can someone explain this to me?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60G1YH20100117


???

your nation is devestated by a massive earthquake, possibly hundreds of thousands are dead.... and youre thanking God? i guess id thank him too if i were lucky enough to escape with my life.... but what about all of the people who did die? im sure many of them are better people than i am... yet they die and i live?

and in the article they thank god for protecting their church.... what about all the other churches that were destroyed? i guess the patrons there just werent devout enough... they didnt pray hard enough so they got a taste of gods wrath.... WE LIVE IN A MAD WORLD

sadly, it was a purely random event, and the only expaination for those who live and those who die are the circumstance in which they happened to be in at the time of the disaster. i dont know why this simple explaination is so difficult for so many to understand. there is nothing magical about this world, for better or for worse.

blind devotion leaves people oblivious to the actualities happening around them. i find it as reasonable as others claiming god made the earth quake to punish them.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html

in the news today dumbass people are still dumbasses:P

thank you matt, for your sanity. your like a light house in stormy waters... i felt like i was losing my mind for a minute there

Who was it that said something about you can't change someone's mind with reason when they believe the unreasonable?

First: Pat Robertson can die in a fire while plummeting to his death from a plane 36,000 feet in the air, while having his eyes dangling by a vein through the wind. He uses not only faith for his fame/fortune, he also uses fear-mongering to keep his listeners close. He might as well be walking around with a t-shirt on that says "Thank God for IEDs." It takes an extra special, morally repugnant disgrace to the human race--if you even chose to give him that much credit--to exploit people in such a manner. Not just people, but disasters, which happen on completely natural basis. Hell, not even the disasters, but the VICTIMS of such disasters. This man is an expert in the abuse of human beings as far as I'm concerned: taking advantage of ignorance, faith, fear, tragedy, and the emotions evoked from those tragedies both as people directly affected by x-event and those who want to HELP, to line his wallet.

There is not a person, place or thing more disgusting and revolting than Pat Robertson. DURING A FUCKING CHARITY EVENT for the people of Haiti he brought up that devil worshiping horse shit; he might as well have been saying, "Well, they had it coming and if you help them now, you're aiding the devil."

I just can't find enough words to describe that fucking bastard.

The entire basis of religion is to appeal to the masses--heal the soul--which is why the second you're in, they keep you in by breaking the spirit. It forms utter dependency. That's why, when you first enter a religion, they go about talking about being born into a spiritual debt with interest rates jacked up by the man who has a monopoly on the business. The only "salvation" this ridiculous belief provides is that "everything happens for a reason," and "God has a plan." They "put it in his hands." Unfortunately, God's apparently got butterfingers and while he managed to save one church, hundreds--if not thousands--of others were decimated. In their vulnerability, these people continue to turn to God through good and bad, while all bad is weighed on the scale as man's fault, and all good is God's famous generosity [/sarcasm]; it's a permanent cycle of thought crimes that result in physical punishment. When you're convinced 99% of your natural happenings are sins, every unfortunate event becomes God's retribution.

Uh... end.

I saw this today on Google News, and I reacted the same way! What the hell to Haitians have to be thankful for. I like your explanation JM; after a disaster like that, I might be inclined to thank someone or something for being alive.

After all, people aren't very reasonable creatures...which would be my explanation for this article.

There are many parts of religion and spiritual things that I find very interesting, insofar as they relate to culture and human behavior, BUT something that always bothers me is when I feel people seem to be misguided about religion. For instance, I dislike when people thank God for protecting a church. Why would God have any business affecting the world? For Christians, God and Jesus represent of way of living a good and honest life. God provides a moral compass and an avenue for personal reflection...and perhaps a number of other hazy spiritual benefits. God doesn't protect churches, that's stupid. I'd much rather people be praying to God for guidance on how to rebuild and improve themselves.

Now, before anyone gets upset with me, it's not that I like Christianity or care about religions that much in general, I just wish if people insist on being religious, they should do it properly.

EDIT: DITTO in regards to Pat Robertson.

Legionnaire wrote:

thank you matt, for your sanity. your like a light house in stormy waters... i felt like i was losing my mind for a minute there

<3

*facepalm*


SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!!!!!
MY MOTHER FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA OF A FUCKING POST JUST GOT FUCKING ERASED. I FUCKING HATE THIS HOTEL INTERNET. ONCE AGAIN I CREATED SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL, ONLY FOR IT TO VANISH INTO THIN FUCKING AIR.


