re: "In the Face of Tragedy, Petitioning God Is an Act of Faith" (The New York Times, March 29, 2023)
While prayer might indeed comfort those now suffering the loss of loved ones, no god will. Perhaps that does not matter: the value of prayer is directly in its balm for they who pray.
But unfounded hope that militates against effective action does matter. Honest realism, however unpleasant, is a healthier prerequisite for assessing and responding to an appalling situation than is hope or faith that is not solidly grounded in reality.
Mr French speaks not only of hope and faith, but also of courage, specifically, of moral courage. That courage in the face of an ugly reality is a more productive response. Courage, as the author says, to do what is right to oppose what is wrong, however hopeless it might seem, and there is much that is wrong in a nation that has such an appalling record of gun violence, amid a hopeless fetishization of guns that goes hand in hand with boastful anti-wokeness to oppose even allowing a courageous facing of the reality in which we humans, including Americans, must live.
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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.
It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/opinion/nashville-shooting-prayer.html#commentsContainer&permid=124090288:124090288
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