# "It's no coincidence that MUSLIM countries were hit the day after CHRISTMAS" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 31, 2004, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414 "2004-12-31T12:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/1 "2004-12-31T12:26:37Z")
I just had another look at the page of photos on [Pbase](http://www.pbase.com/issels/phuket_tsunami&page=1) of the tsunami in Phuket, taken by a tourist, Hellmut Issels, whch was linked to in another thread on this board. Since I first looked at this site, lots of people have added comments. The thread title is copied verbatim from one of those. Quite apart from this type of “humour”: > [@](#): > > I am thinking of doing some major investment in this area. I think the influx of capital could really help some of these local economies. Anyone interested in investing in a few water parks here?? If so, drop me a line and we’ll work out some details. > [@](#): > > From: Dixie Recked Date: 31-Dec-2004 11:09 > Anyone have any pics of bodies. There is a lack of that here on the news coverage. Especially nude ones. kthx which you’d expect from teenagers with nothing better to do, is the rash of comments from “Christians”: > [@](#): > > Have you realized that the tsunami struck the day after Jesus’ birth and hit the largest muslim coumtry (Indonesia), the largest Hindu country (India) and the largest 100% buddist country (Thailand). Don’t you think it is the sign of our Lord? > [@](#): > > If god were really capable of doing something like this, then he would be better off wiping out the muslims. > [@](#): > > The tsunami is not just a punishment of muslims, it’s a punishent of all non-Christians: Indonesia is the largest muslim country, India is the largest Hindu country, Thailand is the largest 100% Bhuddist country. Remember how God killed all fist-borns, God is not all mercyfull, God is powerful. THe end of the world is coming, repent all you sinners. (OK, the last of these is signed “George Bush” and may be meant sarcastically) Where the fuck do people get off writing this sort of crap? In the time it takes to post something like that, they could have been [donating some fucking money instead](http://www.dec.org.uk). Why is it always the wrong people that get hit? If a tidal wave could sweep the Earth and selectively carry these fuckwits off to the fiery pits of Hell, THEN I might start believing in a benevolent God. :mad: Fortunately there are some sane postings there that I can take solace in, but on the whole I agree with this one: > [@](#): > > From: Taelus([Taelus65@yahoo.com](mailto:Taelus65@yahoo.com)) Date: 29-Dec-2004 21:01 > In reading through these postings I have never been more embarrassed to be counted as a member of the human race. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/2 "2004-12-31T12:30:28Z")
People suck. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/3 "2004-12-31T12:34:03Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > People suck. Verily, and most don’t even swallow. ---
**Author:** ![Necro\_Romancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Necro\_Romancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necro_Romancer)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/4 "2004-12-31T12:35:31Z")
Internet! ---
**Author:** ![Necro\_Romancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Necro\_Romancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necro_Romancer)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/5 "2004-12-31T12:39:41Z")
And expanding on my…wonderful…post. > [@](#): > > (OK, the last of these is signed “George Bush” and may be meant sarcastically) No, all of them may be meant sarcastically. For reasons why, check my first post. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/6 "2004-12-31T12:50:31Z")
> [@Necro Romancer](#): > > And expanding on my…wonderful…post. > > No, all of them may be meant sarcastically. For reasons why, check my first post. Possibly, but writing sentences such as the one I quoted in the title, even if meant sarcastically (which I am not at all sure that particular example was), is pretty off colour. Also on that page, but dropped off the bottom by now, was someone calling themself “Sue Nommy” (arf! :rolleyes: ) saying something like “who cares? there are billions of those dirty Asians… it’s not like 9/11”. Pretty obvious trolling, but still pretty inexcusable if you ask me. And I’m sure there are plenty of people who think this was “God’s way of getting rid of some non-believers”. Just check out your nearest purveryor of fundamentalist crap. ---
**Author:** ![Necro\_Romancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Necro\_Romancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necro_Romancer)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/7 "2004-12-31T13:00:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Possibly, but writing sentences such as the one I quoted in the title, even if meant sarcastically (which I am not at all sure that particular example was), is pretty off colour. Absolutely, but still…internet! Very rarely does anonymity and freedom of speech result in something like the Federalist Papers. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/8 "2004-12-31T13:26:09Z")
As expected, Fred Phelps is thanking God for the tsunami, particularly because it killed a number of Swedish tourists. [http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/dec2004/Tsunami\_12-29-2004.pdf](http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/dec2004/Tsunami_12-29-2004.pdf) For a while he hated Canadians more, than any non-US country, but for now it’s the Swedes. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/9 "2004-12-31T13:26:57Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Where the fuck do people get off writing this sort of crap? Where, you ask? I’ll tell ya…[Amendment 1, US consitiution.](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/) Look, all kinds of foolish, hateful, crass and inane commentary exists out there, as well it should, IMO. There is room for every opinion, no matter how daft it seems to you (and, frankly, the rest of us in this case). The only way to look at things like this and not go batshit, is to take it as entertainment. It’s funny to see stupid people doing stupid things, otherwise we’d never go to the movies. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/10 "2004-12-31T13:31:55Z")
