Girl saying the tsunami in Japan is an answer to her prayers.

I'd say so yes, faith in the people checking it over .

 

given the responses here - does it perhaps justify the girls video as satire?

"In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement"

by displaying the worst of views we can hold them up to ridicule and disgust.

I remember my son once coming home with similar ideas having had the story of Noah 'explained' just after the asian tsunami a few years back!

I say good on her and we need more people like it...

(but perhaps it would de advised for her to note that they are not her real opinions somewhere)

 

Yup, I have to have faith that I packed it right... even when that's done, it can still go cataclysmically wrong and I can end up as a smeer of jam across the floor of a farmers field/International Airport/School playground (preferably this one, *evil sadistic laugh* I joke). I have to have a degree of faith that it will work as expected when I yang that cord! If not... well... I'd have to much fear to do my hobby.

Fear denies Faith ^.^ I could base my life off Space Marine quotes it seems!

 

Belief, be it in a supreme being or the lack of one, is, by definition, outside the realm of evidence and logic. We all have to choose what we believe to be true based on our experiences and the needs we have from out beliefs. Where we all get in trouble is when we start believing our beliefs are better than the next guy's, that we're right and he's wrong, when in fact there is no possible way to establish who's right.

Any time you're certain you're right, you're probably wrong.

 

Squire, have some rep.

Wonderful way to sum that up. I believe you're allowed to think your views are greater than the next mans... but putting it into action, well that just isn't going to go down well.

 

Absolutely true and a valid point. If it was the case she needs to make her tounge a little more prominant in her cheek.

 

This girl is not a troll. She is worse than that. She is a pathetic excuse for an attention seeking bitch.

 

Sir shall calm thyself or thou shalt be excused from the serious section.

*raises chainsword in defiance*

 

He's probably right, though. You don't post hugely controversial videos on Youtube without expecting some attention. Troll or not, she obviously wanted to be heard and talked about.

 

KayinBlack, if you will, i'd like to give some more food for thought.
Warning though, wall of text incoming!

Let me start with one piece of reasoning that you use, which always annoys me to no end:

This line of reasoning is often used to defend the existance of God, while in fact, all it does is disprove the statement that god is impossible. In fact, it is a very strong arguement for agnosticism, not for being religious.

I once heard somebody compare religion to underground rivers (in a society without tech to look underground). Sure, you can be fairly certain that there is some sort of underground riversystem somewhere below you, just as we can be faily sure that there is some sort of driving force behind the universe. However, anyone claiming to have a detailed map of the system, and defending that map, details incluis, based on the fact that nobody can see underground will be fighting an uphill battle. Ofcourse, so will the people claiming there is no river. I could elaborate on the side of the metaphor where people only live and walk where their own maps say that rivers are, look down morally on anyone walking beside the lines, and killing eachother whhere two maps overlap, but that's not the most interesting part.

The part that made me remember the metaphor is that once that society gets the technology to actually map the river and settle the dispute, they will find out that it's just a river, and the flow of it has no real identifiable meaning to where you can walk. Maybe somebody had the right map all along, but that still didn't justify or rationalise his actions above ground.

And that's what I 'believe'. I am an atheist. This does not mean that i believe that there is no underlying force to the universe, only that I believe it to be just that: a force/entity/waveform/whatever that just IS, wether we pray to it or not.

There is precedent for this 'belief' as well. Throughout history, numerous fields of interest to mankind have passed from Religion to Philosophy to Science. I even submit to you that those three things are one and the same: they are the three stages of us figuring things out.

First, we identify a problem that discerns us, something that we don't understand, like the sun coming up and going down. We aren't that smart a species, so to comfort our uncertainties, we imagine it to be a giant ball of dung rolling across the sky, pushed by a mighty dungbeatle. Actually, at this stage we are just trying to compare it to something we CAN understand. This is religion.

Secondly, we set our minds to figuring it out by first accepting that the phenomenon is something of it's own right and start brainstorming about what it could be. In the example of the sun's movement, this stage would be the period of natual philosophers descriving the solar system in all kinds of woundrously weird ways.

Thirdly, somebody shouts EUREKA! and we find out a tiny sliver of actual fact about the phenomenon, on which we can base more and more knowledge and new research. Science. I trust the example is obvious by now.

The problem is that because we humans are not as clever as we think (it took our brightest minds multiple milennia to find out which ball revolves around which, and that they are actually balls). The only reason we know anything is because we can accumulate knowledge and pass it on to later generations. Without this, Einstein would have invented a spear instead of figuring out relativity, and we'd be catching rabbits with our hands again.

To keep us sane while we pass problem after problem over to philosophy and then science, we NEED religion. We need it as much as the other two. And by 'we' I mean ALL of us, Atheists incluis, and yes, me too. Internally, I have all kinds of justifications for things being the way they are. This is how we function, how we humans are programmed. Problems arise when people become stubborn or greedy. The greedy will see wealth, status and moral superiority fall their way if they simply state to have all the answers, no matter what those answers might be.* And so we get opposing clusters of people all professing just that little bit more then the neighbour how certain they are of their faith. Humans being humans, this leads to all the negative aspects of religion: war, bigotry, hate, discrimination, blatant lies, hypocrasy, dogmatic thinking.**
All of that is a result of the fact that we as human beings are so utterly incapable of dealing with the fact that we just don't know. Incidentally, that is also what drives us forward.

