I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks

> Keep your god out of work!

That is very easy to type from the comfort of your home on your mobile phone.

After several days of deprivations and hardships, including sleeping in a fully-lighted cold cell without even a blanket, you will get any help and support that you can get.

Proselytizing isn't help. A mentally ill woman shrieking about a wizard who lives in the sky isn't support.

The entire country of France manages to have government workers that don't talk to you about their god just fine

And they make great baguettes. But you didn't get my point.

I am an atheist. I do think that what the nurse did is wrong and unprofessional.

My point is: I would still have absolutely clinged to it, if I was in the same situation as this woman. I would have talked with this nurse, and would have told her that yes, maybe God had something to do with it. And you would have too, probably.

If you are drowning in the ocean, you don't discard a piece of floating wood because it has growing fungi. Claiming virtue is very easy ... until you experience real hardship.

Perhaps, but you would not have said that to her if you were there.

I absolutely would have. I don't need the support of an imaginary friend when facing oppressive customs laws.

Only because that person is an implicit threat, not because they are helping. My first thought would be akin to "oh fuck, the lizard people are here now."

Coincidentally or not, this is a standard cult brainwashing technique - abuse someone for an extended period, then offer them a "friend."

See also, good cop vs bad cop.

The thing is, I know that you are not that kind of übermen. Because übermen don't waste their valuable time on Hacker News :).

Fully agree. It's abhorrent. It works, because we are human.

Telling someone in a seemingly hopeless situation that there is a high probability that things will get better because their imaginary friend is more powerful than the machinations of a despotic state is actually preferable to telling them that there's no imaginary friend and nobody is coming to save them. It's a common enough theme in prison camp survival autobiographies.

The so-called "logical" thing to tell them in this hypothetical scenario is not the optimal thing, so maybe it's not the most logical thing to say/do.

I don't think it takes a special kind of person to not be comforted by the imaginary when facing an uncaring machine ready to devour them.

>their imaginary friend is more powerful than the machinations of a despotic state

This is the sort of thing that makes a lot of sense if you have an imaginary friend but sounds a little deranged if you don't.