}

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Be damned

Important note: The video this post talks about was a fake—I should have trusted my gut instinct. It was created as part of a series of “troll” videos just to elicit a reaction from people, as I talked about in a post the next day. Although I originally deleted this post, I’ve restored it because many of the points are still valid, and especially because with the troll’s YouTube Channel deleted, this is one of the few records of what was actually in that faked video.

Fundamentalists in America are so often “out there”, so truly bizarre in their thinking, that it’s almost always impossible to tell the difference between real fundamentalist speech and parody. This is called Poe’s Law.

So when I ran across a YouTube video from a user called “tamtampamela”, I absolutely could not tell if it was real or just really bad parody, like the Christwire site. After all, she has a video called “Another Question for Atheists” in which she asks: “If god doesn’t exist, who wrote the bible?”

There’s a corollary to Poe’s Law stating that real fundamentalist thinking can be mistaken for parody. Sadly, the video appears to be the religious rantings of a 22-year-old ignorant girl who has been so thoroughly brainwashed that she takes gleeful delight in the tragedy in Japan.

I won’t link to her video, because I don’t link to wingnut sites—ever—and I don’t want to enable her delusions. Instead, here’s a transcript so you can judge for yourself (cuts are indicated):
“God is such an amazing god! He is so good, and so loving, and it’s so amazing to see how fast god answers prayers sometimes. On Wednesday, at the start of Lent, believers all over the world came together and we have been praying for god to open the eyes of atheists…

[snip]

Not even a few days later, god shook the country of Japan, he literally grabbed the country by the shoulders and said ‘hey, look! I’m here!’ Oh, it’s just so amazing to see how god can just answer prayers like this, and I’m just so overjoyed and so encouraged. For the rest of this lentil [sic] season I’m going to be praying even harder than I have ever before.

[snip]

“I mean, with just one day of prayer, with two days of prayer, just see god literally waking people up and saying, ‘you are going to hell.’ Just imagine what will happen at the end of the 40 days!”

[snip]

“Just pause the video, get on your knees, and pray to god. Ask him to turn these atheists away from their evil ways, and I believe that at the end of this Lent season, oh my god, I can’t even begin to think how vengeful he’s going to be on America, because we have a lot of atheists here in America, I mean Japan is a fantastic place to start, but once he hits Europe, once he hits America, it’s just going to be crazy, it’s going to be insane and people, you better be ready because by the time Easter comes, every person will know that god is real.”

[snip]

“Be encouraged… God does answer prayers! Look at Japan! That is a direct answer to our prayers! [sighs]I am so overjoyed, and I can’t even contain my joy! Let’s get back to praying!”
This is sick and twisted stuff from someone who has zero understanding of what Christianity is and means. Instead, she worships a strange god who is “so loving” and yet who takes great delight in killing tens of thousands of men, women and children, and affecting millions more. One of her inspirations is Pat Robertson, who said similarly moronic things about Haiti (she repeated his loony ravings in her videos).

She’s “overjoyed” at the deaths of thousands and the suffering of millions because she thinks it’ll miraculously “convert” atheists. Let me share something that will surely overjoy her even more: People like her do more to drive people from belief and toward atheism than any other force.

I see this sort of thing all the time, and not because I’m looking for it (I was actually trying to substantiate leftist claims that the right was calling the earthquake payback for Pearl Habor). This is evidence for Christians who don’t believe there really are people like this girl (at the time I’m writing this post, the video has had 421,329 views). For others, Christian and not, it demonstrates again how truly vile some supposedly “Christian” people can be.

Meanwhile, “Christian” missionary parasites are swopping on Japan to try and proselytise while the people are at their most vulnerable. They say that “about 70 percent of Japanese profess no religious affiliation” which they apparently interpret as meaning they’re atheist (hence, the crazy girl’s rant). Memo to rightwing nutjobs: Not being Christian is not automatically the same as being atheist (and that’s so fucking obvious I shouldn’t even have to say that—except to these insane people, not being Christian is the same as being atheist).

One “Christian” missionary told a “Christian” news site, "Japan is so poor spiritually, there's suicides everyday, there's so many problems in this rich country that has no clue about the gospel—and we just pray that God will have mercy on Japan in [the wake of] this terrible earthquake."

The earthquake is a natural phenomenon and has nothing to do with any of earth’s many gods. But earlier today I posed a question on Twitter that no one tried to answer: “So, my question to Christians: Do you see that girl as a real Christian like you? Or, is she theologically unsound (my vote).”

Here’s another question: If she must be considered a Christian, why should I or anyone else take the religion seriously? This is a real question because I cannot understand why anyone would want to spend eternity with a waste of space like that girl. As I veer ever farther from my religious roots, people like this girl make me wonder why I don’t abandon religion altogether.

Christians, you’re welcome to try and convince me otherwise, but with sickos like this girl in your midst, the cards are stacked against you.

Update: The video this post talks about was a fake, as I mentioned above. I’m saying it again in case you skipped that note. I talked about all this in a post the next day.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

The only thing I - a Blac, Gay, American Christian -can say is this:

I can assume you are White because most of the English speaking.writing persons on the Web are White. And your style of writing seems to be that of a North American.

Therefore, using you logic of judging an entire group of people by the WORST, I can say you are a racist.

Right?

P.S. I love you.

Moosep and Buddy Rabbit said...

The girl is a nut job.

She is no more Christian than a turnip.

The earthquake in Japan is a terrible thing with thousands dead. If the Christians want to do something, maybe they can send money or go help clean up then rebuild.

But if they go there to help, they need to work and keep their mouths shut. Don't try to convert people.

Personally I'm getting really sick of hearing "pray for Japan." There isn't a god that will come down & clean up this mess; putting lives back together.

My heart goes out to the people of Japan. I hope everyone will contribute money to legitimate organizations that are trying to help like the Red Cross.

epilonious said...

Ninure: If you're going to whinge about racism, starting your argument with "most of the English speaking/writing people on the web are white" is a terribly racist way to start, and undermines your credibility... Otherwise, not sure what race has to do with it, if you're trawling the Internet for racist-seeming things.. you'll get a bounty for sure.

Now for the rest of you:

If I may be frank, and I always am... If you want to circumvent what Christians are doing in Japan, then you need to go there rather than bitching from in front of your computers.

Seriously.

Several Christian/Christianist/Levitican organizations are going there to proselytize, but ostensibly the biggest reason they are there is to help.

They're bringing food, water, and cash and handing it to people who have lost so much and saying "Here, this is for you, because right now it sucks terribly for you and we know how that feels and we're interested in making it suck less, now lets try and get you somewhere warm and dry"

And if the place that is warm and dry has discussions of Jesus as Lord, well, Lord help 'em. But until you start going there to help like they are, your condemnations look awfully petty.

As for the crazy bitch, damn, that bitch crazy... But not really worth the attention and certainly not worth damnation of others based on her actions. It makes me think of all the times people refuse to "understand" same-sex relations because all they can focus on is the manipulative crystal meth addicted sex addict they saw on an "expose" video.