*deep breath*


megan, right on brotha. tho i dont necessarily wish all that hamr onto Pat Robertson, i wouldnt mind if he disappeared. i didnt exactly shed a tear for jerry falwell neither

lauren, no one will get mad at you here. i had a long brilliant response mostly affirming your post, but alas, i lack the energy to try and recompose it all. ill just leave it at that. ive been busy thinking and typing all night. too tired to do more

son of a bitch im so mad. i feel like the world just lost something special with the death of my post. like a tremor in the force.

in the future im going to *ctrl C* everything i friggin type before i submit... if i remember to

Maybe they're thankful that God stopped the earthquake before it killed them too?

"Just in time, God. Thank you!" ... simple enough, right?

FML lost another post lol. i forgot to ctrl C. oh well this one wasnt that big of a deal.

but if i just stop posting on this forum alltogether, youll no why.... i just got so friggin fed up with my internet

I'm going to take a rhetorical shot at defending the Haitians:

Jon-Michael. Consider, if you would, that I was god for a moment. If I were to vomit all over you during a peaceful conversation, you would certainly be pissed and I can guarantee that you would never thank me for it, but, you would get over it and we would probably stay friends. Now, if I were to motion my hand and proclaim that you would roll 4 sixes for a DND ability score, you bet you'd be giddy with excitement the moment you saw those 24 beautiful black dots facing you and a quick thanks would be coming my way.

Just because they're thankful to be alive, does not mean they are thankful thousands of people suffered.

aaron, i think you misunderstand.

its not that its absurd that theyre thanking god for others' suffering, its absurd because they think an all good, all powerful being deigned to save them whilst turning his back on others. its like some sort of natural egotrip that superstitious humans go thru when they have a religious experience; they assume theyre special or worthy in some way.

i would think a rational person would just acknowledge that earthquakes happen as a natural phenomena (as a geologist, i know you would appreciate this much), and that the survivors happened to survive merely as a matter of circumstance and not because of some celestial divinity intervening in our mortal world

Legionnaire wrote:

aaron, i think you misunderstand.

Possibly, I didn't read all the posts. Let's try a different approach. The world is full of idiots (well, people much less educated than us). It's easy for us to debunk and question many a religious debate. Still, there are many intelligent people who believe in God with all their hearts and worship "the proper way" according to Lauren. Now, these Haitians certainly believe in God and fate, and given their lack of knowledge concerning earthquakes, it's easy to imagine themselves as being special in God's eye. (FYI, many Americans don't even know what geology is...think back. I bet the only thing you guys learned in school was the rock cycle.) I suppose it can be irritating to hear what people believe, but I think their education is more the root of the problem.

blah,
I don't even know what I'm typing. It's hard to post in segments at work. I'm gonna post it anyways.

yeah that was kind of all over the place.

in anycase, i think everyone here knows that less educated people are going to tend to be more superstitious, and more educated people will tend to be more rational. i think thats what you were trying to say anyway, hah

but yeah, i remember from my sociology days that studies trying to correlate religiosity (actual soc term, believe it or not) and education or IQ were very controversial especially the IQ ones, for various reasons. but for the most part in the more legitimate studies there was a weak negative relationship between education and religiosity. but that doesnt really mean much because "education" can mean almost anything, and how do you reliablly measure "religiosity". and of course there are extremely intellegent and well educated people who are very devout, and likewise very dumb, uneducated people who are not. thats why the negative correlation is rather weak.
religiosity seems most determined by (again very obvious) one's upbringing, tho you can google studies and itll show education is somewhat of a factor

It sounds like you just hate dumb people then, as opposed to religulous people.

Ikarus wrote:

It sounds like you just hate dumb people then, as opposed to religulous people.

In a lot of cases, that's the same thing...

From personal experience I can confirm than JM hates dumb people. I remember he almost lost his mind arguing with Lauren when she was deliberately and falsely supporting a clearly incorrect position.

actually i hate most dumb people and especially dumb religious people. i can tolerate some smart religious people cause theyre typically not so dumb about a lot of the retarded beliefs that really get on my nerves. i can tolerate some dumb people if theyre nice dumb people

I try to be less adversarial these days :-)

I agree with you although I usually get frustrated when people get so emotional or passionate about something that it destroys any chance to communicate or discuss things. It also makes me feel awkward.

JM, I've wondered this sometimes when you get talking about religion since you have such strong feelings about it. Its like the religious people I talk to about christianity when it comes to their certainty of their beliefs. This would be similar to those people who are so atheist that they seem almost religious in pursuit of atheism. What do you think about that? Your beliefs (would you call them that) are surely different, but the conviction seems quite similar.

