Yeah man, now all those people who were conflicted whether God was morally punishing people with natural disasters can know how silly their opinions are!

Seriously, what in the hell does "making the Christian message less relevant" even mean?

"The fact that people thought the troll video was real says something about the primacy of those kinds of opinions in our culture if they are so easily recognized."

No, I'm sorry, but that's absurd. The "fact that people thought the troll video was real" proves nothing of the kind. It proves that people can easily be duped by a troll (**cough cough** Cena Mark), and that's about it.

And, yes, Pat Robertson is a dick. He is also perfectly capable of putting his foot in his own mouth and his head up his own ass, he doesn't need others to disingenuously do so on his behalf.

NewHeavenSalesman: It means "Christian" messages of the type "gays caused Katrina" is rhetorically effective for spreading that particular view of the Christian god (spiteful, bigoted, anti-gay god) by being shocking, offensive. By releasing a video like the young woman did she "took the wind out of their sails."

Dinaukht: For someone to believe something, let alone be persuaded to believe something, it must first be believable. Which is to say, someone must have background knowledge of some sort to be able to understand what someone is saying. Let me be more concrete. People believed the troll girl was an authentic fundamentalist Christian because there is precedence for this kind of behavior in our culture already. What I mean is that we believed the troll girl because what she was saying does not seem absurd for someone to say; revolting, offensive? Yes. But not insensible. It is in this way that I mean these fundamentalist views have primacy. These views already exist in our cultural discourse as to easily recognizable. So my point is that if the fundamentalist position is so easily recognizable it is because people have experience with it routinely enough think the troll video was actually a fundamentalist Christian.

She's not going to go out with you, Simon.

simon666: So if I post a video that claims the Earth is flat and people believe that I am being genuine in my assertions, the fact that people believe I'm a real wacko, rather than a troll, will say something about the "primacy" of that kind of opinion? Or if I post a video in which I pretend to be a Buddhist monk and I suggest that 9-11 was Karmic retribution. If I get people to believe me, that will prove the "primacy" of that kind of idea within Buddhism?

Or is it possible that all I will have proven is that people are easily taken in? That's my only point.

Maybe I'll post a video pretending to be a neo nazi. I'll claim the holocaust never happened. Then, when people post angry comments, I'll say "just kidding!" Gee, won't that be clever!

How would you know which things were "neo-nazi" without having first experienced/learned what being "neo-nazi" means? Presumably you would not know a particular rant was "neo-nazi" without first having learned that rants of type X are considered such by criteria Y.

Now what I'm suggesting is that so many people were "duped" because so many have learned to identify X by Y. How have so many people learned to do this? By presumably having experience at some point with rants of type X in the past. If so many people can identify X, then it should hold they have experienced X in their past. And if this is the case it would mean X is prevalent enough to expose so many people to itself.

If you're criticism of my point is that "primacy" is too strong, that's fine. However, I think my point still stands. I think you'd be better off criticizing me by saying something like mass media allows small groups to expose large populations to X which would distort the perceived size of groups advocating X. But be this at is may, X is still clearly a significant issue if it is so easily believed to be the case.

And I'm spent.

This comment reminded me of Goronchev and intellectual checkmate. Have my stars.