In which I concur with Amynda:
The TV is tuned to ESPN, and of course, they’re doing a sob piece grasping for some way to draw a connection between Virginia Tech’s football team playing football and the tragic shooting last spring. God, lit candles, school spirit, it’s all very grotesque. I wish that just once during one of these sob pieces trying to create a relationship between a sporting event and some senseless tragedy, someone would say, “Well Tragedy X taught me that there is no god, the universe is indifferent to human suffering, and life has no outside meaning, so it’s up to us to make our own meaning. Which is why I like sports.”
I find that sort of thing entirely grotesque as well. It’s emotional pornography for psychic succubi. But the reason no one ever says that sort of thing on TV, isn’t only due to its divergence from the script for live TV coverage of tragedy – how does that make you you feel? – but because even the most socially autistic atheist knows better than to share his “rational” materialism when people are in pain.
Which I think is a pity. Unlike the universe, I wouldn’t be indifferent to his subsequent suffering after getting deservedly punched in the face by the grieving. I’d just be amused.