The frenzy and irrational behavior that has become Black Friday is a microcosm of what is wrong in this country. Most people in this society lack anything spiritual to cling to. They replace those things which are most important with the euphoria of shopping for, in most cases, completely unnecessary items and merchandise. They get caught up in the whole craziness of Black Friday. They feel they have to shop in order to feel like they are a part of something.

People should take a step back and analyze their lives and find something other than materialistic things to follow. This country has been headed down the wrong path for a long time. Just look at your local news and it won't take long to note how senseless our people have become. It is insanity.

How does it get fixed? I'm not sure. Hopefully, things will change soon.

I doubt you are correct. The fundamentalist movement is a strong ally of Walmart and the "uber" consumer. Two side of the same coin. Buying "salvation" and happiness.

There are truely spiritual people out there but thet are a tiny minority of the religious. You are far more likely to find an athiest who has control over their shopping impulses than a religious person.

Didn't Focus on the Family just come out with a campaign to boycott retailers who failed to use Christmas in their marketing materials?

This is funny, I was about to write a long post about how you were wrong, and then I realized I simply read the last sentence of your post wrongly. I thought you said that atheists DON'T have more control over shopping impulses. But you are indeed correct. The thuroughly religious person lives through the present moment and lets their impulses guide them. That's how they found God, right? By letting themselves see 'the light' through peer pressured impulses? If they were indeed filled with the light and kindness and sight of God, wouldn't at least one person out of this mass horde of people realized that they had been trampling over a living person? Or were they too ravashed by killer deals that they just thought the guy would be able to get up on his own?

I've never even been in a mosh pit that bad, and even in the worst and most violent of mosh pits, they were not as bad as this. If someone simply lost their glasses or something fragile in a mosh pit people would stop to help the person find whatever it is. I've seen it happen several times. So how is is that these satan-worshipping death-metal gothed-out violence-loving junkies have enough sense to help out another, and stop moshing IF someone is seriously hurt, while the shoppers of the most religiously out there grocery retail shop, (My man worked at Wal-Mart for some time, and said that they intertwine religion and and the rules of the workplace) would, in groups of a thousand or more, break open the doors of their favorite store and literally trample a man to death. These things don't just happen. They are not accidents. I say it is not an accident because it was more than one person. EVERY person that trampled on, by or over this man COULD HAVE STOPPED, and COULD HAVE HELPED. It is because the Black Friday even causes a FIGHT or FLIGHT response or something like that, and causes people to act irrationally. It is pathetic that people can let a corporate company that outsources basically every product (Thus making the money from those purchases going somewhere else, instead of keeping it on our own soil, which is what we need to be doing right now in order to preserve our economy.) control their actions into a violent frenzy. We are going back to our basic instincts of survival, and survival of the fittest now means the person that can get to the tickle-me-elmo is 2.3 seconds flat and hold onto it for dear life before they get to the register is the most fit to survive. We are evolving backwards.

Can we not make sweeping generalizations about how religious people lack impulse control and atheists are better shoppers? How about: some people, regardless of their religious beliefs, are rude, pushy, selfish, greedy, and insensitive, while others, regardless of their religious beliefs, are civil, patient, kind, and polite? Plus, the truly thoroughly religious person probably doesn't actually live in the moment, being guided only by their impulses. Many religious people try very hard to be guided by their principles and moral beliefs, rather than their momentary emotional impulses. I bet that many atheists do the same. Some people who call themselves religious do a poor job of living up to their professed ideals. Not all religious people have the same beliefs or belong to the same religion or act the same way. Let's avoid the inaccurate and totally unhelpful stereotypes.

You're right. It is more like the people that just are not connected with the life of others that surround them? There are bad people in every type or person, whatever sex, race, or religion. It's more about the way that they were raised by their parents, and what kind of importance they put into communicating and working with and around other people, who are just like you, trying to live their lives the same way you are. Whenever I get onto the subject of the amount of people that just don't really care about the things that really matter, and only care about whatever the media tells them to care about, it always comes down to parenting. So to the parents out there, reading these messages, pay attention to your kids so they don't end up one day being part of a giant stampedes that injures, maims, and kills. Answer them whenever they ask why, as incessent as it may be. They ask why for a reason, they want to know. If you do not tell them, how will they know? The media. Be a parent, don't let the media replace you in your children's lives. The amount of children still unable to speak in sentences by the age of 5 is completely disturbing. Children can begin speaking audible syllables and words before they are one year old. Take advantage of this, teach them everything you can. Your lessons should completely outnumber the amount of lessons the TV gives them. As cliche as it sounds, you must, please, pay attention to your children. They are your own future.