Big Brother Is Oh-So-Thoughtful
June 16, 2015
SAGE McLAUGHLIN writes:
Don’t you hate the modern secular trope, recited on television and radio whenever some tragedy strikes, that “our thoughts” are with the afflicted? Our thoughts? What does that even mean?
Laura writes:
I’ll tell you what it means. Translation:
“Even though we, your media overseers, seem to lie to you everyday by entirely ignoring or suppressing the truth about all kinds of things, we are still in touch with life and are actually very compassionate. We are also not so rigid and uptight that we would pray.“
— Comments —
Dnr writes:
The “thoughts are with them” meme has annoyed me for quite some time, as well. I also believe that the mention of “thoughts and prayers” is blasphemy – in that the “thoughts” (of man) are always mentioned before “prayers” (presumably to Almighty God), as though to elevate man’s feeble efforts above the supplications to and response of God. The thoughts of man are fleeting and probably don’t last as long as the mention of them. What power do they truly hold? And who knows to whom the prayers (if any) are actually sent?
Henry McCulloch writes:
On target again! Godless (I won’t say soulless; everyone has a soul even if he ignores it) media and political types who say “our thoughts are with” some unfortunate whom they don’t know and about whom they almost certainly don’t care are insulting as well as annoying.
Dnr’s comment that to say “thoughts and prayers” is blasphemous is ranking mere stray thoughts ahead of prayers, which presumably are both volitional and well-intended, is a good point that had never occurred to me before. Another strike against the public-life cretins who toss the phrase out so thoughtlessly.
I believe to say to, or even of, someone that “my/our prayers are with you” is legitimate — but only if it is true. It may be that some of the public figures who resort to “our thoughts and prayers…” actually mean prayers and are cloaking that with a reference to thoughts to conform to that all-important separation of Church and state we’re all supposed to believe in, and to keep secularist harpies from making life difficult for them.
Trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but probably just giving too much credit…
