"It's no coincidence that MUSLIM countries were hit the day after CHRISTMAS"

[Rayne_Man]

I thought we were more or less free of this thinking in the UK but I was wrong . This is a reply I received when I mentioned these crazy theories on a UK message board

*We just don’t know why it happened but you cannot discount the theory that it was a deliberate act of God, no matter how distasteful you think that theory is (I think it is terrrible, but the way). It helps nobody to say it out loud and if you think that in private you shouldn’t broadcast it to a shocked world.

But this is the second year in a row that a natural disaster has happened on Boxing Day (last year it was the earthquake in Iran).

If the Old Testament is to be believed (and I do believe it) God flooded the world when he became unhappy with the people living on it. The bible does not comment on how many lives were lost, but surely it was many. If that happened, why not this?

I was asked the other day about how God can exist when there is so much suffering in the world, well I would say that there may be much suffering during our 100 years on earth, but for eternity in paradise it is not a very big price to pay.*

[rjung]

If the tsunami is supposed to be evidence of God’s existence, then I say it’s also evidence that God is an evil, brutal beast not worthy of worship.

[gum]

@rjung

If the tsunami is supposed to be evidence of God’s existence, then I say it’s also evidence that God is an evil, brutal beast not worthy of worship.

Amen.

[GIGObuster]

http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=53383

Car Nicobar’s famous church flattened by tsunami:
[India News]: Port Blair, Jan 1 : The famous John Richardson church in Car Nicobar in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been completely destroyed by the giant tsunami that also killed thousands in the pristine archipelago.

“Nothing remains of the church,” moaned pastor Silvanus, who has just been rescued by navy from Car Nicobar, part of the archipelago which has 572 islands, islets and rocks in the Bay of Bengal.

Officially named the St. Thomas Cathedral Church, it was established in the 1930s during British colonial rule and was one of the oldest and most distinguished churches in the region.

The name John Richardson comes from late local hero and missionary Bishop John Richardson who spread Christianity across the Andamans, was a legendary do-gooder and was even nominated to parliament by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

He died in 1978 and this year a special statue dedicated to him and a stadium named after him were to open in Car Nicobar. But everything was washed away by the tsunami.

Even the guesthouses, which were to keep Andaman and Nicobar Lieutenant Governor Ram Kapse when he would arrive to inaugurate the statue and the stadium, were completely destroyed.

That, and the fact that the Mosque in Banda Aceh remains standing must be pure coincidence…

Although I would like to think that Fred Phelps’ head would blow up after learning of that coincidence.

[SolGrundy]

@MrFantsyPants

No, what these people are saying is that 150,000 non-christians dying is a good thing. It’s the difference between saying that “the world would be better off if there were no alcoholics”, vs “all alcoholics deserve to die”.

There is an enormous difference. One is perfectly fine and good, the other is hateful and wrong. And one does not necessarily imply the other.

I’m just checking in to say that I read your response, but anything more I say on the topic would end up sounding like I’m defending the assholes who wrote those posts quoted in the OP. And I sure as hell am not going to do that.

[Yeticus_Rex]

@trublmakr

According to an 85-year-old WWII veteran I come into contact with at work, the real reason behind the tsunamis is to show us that the 1,000+ casualties in the Iraq war is really nothing to complain about. How can we bitch about our war dead when see, it could be so much worse? Support the troops! :rolleyes:

I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t involve screaming and assault on his person, so I just changed the subject.

I usually will cut WWII vets some slack for some of their prejudices that they learned back in THEIR day. My FIL still uses the slang “Japs” (although over the years, he’s been using it less and less) because of his encounters with the Japanese army in the South Pacific. His bigotry will die with him someday and not be carried on by his daughters, son-in-laws or grandchildren. Other than that, he is a fine upstanding citizen of 82 years. With the crap he endured back then, he certainly earned my respect.

When he says “Support the Troops”, he simply wants to return the favor that was given to him back in his day as honorable support. Let the other stuff slide off and just placate the old man’s ramblings and just his own “old-school” ramblings, and nothing else.

[Miller]

@Colophon

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.

So, what? You think that if nobody had ever heard of Jesus, the people posting to that board would automatically be filled with compassion and empathy for the suffering of others? Bullshit. They’d just find some other way to seperate the “them” from the “us.” Take God out of the equation, and they’d be saying the same sort of shit using nationality as the excuse. Or race. Or any other piddling excuse they can find to advertise their inhumanity. Religion doesn’t make people evil. Nor does it make people good. Religion is the excuse people use to justify whatever behavior they personally feel is proper. Making Fred Phelps into an atheist wouldn’t make him a decent person. Neither would doing the same make Polycarp into an utter bastard. Religion does not shape a man’s soul, it is an expression of the soul he already has.

What it comes down to, really, is that there is only one basic division in humanity. It’s not Christian versus heathen. It’s not black versus white. It’s not the USA versus terrorists, Republicans versus Democrats, pro-choice versus pro-life, gay versus straight, Mac versus PC, vegetarian versus carnivore, red versus blue, or any of that crap. It’s assholes versus decent people, and anyone who tells you different is probably in the former category.

[Clothahump]

@SolGrundy

And that is what’s more troubling to me than any of the idiocy you quoted in the OP.

The difference is that those “people” (not including the morons who thought they were being funny) posted that bullshit because it’s what they’ve been taught all their lives and they never questioned it, or they’re acting out of fear or misplaced self-righteous.

Your post was the result of your putting thought into the matter, considering the “other side,” and weighing it in your mind. And you still came to a frightfully similar conclusion – that what they believe is “shit”, it’s wrong, that the actions of good people don’t matter, and that the world would be a better place if Christianity didn’t exist. And you don’t seem to recognize this as intolerance, how it’s not much better than saying that non-Christians are being somehow “punished” for believing the wrong thing.

I dunno. I say we’re better off not believing in that shit because ALL organized religions are nothing more than lying scams, con games of the biggest magnitude. I’d like to give Colophon the benefit of the doubt and assume that he thinks the same.

[SolGrundy]

@Miller

They’d just find some other way to seperate the “them” from the “us.” Take God out of the equation, and they’d be saying the same sort of shit using nationality as the excuse.
[…]
Religion does not shape a man’s soul, it is an expression of the soul he already has.
[…]
What it comes down to, really, is that there is only one basic division in humanity. It’s not Christian versus heathen. It’s not black versus white. It’s not the USA versus terrorists, Republicans versus Democrats, pro-choice versus pro-life, gay versus straight, Mac versus PC, vegetarian versus carnivore, red versus blue, or any of that crap. It’s assholes versus decent people, and anyone who tells you different is probably in the former category.

Damn. What he said.

Could I get a mod to come in and replace every post I’ve ever made about “tolerance” with these two paragraphs?

[Colophon]

Amen to that. Well said Miller.

I’d like to clarify that I don’t have a problem with faith, per se. It’s organised religion, bigots, and people with stupid fucking holier-than-thou stickers on their cars that get my goat. (The first two more so, slightly.)

[Twoflower]

@Duck Duck Goose

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.

And from AP

@AP

The official death toll from the Asian tsunami climbed dramatically to 147,000 Friday

I’m waiting …