See there? Bakers’ post is a prime example. It is the most bitter and at once amusing of ironies that the same Heaven that Phelps likely believes in, will be the same one who rejects his damnable soul right down to the hell he so fears and wishes others into. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/11 "2004-12-31T13:46:37Z")
I was thinking about this (especially since I’ve seen enough similar comments on the Christian board I visit, and elsewhere) that if a Christian actually believed what he claims to believe…that god is good and merciful and wants everyone to be saved by coming to Jesus…and that all people are equally sinners outside of Jesus…wouldn’t they hope that a natural disaster would primarly target Christians and aviod the non-believers? I mean, they just get to go to Heaven (“For those in Christ to die is to gain”). Whereas the non-believer have tragiclly lost their chance to repent and be saved, as god wants them to. Salt of the Earth, my ass :mad: (I am speaking of course, only of the Christian who think that way.) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/12 "2004-12-31T14:05:54Z")
Y’know, for a long time I was fairly ambivalent about Christianity, and religion in general, figuring that the good that sprang from it more or less balanced out the bigotry and intolerance. But these past few years I have come to realise more and more that that is wrong. The downside is far, far, bigger — and even the “upside”, at least in terms of Christian charity, normally comes with the corollary of preaching attached to it. I know there’s plenty of Christians on this board, and I know that Christian != fundie wacko, but I’m sorry, the world would be sooo much better off if nobody believed in this shit. I am just very thankful that my own country has largely escaped the lunatic fringe of Christianity. The only preaching I’m likely to encounter comes from the sort of person that hangs around train stations clutching Tesco bags – the sort of person that takes the “funda” out of fundamentalism, if I might coin a phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/13 "2004-12-31T14:25:33Z")
The fundies who think God punishes people like those in SE Asia and India are ignoring the fact that Jesus himself said folks are not punished for the sins of others. And he healed people without requiring anything in return. When He cured ten men of leprosy, and only one thanked Him, Jesus didn’t make the others sick again, for crying out loud. So to say that non-Christians are punished for not being Christian is a falsehood. It makes me sad that those who profess the same faith I do can still be so hard-hearted. ---
**Author:** ![Misery\_Loves\_Co](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@Misery\_Loves\_Co](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misery_Loves_Co)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/14 "2004-12-31T14:34:22Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > [. . .] “Sue Nommy” (arf! :rolleyes: ) saying something like “who cares? there are billions of those dirty Asians… it’s not like 9/11”… I had a huge case of :rolleyes: two nights ago when a news reporter said something to the effect of: “We americans are no strangers to tragedy - we can sympathize. After all, we had 9/11” Suuuuuuure. . . 5000 dead in a terrorist attack is remotely comparable to 100,000 dead in a natural disaster. Either way you cut it, it’s a stupid comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/15 "2004-12-31T15:12:24Z")
I hang out at several “alternative” (read: tinfoil hat) MBs–Planet X, psychic energy, secret Pentagon scalar weapons, pole shifts, you get the picture–and I find it amusing that, as the death toll creeps steadily upward, some of those tinfoil hat-wearers who are not ostensibly Christian have nevertheless glommed onto the magical “144,000” figure as a way of “predicting” the End Times. And are confidently expecting that when it does reach 144,000, all Hell will–literally–break loose. Fun stuff, watching folks who believe in “Gaia” invoke Pre-Mill Rapture eschatology. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/16 "2004-12-31T15:42:45Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > As expected, Fred Phelps is thanking God for the tsunami, particularly because it killed a number of Swedish tourists. > > [http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/dec2004/Tsunami\_12-29-2004.pdf](http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/dec2004/Tsunami_12-29-2004.pdf) > > For a while he hated Canadians more, than any non-US country, but for now it’s the Swedes. Fred Phelps has pretty much become a parody of himself. I stopped being surprised by him after he picketed Mister Rogers’s memorial service here in Pittsburgh. If Fred fucking Rogers isn’t in Heaven, then who will be? ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/17 "2004-12-31T16:15:39Z")
The repulsive glee thst do many fundies have exhibited in the wake of this disaster only points out more sharply their utter moral bankruptcy. As I’ve always said, fundies are no different than Satanists–they worship powerr, not virtue. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/18 "2004-12-31T16:17:06Z")
It’s funny how some of the least Christian people are the most “Christian” people. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/19 "2004-12-31T16:35:19Z")
Oooookay. Maybe we can get these people to explain why one of the largest earthquakes on record took place on a Christian holiday in a “Christian” county? [The 1964 Good Friday Earthquake.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Earthquake) ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414/20 "2004-12-31T16:44:20Z")
In just a few years, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will come smack in the middle of the North Atlantic hurricane season. I hesitate to predict how fundamentalists (Christian or Moslem) will interpret the results of that particular conjunction… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-no-coincidence-that-muslim-countries-were-hit-the-day-after-christmas/282414.md?page=2)