Not following the advice of the Bible: never argue with an idiot, it is hard to tell who the idiot is: hoping there is someone here who is more interested in the truth than an ideology, (yeah agnosticism and atheism are ideologies), as well as Christianity. I wise man will hear council and rebuke.
Seriously, I hesitate to say this because it screams out so obviously: this is such a ridiculous argument based on probably an underlying wound from Christianity, or more likely a poor Christian role model. It is designed and constructed on emotion and inflammatory to Christians, so we get so mad we cannot think straight and give a good answer. So let me explain why his founding presumptions are wrong:
He states: Any God that allows such suffering of Children and parents is either impotent or evil.
Really? You can’t think of any other possibilities? How about freedom is more important than suffering? Foremost in the Bible we are all free moral agents. God will not step over this except in exceptionally rare instances. I have the freedom to do good or evil. If I choose to pull out a gun and kill a person, good or evil, that person will die. There are consequences of actions and mitigating consequences frequently leads to a reoccurrence of the action. I am not saying a baby dyeing of malaria is a result of someone’s action but how we (human race) grows is by learning most often by mistakes and pain and suffering. Pain and suffering is what life is all about.
How about looking at the long term consequences over the short term? This is a common mistake made among liberals. It should have been written in scripture no pain no gain. Are you going to say you should avoid the short term pain of a needle to inoculate malaria? The short term pain nets a good result in the end. I know this is a stretch but nobody knows the results of all the suffering going on in the world but as for me I trust God does and is working on us the best way. I like to look at the whole planet and all the living organisms as one thing God is working on. He is out for our best. I can tell you this, there is a purpose for everything, despite the fact that we can perceive it, comprehend it or like it.
You should read the whole series Dune by Frank Herbert, I won’t spoil it for you but the series looks at the Human race in a similar perspective.
I could go on and on but I have to work. I hope this offends.

Jesus loves you and I love you. This is an extremely long post and I apologize. I am writing for anyone who is interested in critically examining the arguments Sam Harris makes and contrasting it to the actual truth as presented by the scripture. Sam has distorted this truth and the entire video is basically one long strawman argument.. I think that is you are going to utterly condemn something you should at least make a cursory effort to understand it. That's just me. I invite you guys to learn more about the scripture so that you can know the truth for yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360718403&sr=1-2&keywords=how+to+understand+the+bible

I'll answer some points..

Sam: The point of Christianity is to safeguard the eternal well being of eternal souls

You could perhaps categorize this as the main point, but there are many points to Christianity. I don't want to split hairs here; I am agreeing with Sam essentially but I just want to expand on it a bit. The main point of Christianity is to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus said when He began His ministry: "repent and believe the gospel". The gospel is that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to Earth to live as one of us. Though He did not sin, He took all of our sins upon Himself on the cross so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life. The point of Christianity is Jesus, and having a personal relationship with Him. Everyone who comes to know Jesus will be born again and become a new person. There are many other points to this but I will stop here.

Sam: 9 million children die every year

Yes, this is true but most of these children, if not all of them, will be going to Heaven. Not one of them have been forgotten by God or will suffer an unjust fate. There is an age of accountability for every person, and it is different for every person. It all depends on the revelation God has given each particular person and their response to it. It is fairly certain though that most if not all children under the age of 12 will make it to Heaven automatically.

Sam in discussing the dying children brings up the problem of evil..which has been sufficiently answered by Plantigas free will defense:

http://videosift.com/video/Since-Evil-Suffering-Exist-A-Loving-God-Cannot

Sam mentions the grief of the parents and that their unanswered prayers are part of Gods plan..

First of all, God answers every prayer, He just doesn't always answer yes. An example of a prayer God answered no to was when Jesus was in the garden of gethsemane and was asking the Father to let Him bypass the cross. Though it surely grieved His heart, He answered no to that prayer. He answered no because He was esteeming us more than Himself, which is what sacrificial love looks like. A key part of the prayer of Jesus was "never the less, not my will, but your will".

