Jesus is Pissed

Agnostic atheism is the way to go, with a touch of openess towards deism. That's where my bets lay. And probably should include a fictional/sci-fi interest in pantheism, or where all matter/energy in the universe has some kind of intelligent aspect. like Gaia, where Everything could be considered God.

I think when something is unknown or not answered yet, and you fill in that hole with 'god' or even a deistic god, then you are attributing an occurrence to, or answering the unknown, with an aspect of something equally unknown. Just because we don't know everything there is to know does not mean a god 'did it.' To assert that because we can't yet explain how life got started (though we know how it evolved) that it must mean there is a god is simply wishful thinking, and reflects the same kind of thinking that our ancestors did by explaining how children were born, or how the sun rotated around the earth, or where lightning came from, or why people were sick. They attributed it to a god or gods.

Nowadays polytheists are pretty rare, but the questions and answers are generally the same. And the path is also generally the same in where the actual answers come to light. Religion gives an answer, tries to support it with facts, often cherry-picking or focusing on the hits and ignoring the misses, while science comes along, offers an answer, proves it, and give-or-take a hundred years and it will rework and revise and expand it's answer. Usually through many different people, sometimes competing but arriving at the same answers, while religious people generally get their answers from one person in authority (be it a book, or a prophet, or a preacher). We haven't yet thrown out a natural law to replace it with a supernatural law. We have done the reverse countless times.

I'm not sure where this comes from, maybe all the stuff with Japan and in the background my atheist gears are working. I now get extremely annoyed with statements such as "yay, my family was saved so praise God," or "all the missionaries are okay, none of them died, God protected them," while many also believe that God caused or at least allowed the disaster to take place which killed so many others. I want to see these people go to the families of those who are dead and tell them how God saved their missionary sons and daughters and how great he is. Actually, no, cause some people might considering some statements or videos made by people who think this is one of the best things to happen in these end times.

In this sense religion is pretty sick. I've seen a decent amount of support from China, while some South Koreans are evilly antagonistic as they are raised to hate Japan due to history. This is to say that culture is the biggest influence, but I think the biggest crowd of people who are overall pleased with what happened are religious folks who either think Japan deserved it, or that this is another sign that Jesus is comin' back right quick and boy is he pissed.

Also, let me say like so many others - stop forming prayer groups and spending money on these things. If you must spend a little time and money on some prayer for Japan then just send the money over there through some religious/service group. Seriously.