Bear eats girl, mum hears everything

An even better idea: when you ignore me, I'll assume it's because you don't have a response and can't back up the extreme things you say.

Win-win.

I really don't care what you assume.

I posted my PERSONAL OPINION. You go ahead and disagree with that all you like.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Your "PERSONAL OPINION" also happened to be an insult to quite a few people who believe otherwise. I don't know why you keep referring back to the fact that it's your opinion, as if that shields it from any disagreement.

It's also disingenuous to call it a personal opinion when you chose to make it public. You might have a point in all this mess if I'd gone out of my way to ask you what you thought and then berated you for it. But I didn't.

You have basically attacked me for saying I find the idea of a caring God absurd. Feel free to get offended because I think it's absurd, but don't think you can browbeat me into not saying so.

I find it bizarre that you think me arguing with you about this, and trying to show you why what you said is reductionist and insulting, constitutes "browbeating."

And it's interesting that you call my reply an "attack," but that what you said is a "personal opinion."

I'm an agnostic/atheist and even I think the "bad things are proof there's no God (or a nasty God)" is a silly argument. If I'm God, apparently I have long ago decided everybody dies. In this scenario, I've also accomplished three awesome things:

1. Two dead people. Since avoiding death is not a goal, this is just efficient.
2. Four bears, well fed. You're welcome, bears!
3. Olga's mom got a terrible goodbye, but she and her mom got to say goodbye, and that's good when that happens. Better than it not happening.

I do feel for the mom in this story, though. Hearing your child go through that and being powerless to stop it must have been positively horrible. Losing your husband and child at the same time, devastating.

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How about a little respect and maybe a modicum of discretion here for people that were EATEN ALIVE. Not the best place to take a piss on religious beliefs is it?

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I'm an atheist myself but this story backs up religion, if anything. Theoretically, God's creation was messed with - as the article says, "The double killing is the latest in a spate of bear attacks across Russia, as the hungry animals seek food in areas where people have encroached and settled on their former habitat". Seems to me as if that could be construed as God trying to restore natural order.

If this really happened, and I hope this is a made up fake story, then this would be the first time I ever wanted to shoot a bear dead. What a horror.

Well, I guess this thread had to reach two pages somehow.

It's a pretty awful story, and to be honest I didn't believe it at first because it seemed like one of these shock horror urban myth stories, but then I guess these things do happen.

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"When I was younger, I always wanted to be somebody. Now that I'm older, I realise I should've been more specific."

Fair enough if it's happening at the time and you shoot the bear while it's attacking, but why want to shoot it after the event as punishment, it's hunting and feeding in its natural habitat(I assume going by the story)...

It's like these poor sharks, they 'attack' and eat someone out surfing and all hell breaks loose where people have to find it and kill it... why? it's a predator thinking it's come across food - it doesn't think, "ooooooo that's a human being, that's a no go area for moi".

To be honest... I felt the same way when reading.

Though, on the other hand, it is the redemption of such a terrible death that motivates the formulation of belief in "something better" in the first place. So it's really a double bind or circle. It is both that which makes us cry out to God at His cruelty and that which makes us need a God to redeem it.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

The only rational explanation I can think of comes from the idea that some animals develop a "taste" for people once they've eaten them. I have no idea if that's generally true or whether or not it's true of some species' but not others, however. But that's at least one potentially logical reason, I think.

Outside of the logical, there is, of course, whatever sense of closure or justice the family might derive from it.

This is horrible.. Ohmygod.. Think about how traumatized that Mum must be!

I didn't see anything wrong with Deadite's initial statement - that this event makes the idea of God seem absurd. Take it or leave it, I say. I do see it as a personal opinion and it could just be a "first thought comment" to reply to this thread with - not everyone's in the mood to give their convincing reasons about why God isn't real and not everything said is meant to be an insult unless you can't help to feel insulted or you choose to be insulted, perhaps because you simply won't ignore it. I believe that Yoda just loves to debate about the issue - and maybe even try to convince others that there is, in fact, a God, at the same time. If I'm wrong about that, I'm sorry, but it seems to happen a lot - he appears when God is mentioned.