Christians do not pray to the exclusion of Gods will. we don't necessarily know what is best for us, but we trust God that He knows, and so we always pray that His will be done, even above what may seem needful for me at that time.

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I will also address the grief. The fact of the matter is, the scripture makes it very clear that Christians will suffer grief and loss on a constant basis:

Matthew 24:9

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.

1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you:

1 Peter 4:16 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

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Look at Pauls testimony:

1 Corinthians 11:24-28

Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,

I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers.

I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

If you read Foxes Book of the Martyrs (http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/home.html) you will see that Christians are no strangers to suffering and grief. It is clearly taught in His word it will happen, which makes this argument have no weight at all and is simply a strawman.

Sam said that any God who would allow pain either can do nothing or doesnt care to so He is either impotent or evil

This is simply a false dichotomy. God may allow pain for a good reason, which is for the greater good. I'll give you an example:

This is Nick Vujicic, a man with no arms and no legs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXlCeKBWfaA

He is a motivational speaker and he has traveled around the world and inspired millions. Pretty much anyone who has a problem can relate to this man because Nick has overcome his extreme adversity with grace and he finds joy in his daily life. If God had answered Nicks prayer to be healed, then millions of people would have been robbed of the fruit that overcoming his adversity bore in his life. This is an example of how God can use pain for a greater good.

Sam asks what about all those who are praying to the wrong God, through no fault of their own..that they missed the revelation

This is just simply false..Sam seems to think that there are no reasonable answer to these questions when the real problem is his ignorance of Christian theology.

Romans 1:18-21

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

The word of God states that every man coming into the world is given light, and that God makes it clear to them one way or the other that He exists. Every man, woman and child dying after the age of accountability and heading towards hell had received a personal revelation from God as to His existence. How they responded to that light determined what Gods next move was. If they had responded in the affirmitive, He could have then opened the door for them to know Jesus and be saved. Since they responded in the negative, they did not receive any further revelation and died in their sins.

So again Sam creates a strawman argument when he says that they missed the revelation through no fault of their own. The truth is that they received the revelation and rejected it. He also made it sound like people are just randomly born into the world when what the scripture says is that God appoints the times and places for every human being. There are no accidents about where you are born; it is simply that God is not limited by time and space. He is omnipresent and not limited to any particular locality.

Sam accused God creating the cultural isolation of the hindus - of orchaestrating their ignorance

The truth is that in the beginning all men knew God and that over time as men formed nations they moved farther and farther away from the truth about God and invented their own gods to worship. The hindus isolated themselves, though again this is not a limitation on God. He has reached out to every hindu who has ever lived and the ones who ended up in hell are the ones who rejected Him. You have to push past the love, grace and mercy of God to get to hell.

Sam mentions how a serial killer could get saved while an innocent perishes elsewhere:

What the bible says is this:

Romans 3:23

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

There aren't any innocents over the age of accountability. The man who has cheated on his wife is equally guilty in Gods eyes as the man who murdered his wife. What God calls good is not a relative standard like human beings use, as we compare ourselves to eachother and think we are good people because we haven't done the big two (rape, murder). What God calls good is moral perfection and what He calls evil is everything that falls short of that, even one sin. He also says that if you hate someone you have murdered them in your heart and you are a murderer at heart. Sam does not appear to understand what the bible says Gods standards actually are.

Sam said that there is absolutely nothing in Christianity to do with moral accountability

Again, this is false. What the bible says is that we're morally accountable to God for every sin we've ever committed, and your conscience will tell you that. It is not other people we have offended, it is God Almighty. What Sam seems to have a problem with is Gods absolute standard for moral accountability versus his relative standard (which conveniently excuses his sins against God)

Sam said there is a conflict between God being intrinsically good and what he describes as the "visitation of cruel unjust suffering on innocent people"

I've already answered this by point out there are no innocent people over the age of accountability. I would also like to add that God created a perfect world, and the reason there is sin in this world is because of mankind. The reason the world is the way it is today is exclusively because of the daily crimes of humanity (can you even begin to imagine the amount of evil that transpires on planet earth in one day?) and not because God wanted it that way.

