What a delight!  CNN has provided space for a well known atheist to discuss current events and grief.  As our numbers continue to grow we will get more attention in the media.  This story was written by Lawrence Krauss.

It is impossible not to grieve with the families in Newtown, Connecticut, who have experienced such tremendous loss, just as it is impossible to not hope for anything that can provide some comfort.

All of us who have had children in primary school at one time or another stopped in our tracks when we heard the news, just as President Barack Obama did, as we tried to imagine how we would have coped had something so horrendous happened in our own child’s school.

You don’t need god, you don’t need to believe in a sky daddy to feel for these families.  I have two children in high school and would be in shock if something like this happened in their school.  It is hard to even imaging the emotions involved with the families that have lost innocent children.

But why must the nation grieve with God? After Newtown, a memorial service was held in which 10 clergy and Obama offered Hebrew, Christian and Muslim prayers, with the president stating: ” ‘Let the little children come to me,’ Jesus said, ‘and do not hinder them. For such belongs to the kingdom of Heaven.’ God has called them all home. For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on.”

Religion does not provide strength.  It provides the weak a place to hide.  A false hope that it will be OK or that those that have died are in a better place.  It is a sick little torture that retards the natural grieving process.  Those 20 children and 6 adults are gone!  Forever!

We are told the Lord works in mysterious ways but, for many people, to suggest there might be an intelligent deity who could rationally act in such a fashion and that that deity is worth praying to and thanking for “calling them home” seems beyond the pale.

It is!  The belief in this system of lies leads to crazy reactions.

Mike Huckabee suggested that because we are keeping God out of schools, the Deity chose not to stop the slaughter of these young innocents.

If true, this would make god and evil jerk.  If I had the power to stop 26 deaths, I would.  You would not have to ask, you would not have to thank me.  It would simply be the right thing to do.

Why can’t we as a nation focus on consoling the families in their grief by focusing on the most important realities, the lives of the children they have lost, celebrating their memory and sharing our common love of family, of children, and of our common humanity and perhaps most importantly arguing that this tragedy may one day not be completely in vain: That a shocked nation might rationally decide that assault weapons are meant to kill many people in a short time, not to hunt for deer or defend one’s home.

Let us accept the reality of what has happened and look for solutions.