In this light, I come to a few personal conclusions:
[*]Organised religion (as opposed to personal religion) is bad for us as a species, because it inhibits our ability to learn and move forward.
[*]religion itself is something we should never attack eachother on a personal level for, because each of us needs it to stay sane.
[*]I'm an atheist, and i'm only agnostic on the tiniest of theoretical grounds. When we finally figure out the driving force behind the universe, i find it highly unlikely that any one religion would prove to have gotten it exactly right. However, even IF the right answer is already out there, there is no reason for me to pick one over the other. From a high perspective, all religions seem the same to me, giving rise to the flying spaghetti monster argument.
[*]It's just a river. This is perhaps the weakest part of my conclusions, because it is based on precedent and not reason.
[*]Morality has undeniably been raised to the level of philosophy right now, so for answers on the moral playing field I will look there, and fiercely deny all validity of religious motivation for morality.

To move forward as a species i think it is important that as much of us as possible try to denounce dogma and organised religion, while hanging on to those beliefs we need for our day-to-day lives. Now, wether we really should move forward is an entirely different matter...

* DISCLAIMER! I'm NOT stating here that all religious leaders are bad to the core impostors. I'm merely stating that in the field of uncertain people, those who claim to have answers will soon find themselves in a leadership role, one that very few of us would be willing to give up, even if we knew it to be false. I'm also quite convinced that most religious leaders really do mean well.
** DISCLAIMER! these are the negative things about faith, i'm not denying that there's a lot of good being done.

 

Good.

I hate retributional thinking. It's not restricted to religiousness and doesn't correlate strongly with religiousness - there are a number of people who are just vile. You get atheists who think this way too - the "hah, deserved it, evolution in action" crowd. They all need a holiday in Cambodia.

 

She put that video up there with a purpose; she knew full well what was going to happen. And she was right, wasn't she.

I find her both unwise and vile, because her putting it up there shows that she has a deeper "understanding", that understanding should have made sure she wouldn't had put the video up there in the first place. The understanding is that of knowing how people will react, use that against them, making them both angry and upset.


It was a stupid thing of her to do.

 

Quite right Brawl! I just don't like attention seekers like her. Boxxy is one thing, but taking the piss out of a desperate situation ... got right up my nose. I should know better than to vent though.

The thing that really annoyed me was that I didn't feel like the apology update video was an apology update video. If she had of just said "I am truly sorry, I can see from everyones reactions that I over-stepped the line of decency and what constitutes having a laugh. Please accept this as an apology". But no. She had to try and be clever ... again ...

She'll learn.

 

I'm not sure that I understood that completely, but I do believe you use a bit wrong definition of Atheism.

In it simplest Atheism is just a disbelieve of a theistic god (A god CREATOR that INTERACTS with the physical world.) This also means that being an Atheist only means that you simply do not believe in this sort of god, but it does not deny the existence of ghosts, spirits or gods that does not intervene in this world, or have created it.

Technically the word Atheist should not exist as it describes something you are not, (a Theist) it is actually the same as having a word for not collecting stamps

When people say that they know that there are no god, then it is their own opinion and nothing more, and should be given no more credit than any other opinion. While my own opinion is that there are no god, ghosts or spirits of any sort, as I have yet to see any evidence to support the claim. And I believe that there is an explanation for everything, but that is as I said above, still just an opinion, and no more.

Too many fights start because people are using words in different ways and that way too often misunderstand each other.

 

There is atheism and there is anti-theism which people mix up.
"Atheism and anti-theism so often occur together at the same time and in the same person that it's understandable if many people fail to realize that they aren't the same. Making note of the difference is important, however, because not every atheist is anti-theistic and even those who are, aren't anti-theistic all the time. Atheism is simply the absence of belief in gods; anti-theism is a conscious and deliberate opposition to theism. Many atheists are also anti-theists, but not all."

 

I think the problem lies in the media. For instance even though this girl admitted she was a troll, that she's not a christian, people are still reporting this and commenting on this with titles like:

"God Is Punishing Japan For Atheism

Some piece of **** Christian missionary talks about how happy she is about the earthquake/tsunami. Sadly, I think we were all waiting for something like this."

I mean.. seriously, cat is out of the bag that she's a troll, but it's obvious that some people just have their minds made up about what they think about Christians already (read as: prejudice). They seem to latch on to any notion that a Christian is really an insane, vile, excuse for a human. What else is there to say? I'm not trying to accuse the people here of this because bit-tech is seriously one of the most respectful communities I've ever encountered on the internet.(Disregard the "I hate the person above me because.." thread lol)

But this kind of attention just paints a seriously negative light on Christians. It's hard not to form an opinion even though the info presented might not always be 100% correct. First impressions really do have a lasting effect, it's just a fact of life that's hard to deny.

 

True, even though I may sometimes have a go at Christians (I have lived with Mormons, and they are nicer than most people give them credit for) there are some Atheists/anti-theist that go way too far as well.

There are always someone giving one side a bad name, but this one is really a bad one, the ones that see this video and think she is a Christian will tribute this sort of behaviour to the Christian society, the ones that read that she is not a Christian will tribute this to the Atheists.

End result both sides are loosing

 

well, to be honest, i completely missed the part where she admitted trollhod, so up until a minute ago i was also in the camp of atheists believing she was for real. However, i don't contribute this to all christians in any way, shape or form. She's a nutcase either way you look at it, and there are many examples of those in both (and all other) camps.

I believe that bit is one of the few communities out there largely made up of people able to make that distinction.

 

I'm sorry if my comment made the impression that I thought all people was too dumb to realize that this in no case can be contributed to an entire population.

That is just the feeling you can get sometimes when you see a population react.

 

+rep fpr that quote, i like it