Like, I can imagine a group of religious people talking about how ridiculous it is that you, me and whoever else aren't religious and wondering how in the world someone would choose to be an atheist or something along those lines.

lauren, you should e more antagonistic. i was passive like you throughout college.
i dont know how much youve kept up in the forums. but yeah, basically you dont understand where im coming from if you think that i think im certain about anything, which is probably the fault of my internet for ruining so many of my epic posts...

the fact that nobody truly knows anything about the esoteric nature of the universe is exactly what upsets me! the certainty of others of THEIR beliefs about which no one truly knows, to the point that it impacts my life (directly or indirectly) thru violence, intimidation, legislation, or something else, in the face of so many other beleifs in this world is what pisses me off.

ie if a terrorist threatens my family's safety, or if the government says i cant have more than one wife because their god thinks thats bad (not that i want more than one wife), or if the government limits stem cell research because they find it immoral based on their religion, or if i feel my chance of promotion is harmed if its known that i dont buy into the majority's core religious beliefs; for example

but i guess you can say i do have much conviction in the belief that no one can be certain, which is where i really clash with those who are 'certain'

also, when people say the idea of humans evolving from apes is absurd (in the face of mountains of hard scientific evidence), but have no qualms believing eve came from adam's rib (based on ancient manuscripts) is a sort of oblivious hypocrisy thats also upsetting. to me you cannot rightly say one is anymore absurd than the other! and the fact that one has rational, scientific justification and people still think their contrarian beliefs are 100% correct instead, for no good reason, and are completely closed off to the idea of evolution makes it even more upsetting

clearly this is just the way of the world, and thats especially why im not happy about being passive about this anymore, becuase the only way to fight it is to fight it. i feel like there is a quiet athiest minority in this country that shouldnt be quiet any longer. if i want to have a voice, if i want to be represented, then i need to have a voice, and i need to seek representation. in the end were all just fighting for our beliefs

that all being said, ill always enjoy poking rational holes in others beliefs, such as above with the evolution vs creation thing

i kinda scrapped this post together cause i have a dinner meeting in a little bit, but hopefully it kind of gets my point across

You got a good point across, JM. I think I'd probably agree with most things you'd say about religions. I wouldn't call myself an atheist though (very American thing). I do believe in some things.. I believe in myself. And I respect Mother Nature. She is the strongest force I know. And if there is a God, She's wearing his pants.

o...m...g... I just lost what I wrote. Let's see what I remember...

Hmm, I think I have misunderstood where you're coming from, which is bad, considering how long I've known you (shame on me). I think I get caught up in your opinions on a particular issue and miss the underlying driver of your positions. And frankly, I totally agree with your frustration about people who are so certain about things, and couldn't have said it better myself.

I struggle with being more assertive because of things like that. *sigh* I can't quite remember what I wrote here. I also can't handle how angry and upset certain people get when you challenge their beliefs.

And finally, Saint's right, you definitely got your point across. I didn't want to come across as mean or troublesome by asking you about it. I hope it didn't bother you too much. It's something I've thought about before and wanted to gain some perspective and understanding. Mission Accomplished. :-)

This rewritten version of what I wrote sounds hopeless. I better copy this crap, in case I get another error

OMG im so sorry! i HATE when that happens. ive had mroe than one encyclopedic post evaporate because of my shitty internet.

no worries, you didnt come across in any agressive way, and i hope i didnt either, i know i have a problem with sounding far more intense than i mean to be. i just have had so any posts disappear on me now i have no idea what ive axactly written so others can see and what i havent...

and yeah, CTRL C is golden, i do it every time now. of course i havent had to since ive lost all my posts.... but im sure it will come in handy soon enough

I don't think it's the forum causing your posts to vanish, because I've never had that happen to me in this forum...

Saint wrote:

You got a good point across, JM. I think I'd probably agree with most things you'd say about religions. I wouldn't call myself an atheist though (very American thing). I do believe in some things.. I believe in myself. And I respect Mother Nature. She is the strongest force I know. And if there is a God, She's wearing his pants.

Agnostic?

Saint wrote:

You got a good point across, JM. I think I'd probably agree with most things you'd say about religions. I wouldn't call myself an atheist though (very American thing). I do believe in some things.. I believe in myself. And I respect Mother Nature. She is the strongest force I know. And if there is a God, She's wearing his pants.

yeah roberto, its all symantics. im drunk ,so bear with me. but basicaly i used t call myself agnostic, but ef that. im athiest. i dont believe in the god of abraham, and thats what it boils down to.



AAAAAAAAAHHH too much beer!!!!!!!!!!! celebration for finishing training! and no more beer for 6 months!!!!!!!!! america!!!!!!!!! USA USA USA USA!!!!!