Sam says it is a cop out to say God is mysterious and then use merely human understanding to establish goodness

Actually, what Sam has done here is create a distorted image of God by twisting or ignoring what the scripture says about Him, and the fate of human beings. Then he points to this grotesque image to condemn the true and living God who is in fact perfectly good. The truth is that His goodness is upheld entirely when you are looking at the true God through a sound understanding of scripture and not the distorted image Sam has created of Him.

Sam says its a cop out to be told God is mysterious to justify untold suffering

He is right here, it is a cop-out..and anyone making such an argument has a weak understanding of the bible. Gods will for us is actually no mystery; God makes it crystal clear what He expects from His creation, and kinds of things we will face. He is even gracious enough to tell us what will happen in the future, thousands of years in advance:

http://www.christadelphianals.org/bible_prophecy.htm

Sam says it is utter hubris and even reprehensible to think you're special because "God loves me don't you know"

Yet even little children understand that no one is worthy to be pardoned for their sins and no one can make it into Heaven on their own. There is absolutely no difference between me and anyone else except for one thing; I said yes to God, and some others say no. I am not worthy, in fact I am decidedly unworthy and I deserve the exact same punishment as everyone else does; the difference is that I accept the free gift of grace that Jesus offers upon the cross. God proved His love for all people on the cross, and He died for every single person, not just me. Jesus loves you more than you can understand.

Sam says it is morally reprehensible for Christians to drudge up some trivial circumstance God took care of while completely ignoring the suffering of other human beings

Sam is right about this and it is a complete shame to Christians everywhere that the western church is so materialistic and base in their feelings. Jesus called us to live a life of total sacrifice and to give up everything we have. I can tell you that God is even more appalled than Sam is about this issue.

Sam asserted that the bible supports slavery

This is false; the bible does not support slavery. Slavery as we understand it today is not the same as it was in the time this was written. In those times it was more of a profession and people would sell themselves into slavery so they could have food and shelter. The bible regulated these activities, but it also said that there was no difference between master and slave and that we are all equal in Christ Jesus. I will also point out that modern slavery was ended by Christians.

Sam says that the bible admonishes us to kill people for witchcraft

No, it does not admonish Christians to kill witches, or anyone else. There is no commandment for any Christians to murder anyone. It is true, however, that in the time of the Old Covenant, God set up laws for Israel which were very strictly enforced with the punishment of death. This was not anything that He ever imposed on the world, or any other people except the Jews. He also did not impose it on them: the Jews made a covenant with God to obey all of His laws, so that He would be their God, and they would be His people.

Sam says that there is absolutely nothing anyone can say against Muslims if they prayed to the right God

The God of the bible is not morally inconsistant, whereas the god of the muslims is.

Sam said Christianity is what only lunatics could believe on their own

The bible says this:

1 Corinthians 1:18

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

The scripture itself says that unsaved people will find the message of the cross foolish. This is the evidence that you are perishing. The things of the Spirit of God are foolish to the natural man, neither can he understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Sam made a little quip about catholicism

While I am sure there are saved catholics, the church itself departed from the true teachings of Jesus a long time ago.. There is also no teaching in the scripture regarding the Eucharist.

Sam said its very strange salvation depends bad evidence

God gives everyone good evidence that He exists but they suppress the truth. God reveals Himself through personal revelation. You cannot know God otherwise.

Sam says Christianity is a cult of human sacrifice

Jesus wasn't sacrificed against His will:

John 10:18

No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded."

He gave His life just as firemen have given their lives trying to save people from a burning building. Jesus didn't have to go to the cross but He did it out of love for us:

John 15:13

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Sam says the bible doesnt repudiate human sacrifice, that it celebrates it

Actually, it does repudiate it in many locations. The practice of sacrificing humans was utterly condemned in scripture. Jesus voluntarily giving Himself for the sins of the world does not resemble what Sam is implying even superficially.

