As much as I'd love to reverse a tragedy (especially one where I lost a loved one), I'd have to say I wouldn't reverse (prevent?) any one of them. I know, that makes me sound could and calloused,why wouldn't someone want to save lives or preempt suffering? But what if by reversing one tragedy, you initiated 2 more? Let's say, for example, you prevented WWII. Yes, millions of lives would be saved as well as alleviating untold suffering. However, a lot of medical advances were made because of that war. Without it, they may have never been discovered - or were discovered years later. what about the people that were saved by those medical advances? What if, say (purely hypothetical), by not having those medical advances (at that time) what if the father of Bill Gates wasn't born? Then he wouldn't have been born either (no Windows operating system). Consequently, everything he did in his life (good or bad) wouldn't have happened either. If that war hadn't happened, any good that happened because of it also would never have happened (good friendships, acts of heroism and mercy, marriages, etc.). Some of those deeds have shaped (created) entire families,who, if the tragedy was erased, might not exist.. nor their children or their children's children..... nor anything anyone of them has done - good or bad (butterfly effect).
Again, I don't mean to sound callous and cold, but everything that happens has a way of creating ripples (like when you toss a stone into a pond). Anything those ripples bump into causes some of the ripples to go in another direction... and so on. Preventing just one past tragedy could alter the way things are now. Maybe for the good or maybe for the bad... or maybe in a way that has yet to unfold in the ripples of time. Yes, preventing a tragedy is a good thing, but going back and undoing one from the past may cause more harm than good. In my opinion.
Hi shuhak. Glad to see you again m'dear. I've missed our chats. There was an episode of the TV series Star Trek decades ago that covered this very thing. They went back in history because they wanted to prevent a woman from dying. Somehow they saw what would happen if they did that and you are right. Great calamity befell the earth because everything is tied together and a ripple here and there has a consequence there wherever that there is. So they didn't save her and the projected world in chaos never happened. Which also reminds me of the poet John Donne whose poem "no man is an island entire of itself......never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" also covers this subject tangentially. Thank you for your thoughtful answer and Happy Sunday to you! :) Oh I have my own classification on Answermug because I was driving the people who try to put questions in the proper classification crazy. My questions are usually compound and they were having a really hard time deciding where they belong. So the Site owner came up with this solution. :)
Splendid m'dear. We were chatting regularly and then I got my own location and you disappeared. I was going to contact you to let you know that I became a "choice" but I didn't want to appear pushy. I figured that if you were supposed to find me you would and you did! Sometimes it's good to just sit back, stay calm and see what happens! I am very impressed that you are able to give me the precise episode to which I referred. That was a very sad episode to me but it gave dimension to what would seem to be a no-brainer. Just go back and fix things. Well what you fix could well cause the end of the world. So just leave it alone and accept it. Thank you for your reply Shuhak and Happy Monday! :)
I would reverse quite a few events if I could, but if I had to pick just one right at this moment I would stop the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting from happening for sure. I wouldn't think twice about it. 20 first grade children and six teachers murdered for nothing. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard of.
I know my question is really hard to answer Chloe because sadly there are so many tragedies from which to choose. I think you have chosen well. The senseless slaughter of little children I think will always haunt us. Unconscionable and of course not a dam* thing was done about it despite the pleading of the parents and their continued vigils in the offices of the politicians for months thereafter. But the recent Florida slaughter is different. The teens are taking over and have served notice on Pols who take money from the NRA. They will be kicked out of office. Also as of yesterday 20 companies had severed ties with the NRA. This time MAYBE the carnage/massacre/slaughter WILL MATTER enough to change things. There is going to be a huge march on Washington March 24. MARCH FOR OUR LIVES. Created by teens. I wonder how many will show up? Millions perhaps? Thank you for your reply and Happy Sunday! :)
Well, Christ's death of course---how tragic that the bastard son of a carpenter who had so fully transformed himself into a man of such knowledge and promise was struck down in the prime of his life.
