[JamesTornC]

It is a given with being Christian. It's part and parcel with the ****ing religion. You want to bash on God for letting bad things happen, but you ignore the eternal salvation part of the equation.

No, I'm not bashing god for letting bad things happen, because IMV there is no god. Full stop. **** happens. The whole 'eternal salvation' fluff is just a delusional irrelevance.

Ignoring other religions, either God exists, and there is an afterlife, or God doesn't exist and there isn't one. If there's an afterlife then natural disasters are no big deal. If there's no afterlife, because there's no God, then natural disasters suck, but they're no one's fault. "natural disasters suck, but they're no one's fault" - there, you said it. Tragic, but not metaphysical.

No one treats it as a cause for celebration. Nobody said it was a cause for celebration. What I said was that it is a way of shaking people out of their self-centered ruts. So not celebration, you say, but still positive. I'd argue that people are quite capable of being horrified by a tsunami, a holocaust, or a WW1 trench-warfare massacre nightmare without needing religion to prompt them. The original argument was that god has these things happen because of what we can learn, and how we can react. I'm arguing that there is no sense in letting these things happen for such reasons, as the suffering is far too much. If the best way god has is to allow hundreds of thousands to die, just to shake things up then, well .. there's something seriously wrong somewhere.

If God doesn't exist, then it's irrelevant. Something that doesn't exist isn't at fault for earthquakes or the tsunamis they cause. If God does exist, then the question of evil needs an answer. I gave you the textbook answer and you missed the point completely. Textbook? Not a textbook that is recognised outside of the specific belief-system in question. You'd be right if you'd restricted it to the bit where you said "Something that doesn't exist isn't at fault for earthquakes or the tsunamis they cause".

[sciectotacype17]

With the greatest of respect, Imran....

**** off.

[ChuttyAmult]

No. Hope this helps.

Why, was god chasing you around Cardiff?

We just decided it would be fun to spend Christmas in an Islamic country. It almost worked, but we kept bumping into these Coptic Christians all over the place and had to suffer Coptic Christmas in Alexandria over a week after 'official'(?) Christmas...

Yet more reason God doesn't exist - his followers can't even agree on the day his son was born.

[LeviBrawn]

Men, actually, but from the omnipotent-and-just-god angle, it doesn't matter whether it is geo-physics or a political agency that causes a human disaster, the hypothetical-supreme-being gives the nod - according to believers.

Yes, men actually. Not only do you blame God for something that you have no understanding of whatsoever, but you blame God for something that men did. Blaming God is vain, but blaming him for what you do yourself is another matter. It's like punching yourself in the face over and over, but then when someone else punches you in the face you cry out.
I didn't realise you had this theistic-al thing going on, Kid, but it partly explains why you're such a lousy 'communist'. I think I'll nip up the road to pay a visit to Marx's grave in Highgate Cemetery tomorrow, kneel down in front of his grave and offer a prayer for you. I'm obviously no longer a communist.

[offemyJuccete]

I don't think I want to read this thread.