Sam states that people used to bury children under the foundation of buildings and then says "these are the sorts of people who wrote the bible"

The kind of people who wrote the bible were eye witnesses to the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They did not bury children under foundations; they followed the true and living God.

Sam said that if there is a less moral moral framework he hadn't heard of it

As he has presented it, most certainly, but the problem is that he largely invented it from his misunderstanding of Christian theology and personal prejudices.

The true question is this: are you an honest or dishonest skeptic? If you're an honest skeptic you will investigate, but a dishonest skeptic doesn't want to know. You will have to admit that you do not know whether God answers prayer or not, so here is a possible clue to knowledge:

Pray this: God, I don't know if you're there or not, and I don't know if the bible is your word or not. I am asking you to reveal the truth to me, and if you do, I promise to follow it where ever it leads. If it leads to Jesus, I will give my life to Him and follow Him.

After praying this, read the gospel of John. Read it slowly, a little at a time, each time beforehand praying that God will give you revelation concerning what you're reading. If you do this, by the time you reach the end of the gospel your skepticism will have grown wings and flown away.

God bless.

Destroying public schools is what this is all about. We had and could have again a very good public school system, we're busy trying to destroy it though, render it impotent and then hand it over to private hands. Where it will flourish as something completely for profit and not in the interest of the students whatsoever.

Aside from causing intense pain, the venom of the spider can also cause priapism in humans. Erections resulting from the bite are uncomfortable, can last for many hours and can lead to impotence. A component of the venom (Tx2-6) is being studied for use in erectile dysfunction treatments.[9][10][11]

Peter Hitchens makes a good point about Brand not being able to deal in anything other than generalities though... good will, benevolence, etc are attitudes not plans/strategies... and aren't easily tied to a dollar figure... which is what the CRUX of the debate is about... some people place more value on $, some on compassion


Peter Hitchens tries to feign compassion by saying if drug addiction affects one family of course they care... well, compassion isn't compassion if you limit it only to yourself or those that directly affect you... REAL compassion isn't delimited by whether or not you know the person in question or not... REAL compassion is self-less

when the jingle in your pockets affects your "compassionate" view... you don't have a very compassionate view in the first place ( i guarantee some blockhead will try to take this to an extreme, such as "then why don't you give up all your money to help those less fortunate than you" instead of realizing that's not then end of the spectrum where my arguement comes from... it actually comes from reality where people don't wanna have to give up luxury [as opposed to necessity] to help someone that they can just as easily ignore or vilify)

and while the comment earlier about incarceration in the US is "somewhat" on the mark, lets not forget that the US prison system exists as it is primarily because its a private, for profit, industry... which shapes drug policy (gotta have your customer base - i mean inmates)

criminalization has always had an impotent effect on controlling drugs... from prohibition to THE WAR ON DRUGS (and the resulting chaos one finds in Mexico because of it)

there are PLENTY of countries that currently use legalization/rehabilitation as a much better deterrent/control; but we don't want to talk about those... because someone is making money of keeping them illegal, and where'd the poor politicians get their kickbacks from then?

Put your money to good use.

http://www.amazon.com/Scooby-doo-Phonics-Book-Reading-Program/sim/0439664799/2

http://www.amazon.com/The-Spelling-Book-Teaching-Children/dp/0872071928


>> ^bobknight33:

Well it is the truth.
Hear is another. Corporations have Millions and Millions of dollars are sitting idle afraid of OBAMA and his policies. If OBAMA wins that money will stay idle or be invested overseas. If OBAMA looses that money will be a title-wave of economic activity the likes we have not seen in years.

If you want a job vote Romney
If you want to keep you job vote Romney.
If you want to loose you job vote Obama.