(Unless this is the first post / answer of mine that you have seen, you will know that I am not even close to being serious with this answer.)
Could you give me a serious answer tom? I know the question is difficult to answer because there are so many tragedies from which to choose. I found the use of the word "bastard" quite shocking. I wonder why you chose it? Anyway thank you for your reply and Happy Sunday. I think of doofus don as a bas**rd and all his toady lemmings. They are bas**rds too. But Jesus even in jest? Would you call Buddha a bastard? Or Gandhi? Oh well perhaps it was just something you felt like writing and there is no significance to it. Some things are like that.
[Actually, I first heard reference in the book The Jesus Myth by Andrew M Greely (Diocesan priest, sociologist by trade, and excellent writer. He also wrote quite a few best selling fiction novels that always---as part of the story---did a great job in elucidating how everyday Catholics with a accurate knowledge of Catholic principles handled what many outside Catholicism think to be silly or ridiculous. The second reference to the tragedy of such a life cut short comes from one of CS Lewis's characters in The Great Divorce where Lewis shows an example (obvious in context) of someone in a fictional world "just didn't get" the significance of Christs birth, death, and resurrection.)
Too many who are not Catholics think we are unaware of or refuse to acknowledge the derisive comments or thoughts of people who do not believe that Christ was God as well as man.
Many of the Jews raised an eyebrow about Mary in that relationship with Joseph and were sure he had been cuckolded.
We Catholics tend to be more informed, more conversant with the bible, and open to the constant input that God sends (when asked) to us as we live, and better read---than some "non"-Catholics imagine.
But a serious answer is that there is nothing I would change---each of us is an instantaneous product of everything that has happened to us and our response to those things. It's sort of like the "butterfly effect," but more an acknowledgement that "the process of change is not something we should try to get done with as soon as possible, because change is a law of our being."
(And in a way, perhaps change is one of those absolute truths you asked about.)
This post was edited by tom jackson at February 26, 2018 4:40 AM MST
Well if shock was the goal you achieved it. Okey dokey. There was an episode of Star Trek in which the crew went back in time to save the life of some woman they held dear. But they were able to see the consequences of what that act would have been...headlines of worldwide catastrophes beyond their imagination. So with great reluctance they did nothing to save her and came back to their own time. It is true that life is a tapestry and pulling one thread because it is irregular may lead to destruction of the tapestry in its entirety. Of course one cannot escape the truth of John Donne's poetry with regard to this. "No man is an island entire of itself...each man's death diminishes me....never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee". We can never know how a word or a deed has harmed/helped/changed someone's life if even only a tiny bit. But then you see we face the question of inevitability, predetermination, predestination don't we? If everything is already mapped out (by whom or what is not in question here) then no matter what we do everything will end up the same won't it? Because whatever we do was already anticipated and made allowances for. I dunno. I ebb and flow between reincarnation and dying/going on to a "better place'. I never am able to envision death and then nothing forever after. My imagination does not stretch that far. You say the process of change is an absolute truth. What do you think about "the more things change the more they stay the same"? I"m gonna ask and see what folks say. It's a heavy question and many people avoid heavy. Thank you for your reply and Happy Monday! :)
I had to look up "idiom" tom. I've heard it but never checked out the definition. Now I do know. Slang . Colloquial. Jargon. Cant. Argot. Patois. Well there is no qualifier there. No "sometimes" or "often" preceding "the more". Just a flat statement. So it seems absolute to me. I'm not trying to be difficult here. It is simply how I read and comprehend it. You know semantics gets in the way all the time. We think we are talking about the same thing but in fact we aren't because our perception/understanding/comprehension of words is not identical. There is no way to know that unless you belabor every word you use and take it apart to examine it and compare what you think it means to what I think it means. That would be arduous, unwieldy, impractical so we just assume the words we use mean the same thing to both of us. They call it "the circle of life". Which means you end up right back where you began doesn't it? In The Lion King the young cub is held up on top of the mountain and is going to live the same life his father did and he will end up holding up his cub on a mountain top and so on and so on and so on. SIGH. It's complicated. Thank you for your reply! :)
This is a VERY difficult question to answer, but I think if I could reverse one tragic event, it would be the downing of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Almost 3,000 souls lost their lives in those buildings, not to mention all the deaths attributable to those first responders and others who worked on the pile to search for people. That event altered thousands upon thousands of lives, directly and indirectly. It has put us in a 16+ year war in Afghanistan, destabilized the Middle East, birthed many terrorist organizations besides Al Qaeda, and taken the lives of countless military troops.
