Day: February 11, 2005

How Did the Tsunami Affect Your Faith?

The BBC actually ran a story in mid-January asking people of different faiths how the tsunami and other natural disasters affected their belief in whatever God(s) they believe in.

For example, they talk with a Muslim who survived the Bam earthquake,

Another who has not lost faith despite suffering terribly from natural disaster is Akbar Panjalisaday, a 61-year-old father of five who survived the Bam earthquake in Iran which killed 30,000.

Mr Panjalisaday said that it was a “miracle” he survived the quake, but stressed that had he died, his family would certainly have thought of it as God’s will.

“We are Muslims, and we believe a Muslim is subject to God’s will,” he said.

“Even at that time, I was calling God, I was calling my religion, the Imams, to help me.

“I do believe that it was a miracle.”

And a Christian commenting on the tsunami,

Meanwhile, Edgar Ruddock, of the Christian organisation United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, stressed that Christians should not lose their faith.

“My own Archbishop Rowan Williams has made the point that we would be less than human if we didn’t at least have a question going through our mind – ‘how do we make sense of all this?'” he said.

“But in terms of natural disaster, I think it’s important to bear in mind that actually, it’s the moving of tectonic plates that has allowed earth to rise out of the sea and human life to exist in the first place.

“So there is an element in which we are part of a process, part of something bigger.”

Interesting. According to the BBC, their article was motivated by the statements of atheists, though they don’t mention who precisely these atheists were,

The scale and the horror of December’s tsunami has led some atheists to argue that it provides further proof that there is no God.

I don’t see how one particular natural disaster could possibly provide any additional evidence for or against the existence of God. Certainly it possible to conceive of some possible Gods whose existence would be inconsistent with allowing suffering, but clearly none of the major monotheistic religions contemplate such a God.

Source:

Tsunami: Believers defend their religions. The BBC, January 17, 2005.

More Nonsense from Boing! Boing!

Cory Doctorow makes the ridiculous claimthat,

. . . shut down the Lokitorrent site (Xeni’s post from yesterday), they hijacked the domain and put up a snotty note that included the phrase “You can click, but you can’t hide.”

That follows on Xeni Jardin’s posting yesterday, which quoted reprinted speculation that the MPAA had hijacked the domain name,

Many Boing Boing readers wrote in today to express dismay at the MPAA’s decision to replace shuttered filesharing sites with their own content. Reader Brad Clarke says, “Taking down a site is one thing but putting up their own content has GOT to be illegal. He’s to hoping they finally went too far.”

But if they would actually bother to read the news stories they link to, the explanation is likely a lot less dramatic,

The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it had won a quick court victory against LokiTorrent, and was launching a new round of actions against other online piracy hubs. The data provided by the onetime file-swapping hub would provide “a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities,” the trade group said.

. . .

As part of the court order, the site’s operator was asked to pay a settlement fee of close to $1 million.

Unless Xeni Jadin and Cory Doctorow have evidence that MPAA hijacked the domain — which they should certainly disclosed if they’re goig to go around making these sort of charges — a more likely explanation is that the folks behind LokiTorrent cut a deal with the MPAA to turn over the entire site. Losing a court case and facing a proposed $1 million settlement fee has a way of doing that to people.