>> ^VoodooV:
>> ^bobknight33:
Nothing wrong with what this man said.
Obama - Is always the same. Marxist Socialist Muslim loving anti American.
I rather go with a American flip flopper than a Marxist Socialist Muslim loving anti American.

yeah, because that argument is working out so well for the campaign. Why stop there? I think he has a black top hat and a furled mustache too. Damnit Obmaa! quit tying that damsel to the train tracks and cackling maniacally.
So what are you guys going to do when Romney loses? The Republicans have made it their singular goal to get rid of Obama, when that fails, and you know it's going to happen. That really makes the Reps seem impotent, doesn't it.

Well it is the truth.

Hear is another. Corporations have Millions and Millions of dollars are sitting idle afraid of OBAMA and his policies. If OBAMA wins that money will stay idle or be invested overseas. If OBAMA looses that money will be a title-wave of economic activity the likes we have not seen in years.


If you want a job vote Romney
If you want to keep you job vote Romney.

If you want to loose you job vote Obama.





>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^bobknight33:
Nothing wrong with what this man said.
Obama - Is always the same. Marxist Socialist Muslim loving anti American.
I rather go with a American flip flopper than a Marxist Socialist Muslim loving anti American.

yeah, because that argument is working out so well for the campaign. Why stop there? I think he has a black top hat and a furled mustache too. Damnit Obmaa! quit tying that damsel to the train tracks and cackling maniacally.
So what are you guys going to do when Romney loses? The Republicans have made it their singular goal to get rid of Obama, when that fails, and you know it's going to happen. That really makes the Reps seem impotent, doesn't it.

>> ^bobknight33:

Nothing wrong with what this man said.
Obama - Is always the same. Marxist Socialist Muslim loving anti American.

I rather go with a American flip flopper than a Marxist Socialist Muslim loving anti American.


yeah, because that argument is working out so well for the campaign. Why stop there? I think he has a black top hat and a furled mustache too. Damnit Obmaa! quit tying that damsel to the train tracks and cackling maniacally.

So what are you guys going to do when Romney loses? The Republicans have made it their singular goal to get rid of Obama, when that fails, and you know it's going to happen. That really makes the Reps seem impotent, doesn't it.

>> ^Quboid:

Shiny, why do you post stuff?
If you are posting to try to persuade people that your God is the one true God, you are being counter-productive. You are pushing people away from your belief. Whether or not your posts have any merit, whether or not you are right, people see your posts and think that Christians are a tiresome bunch of self-righteous bores.
It doesn't even come down to how convincing your arguments are any more - you are putting people off God. You are diminishing the sum total of Earth's belief in your God. I imagine you watch videos like this with the same impotent anger that I feel when I watch a video about a "gay" 4 year old being killed but ask yourself - is harming your religion really what you want to be spending your time doing? What will you say to St. Peter at the Gates, "I tried but I actually put people off. Sorry 'bout that."?


I don't think he understands that/how he is putting people off. I suspect he's been raised or taught by an almost old-fashioned zealot type; nonbelievers deserve to live in shame and scorn, that kind of thing. I imagine someone who looks like kenneth from 30 rock but instead of being super nice, he's super religious, walking around quoting the bible at people.

Shiny, why do you post stuff?

If you are posting to try to persuade people that your God is the one true God, you are being counter-productive. You are pushing people away from your belief. Whether or not your posts have any merit, whether or not you are right, people see your posts and think that Christians are a tiresome bunch of self-righteous bores.

It doesn't even come down to how convincing your arguments are any more - you are putting people off God. You are diminishing the sum total of Earth's belief in your God. I imagine you watch videos like this with the same impotent anger that I feel when I watch a video about a "gay" 4 year old being killed but ask yourself - is harming your religion really what you want to be spending your time doing? What will you say to St. Peter at the Gates, "I tried but I actually put people off. Sorry 'bout that."?