While Sandy Hook was a great tragedy that took the lives of so many young, innocent children, and while it affected many, many people, it didn't come close to the effect that 9/11 had on the entire country.
D'y know what's so sad Spunky? As I was going through different tragedies in my mind I complete FORGOT about 9/11! I did. Now how can that be you ask? Well there have been a plethora of tragedies since then and while it is always going to reside in my subconscious there is only so much room in my conscious mind apparently and 9/11 got shoved down. Which gives me another question to ask. Your choice is sound and it would have been far better had it never happened. As far as we can presume. Thank you for your reply m'dear!
This post was edited by RosieG at February 27, 2018 7:15 AM MST
I understand completely. It's hard to keep track of all the terrible events since then and we have a tendency to recall the most recent ones. Perhaps it comes to me more readily because I live in NYC. Happy Monday. :)
I didn't say Sandy Hook because of the body count, but rather the age and situation with which those deaths occurred. At the time of that shooting I had a five year old child and I could not fathom anyone wanting to hurt such an innocent being. It really crushed me. I agree that 9/11 was tragic, but If you're going to start just listing tragedies based on body count then you should go all the way back to the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or maybe stop the Holocaust from happening or the war in 1941 between Germany and Russia where millions of people died. My point is that the Sandy Hook tragedy has signifigance in my mind because I had a small child at that moment and I was terrified to leave him at school and I went through a lot of anxiety and real depression over that shooting. I cried a lot. I understand that you are from New York so 9/11 means more to you, but let's not start comparing these events because if you're just talking body count there have been much worst in history.
The question did not specify parameters, i.e., how many died, whether they were children or not, etc. Each of us was to decide which event we would undo and I chose the one that affected me the deepest. I understand that your choice was based on your life and mine is based on mine. I did not base my choice merely on body count. I based it on the ripple effect that 9/11 had on the souls who died, the families and friends their deaths affected, and the world events that were irreparably changed. That doesn't make my choice any less valid, so please don't diminish MY choice because your criteria was different.
After you stated your choice you then went out of your way to compare it to Sandy hook. Saying that it didn't come close to the affect that 9/11 had. I'm just informing you that if you're going to start diminishing other people's responses you should understand that 9/11 wasn't the biggest tragedy in the world either. I just gave my own individual response. You didn't have to try to out do it as if this a competition to list the worst tragedy. I made my choice you could have just said 9/11 without the extra. Thanks.
Oh, you mean the way you tried to diminish MY opinion because you were more affected by Sandy Hook because you had a child then? It wasn't and isn't a competition. We were asked for our individual opinions and I gave mine. I did not go out of my way to diminish your choice - I merely stated why in MY opinion, 9/11 affected more people than Sandy Hook. MY OPINION. If you can't allow for the opinions of others, perhaps an OPINION site is not for you. I never said 9/11 was the biggest tragedy in the world. I said it was the tragedy I would reverse.
I gave my response first. Then YOU diminished it. Try to spin it all you want, but it doesn't change the truth. Anyone could read this entire thread for themselves and see it. You should take a look at it.
This post was edited by Summer at February 26, 2018 4:08 PM MST
Living at ground zero for such a terrible event would have to keep it live for you. Where the Twin Towers were. Where the monument to it is. There is a monument there somewhere isn't there Spunky? Thank you for your reply and Happy Tuesday! :)
Shuhak 