I personally feel the way that Deadite feels -- I mean, I'm at a point now where I don't even really think about God when I read about such an event. Those are wild animals and sometimes they kill human beings (and eat them, apparently.) While I agree that maybe the bears should be unharmed after doing what came natural to them, at the same time, if those bears had killed people I loved, I would kill them all and I would spend the rest of my life killing every bear I saw, probably. Something like that can have the power to change you and make you hateful. It might not, but I would understand if it did.

Entertaining, but I find that a silly excuse for God. Also, this is only based on the idea of a certain kind of God. There are many different interpretations of God and other Gods. I mean, I'm sure you find that all a silly excuse for God, too, but... I wonder why there's that need to take up for the opposite belief system by even saying all of this. I know of some people who go RAVING when people even casually mention that they believe in God, even just a little, and I find it sometimes more disturbing on their part, but sometimes I do see the passion and power in simply sticking to your guns and not even trying to help along the other side, which is what I kinda feel like you've done here, SamsoniteDelilah. I don't think it's bad, but I wonder why so many people are this way. It seems quite common among atheists/agnostics around here, even myself at times. It makes it more pleasing to meet people who are gung-ho about the Godless universe.

The sad truth is that there's so many nightmarish things happening to people everyday. I mean, The Berenstain Bears Make Human Sandwiches For Lunch isn't any worse than say, the 9/11 attacks, or the murders that occur between humans everyday in the world. Plus, we eat animals all the time -- where is God in all of that, then? Oh, that's right -- religions say they were made to be eaten, don't they? It's true that you shouldn't stress out over God being absent in the universe because of bears eating people as you're chomping away at a chicken sandwich and perhaps a zesty meatball sub.

And that's all I'll say for now since I just lost my train of thought. Except...

I see nothing wrong with it and I kind of hate when people play the "respect" card. I thought this was a discussion forum -- why are we limited with the number of things we can talk about? I mean, making a new thread to branch off from the bear story to connect it with God and religion would seem unnecessary to me -- if it's only done out of respect to this thread, as if this is some kind of wake/funeral/memorial for those people who got eaten alive. I'm not saying we should trash these characters and turn the situation into total mockery (though, personally, I don't see why that idea is logically bad if it was done) but a little talk about how this makes God look unreal -- why is that bad? Why is that disrespectful? You could turn it completely around and say that people who come in here and say, "God bless them all" or "I'm sure it's okay because they're in Heaven now" is also disrespectful --- but nobody would counter by saying it is. I'm pretty sure of that. They would get off the hook. That's why we have people bold enough to say Anti-God things - because religious people have had quite a lot of freedom to douse everybody with their own statements and beliefs for centuries.

You don't think it's inherently insulting to call other people's beliefs (let alone such commonly and dearly held ones) "absurd"? I find that difficult to believe.

To their face? Maybe. On an internet discussion forum? Maybe not. But yes in some cases. However, the subject of God and religious beliefs hadn't even been brought up yet in this thread -- so Deadite wasn't really purposely insulting anybody. I do believe he just made a personal opinion from a reaction to the story. If people got insulted, I believe they couldn't help it -- but I don't see why that's grounds for not discussing things or even commenting with opinions based on your own beliefs. I would have been totally okay if somebody had said something in regards to the situation that was pro-God -- why can't people get insulted when they don't believe in God? They do all the time, yes, but, I just... (my emotions are really dragging me away from all of this that I can't think right now...) I don't think this is a situation where it should have been seen as insulting right away. I think there's room for a lot of opinions that can be valid, both pro-God and anti-God.

If you were insulted, then fine, go ahead and talk about it. But I do understand the reasons for not trying to gang up on Deadite and ask him to give all kinds of reasons about why God doesn't exist, etc.

I don't see why it matters that it's an opinion. Almost all insults are opinions; that doesn't exempt them from a reaction. And the "personal" prefix, as I said earlier, seems like a misnomer, given that it was posted publicly for the express purpose of being read and replied to. It should shock no one that it garnered a response.

Because saying something like "they're in Heaven now" or "God bless them" doesn't mock atheists. Like, at all. It indicates belief, but it does not insult non-believers.

So, you're saying that if Deadite had come in here and said - for example: "This is what happens in a universe where there is no God" -- you wouldn't have been insulted and this whole thing wouldn't have happened at all? Because, to me, that doesn't look insulting to believers.

Even that wouldn't be analogous, since it makes a declaration rather than simply implies something. A better comparison would be "these things happen in an uncaring universe." Which I would not find insulting at all and probably wouldn't have even replied to.