>> ^Skeeve:

The problem is that people do get treated unnecessarily.
The real problem, though, is that doctors do not have a reliable way to determine which of these very small cancers that are caught by a biopsy are potentially dangerous and which will never bother a man in his lifetime. (Indeed, autopsy studies show that more than half of men in their 50s and three quarters of men in their 80s in the U.S. had prostate cancer but died of something else.)[...]Such ambiguity would not be so bad if the treatments were virtually risk free.[...] Surgery (open radial prostatectomy) often results in urinary leakage [...] damage to the nearby muscle that controls urination may lead to incontinence. [...] Meanwhile, the nerves and blood vessels controlling erections may be severed during surgery, causing erectile dysfunction (impotence).[...] Radiation therapy of the prostate often ends up damaging the rectum and bladder because it is hard to avoid radiation scatter[...] Moreover, rectal bleeding and fecal soiling are frequent but commonly unreported side effects of both radiation therapy (including radioactive seed implants) and surgical approaches.

People do get treated unnecessarily. And those treatments have side effects that can be far worse than living with the cancer. Only 4 percent of prostate cancers spread to the bones or organs. Medical organizations now advise that asymptomatic men should not have routine screening unless they have a strong family history of prostate cancer.>> ^alien_concept:
@Yogi Perhaps because it's the most common form of cancer here in the UK and so many men remain undiagnosed because they're too scared to have it done and he though, fuck it. I dunno. Because it was funny and he knew it would be? I don't really understand what's dangerous about it @Skeeve? I can guarantee you that here they wouldn't treat anyone unnecessarily here on the NHS



I have no idea dude, whether it's the same here or not. Your post is very interesting. All I do know is my dad had prostate cancer after being checked and they caught it early enough for him to get away with a few weeks of radiation therapy, so maybe I'm biased

The problem is that people do get treated unnecessarily.

The real problem, though, is that doctors do not have a reliable way to determine which of these very small cancers that are caught by a biopsy are potentially dangerous and which will never bother a man in his lifetime. (Indeed, autopsy studies show that more than half of men in their 50s and three quarters of men in their 80s in the U.S. had prostate cancer but died of something else.)[...]Such ambiguity would not be so bad if the treatments were virtually risk free.[...] Surgery (open radial prostatectomy) often results in urinary leakage [...] damage to the nearby muscle that controls urination may lead to incontinence. [...] Meanwhile, the nerves and blood vessels controlling erections may be severed during surgery, causing erectile dysfunction (impotence).[...] Radiation therapy of the prostate often ends up damaging the rectum and bladder because it is hard to avoid radiation scatter[...] Moreover, rectal bleeding and fecal soiling are frequent but commonly unreported side effects of both radiation therapy (including radioactive seed implants) and surgical approaches.



People do get treated unnecessarily. And those treatments have side effects that can be far worse than living with the cancer. Only 4 percent of prostate cancers spread to the bones or organs. Medical organizations now advise that asymptomatic men should not have routine screening unless they have a strong family history of prostate cancer.>> ^alien_concept:

@Yogi Perhaps because it's the most common form of cancer here in the UK and so many men remain undiagnosed because they're too scared to have it done and he though, fuck it. I dunno. Because it was funny and he knew it would be? I don't really understand what's dangerous about it @Skeeve? I can guarantee you that here they wouldn't treat anyone unnecessarily here on the NHS

What else to do with this feeling of impotence in the face of ignorance, but to get thyself stonedeth, and make a world anew

Criticizing any candidate seems a slam dunk...until you remember the marxist clown in the White House RIGHT NOW.

Are you enjoying the higher gas prices, higher food prices? Double digit unemployment? More wasteful and impotent spending? Crony capitalism AND crony socialism? (redundant)

Speaking of kollij, when will His Earness be releasing HIS grades and kollij papers? I mean, he's a GENIUS, riiiiiiight?

I don't really care for the Superbowl. In fact, I don't watch sports at all. But the people in these videos clearly DO enjoy watching, so it's not surprising that turning the TV off at a crucial point in the game would piss them off, just as any of us getting cut off from something we enjoy would piss us off. Is there any harm in pulling this prank? Not at all, though it's not particularly nice. Are those people justified in their anger? Of course. It's like poking a bear in a cage, then laughing at it when it reacts in with impotent fury.