned to certain occurrences (sick or injured homeless people, assaults being captured on video rather than interrupted, etc) so that they’re apathetic to the suffering of certain others, but this is an entirely different animal, and I truly don’t know what to make of it. **
I’ll admit that my social psychology class was 18 months ago, but I think this is a misinterpretation of the Genovese case. In that case, people CHOSE to not get involved. It wasn’t that they were conditioned to not pay attention to crime because it happened so often. They chose to not get involved usually because it wasn’t their problem and because they figured that somebody else would get involved. As I recall, there were reports that people were screaming out of the windows for her to shut up. Those responses have been replicated in socio-psychological studies/experiements.
Also, I would not blame atheism. I would possibly look towards the post-modern world though in which atheism is a part. But then, I’m kind of in a dark place right now, so don’t listen to me.
A toddler is run over, in plain view. Twice. Then pedestrians and motorists pass right on by. 18 of them.
The article talks about the cultural split (trust vs distrust) in these regions
I don’t see it as a cultural split at all. There are many cases in the West where citizens ignore cries for help or turn their heads to pretend problems don’t happen.
Man’s inhumanity to man. This is not a culture thing, an atheist thing or a nationalist thing. People do terrible stuff everywhere. Still no excuse though. You help a baby, I don’t give a shit about anything else in you morals, beliefs or culture.
You know my answer already. Communism/atheism teaches that humans are accidental (evolution) and therefore incidental (have no real worth). The state teaches this by example, “running folks over” or subduing them for the needs of the state. Under Communism/atheism, people have no individual worth. Since there is no eternity, you act in the here and now without morality.
In a government-sponsored survey on spirituality in China that was conducted earlier this year, officials were shocked to find that 31.4 percent of Chinese 16 or older are religious, putting the number of religious believers in China at approximately 400 million – way higher than initially thought.
Somewhere between three and four percent of Chinese self-identify as Christian. So depending upon exactly how busy that street was, there’s a reasonable chance that a few Christians walked past her.
I’m not sure that I’m as confident as you are that such a thing couldn’t happen here, but if you think so, how do you explain the difference?
I’m no sociologist, but I believe the factors referenced in the article, by social scientists who understand that cultural history, have everything to do with it. There appears to be a social dynamic created from the convergence of separate cultures, that has resulted in unusually high levels of distrust and fear. Generally speaking, I think you’d be hard pressed to find those exact conditions in any one place here in the US. Hell, even our prison subculture enforces harsh penalties against those who violate the social contract to protect children. I wonder if that’s unique to the US, or the Western world.
I don’t think indifference or apathy was at the root of the problem in this incident. It obviously plays some role, but I don’t think that gives us the full explanation.
Why do you find guru’s explanation so ridiculous?
This would not have happened in religious hamlets like Lancaster, PA, or Colorado Springs, or Salt Lake City. Nor would it happen in Palmyra, NJ, if Palmyra were a predominately atheistic Secular Humanist community. There was, I think it’s safe to say, a deficit of values displayed in that video, but that deficit cannot simply be explained by the absence of God, any more than a culture that submits to Sharia and buries women to their necks for stoning can be said to exist as they do simply because they believe in God. It’s much more complex than Guru would have anyone (himself included) believe.
I didn’t mean that to be an explanation of the Genovese case, but I can see why you took it that way. I was just alluding to one of the more common phenomenon in our culture that, on the surface, seems to show callous indifference toward those in need. There was a study broadcast on CBS sometime recently that focused on this (how people would respond to a person in emotional distress when passing by in a hurry), that I had in mind at the time.
It seems China is reeling from this as well, which gives me hope that this occurred in a shit storm of psychosocial conditions that don’t exist in most places, and doesn’t accurately represent the people of China (godless heathens though they may be).