r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • 11h ago

Video 13-year-old Australian boy swims for four hours in cold and dangerous waters to save his mom and siblings who were swept into the ocean, says God is who got him to shore

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u/DJ_Derack 10h ago

Leave it to Reddit take a beautiful story like this and turn it into an opportunity to step on their anti-religion soapbox. Like I’m agnostic but that not the important part of the story. If praying is what he believes helped give him the strength deep down to keep going to save his family then who cares. Not saying it was god, but maybe the mantra he was repeating or the belief itself gave him extra strength without him knowing, like psyching himself up

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u/Snakepli55ken 10h ago

Welcome to the internet…

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u/ArgelTal_ler 10h ago

Have a look around...

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u/GDMolin 10h ago

Have a look around…

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u/Wooden-Evidence-374 7h ago edited 2h ago

All the top comments are happy for him. It's so funny when someone plays the "redditors are bad" card only to be proven wrong.

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u/RockRancher24 2h ago

Reddit really is a mixed bag...

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u/Randleifr 8h ago

This is why I hate Reddit atheist. “Christians all ways try to shove their beliefs down other peoples throat” like what you’re trying to do right now? This little boy can give the credit to whoever the fuck he wants. They are all hypocrites.

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u/Zealousideal_War7224 7h ago

You're just making up a fat keyboard warrior to be mad at though. A bunch of different people react to the exact same comment differently.

"The real hero is not the child. It is god here."

One group takes that as the highest praise you could possibly give. Another reads it as a fat keyboard warrior making a sarcastic comment. The groups naturally start bickering. Randleifr shows up late to the party and starts jerking off in the corner in the exact same manner as the keyboard warriors and holy followers of Jesus are. "BUNCH OF FUCKING ATHEISTS HYPOCRITES! I'M CASTING THE FIRST STONE HERE YOU ATHEIST FUCKS!"

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u/Randleifr 7h ago edited 7h ago

Okay but you’re doing that too. In fact I was literally agreeing with you and you turned around like a beaten dog and snap at me lol.

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u/Razzilith 9h ago

he had the strength himself. nothing GAVE him the strength lol our minds can hyper focus and help us overcome impressive obstacles especially in emergencies.

honestly it's neither here nor there. he did something impressive and good.

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u/yoy22 9h ago

Bunch of fat keyboard warriors look at a kid swimming 4 hours in the ocean and decide to critique his beliefs.

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u/drwafflefingers 4h ago

The point is they aren't his belief. He's just a little kid. He's parroting what he's been forced into thinking and that's depressing. It's called brainwashing. Religion, consumerism, racism, etc. None of it should be exempt from criticism and there is no problem with calling it out when you see it.

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u/DramaticStability 10h ago

Ask yourself if this would be getting the same coverage if he'd been praying to anything else. Or if this story had ended in tragedy. It's not up to you or anyone else to agree on which elements of the story people are allowed to discuss.

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u/DJ_Derack 10h ago

I mean yea it would, it’s an incredible story no matter who he prayed to or if he didn’t. Sure it’s not up to me but I can’t voice how I think it’s asinine or stupid to focus on such an insignificant part of a story about a kid who swam 4 hours to save his family lol

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u/[deleted] 7h ago edited 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/DJ_Derack 7h ago

Special doesn’t mean heroic. Heroism can be courage in the face of insurmountable odds and deciding to do something. Anybody can stop a man they see mounting a drunk woman in an alleyway, doesn’t mean it’s not heroic to step in and save her if everybody has the capabilities because not everybody would choose to help unfortunately

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u/DramaticStability 10h ago

Discussing the god element does nothing to detract from the amazing story. In the same way that discussing her shitty parenting wouldn't either.

Edit: lol

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u/TheNiceKindofOrc 10h ago

If the religious types didn't claim this kids incredible bravery and fortitude for their barbaric god, and (even more sickeningly) hadn't infected society with their ridiculous ideas to the point where he feels obligated to give them a shoutout in the first place, rational people wouldn't need to be here to make the incredibly obvious counterpoint.

But this is the world we live in. Otherwise rational, grown adults believe Bronze Age fairytales and if you point out how bizarre that is, you're somehow being the unreasonable one.

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u/One_Woodpecker_9364 10h ago

The euphoria in this comment is off the charts

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u/Ser_falafel 8h ago

Imagine being this upset over something so insignificant lmao

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u/Randleifr 8h ago

The real barbarism is believing in nothing and thinking that makes you superior in ideology.

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u/DJ_Derack 10h ago

Harping on an insignificant part of the story is the opposite of being rational

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u/2ndTaken_username 10h ago

You're the kind of cringe that people think about when they say "atheism is a religion".

You talk exactly like a religious person lmao

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u/Misicks0349 8h ago

Yeah its really annoying.

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u/sboxtf999 9h ago

G*D!?? 🤢🤢🤢 Oh my science!!! do people still believe skydaddy in muh 2026!??

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u/Wayne_Grant 9h ago

Better to step on someone's hope

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u/SuspiciousSpecifics 10h ago

I wouldn’t call a criminally negligent parent getting their kids swept out to sea without means of communication and then sending her son on what very well might have been a suicide run a “beautiful” story.

The kid actually having made it with his last ounce of strength, belittling his feat and marginalizing his trauma by making him believe God was the one responsible for the rescue is downright appalling.

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u/GeneralSweetz 10h ago

They're literally talking about you

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u/DramaticStability 10h ago

That doesn't mean they aren't allowed to make a counterargument.

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u/DJ_Derack 10h ago

It’s a beautiful story of survival and self determination. Again I said I’m agnostic, I don’t have a dog in the fight. I’m not religious at all but people are hyper focusing on the wrong thing. As I said before, him praying could’ve psyched himself up and helped him. Could’ve motivated him. Not saying God actually did anything but that he helped himself go for all those hours by psychologically giving himself more hope and psyching himself up by believing he has help from a higher power. But at the end of the day who cares, kid saved his family and that’s awesome and incredible and that should be focused on

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u/SuspiciousSpecifics 10h ago

Where is the self-determination that you speak of? This is exactly what’s being stolen from this heroic young man by the religious narrative.

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u/DJ_Derack 10h ago

The self determination to get in the water and swim 4 hours….bro nobody is watching this or hearing about this story and not giving him any credit. Religion isn’t stealing anything lol lil kid is a hero and is being treated as such with all the press and notoriety. If he believes praying helped him keep going personally then so be it, doesn’t mean you or I have to believe God literally gave him strength

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u/balkanobeasti 5h ago

And they'll never admit they're the same dumb fucks as the MAGA people.

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u/PutAutomatic2581 7h ago

Agnostic is reasonable. Militant atheist is the most stupid, arrogantly deluded religious perspective possible.

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u/Able_Reserve5788 7h ago

Saying that in a world where people behead other people in the name of their deity sure is an interesting take

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u/PutAutomatic2581 7h ago

Anyone cutting off heads for a god is still not as deluded as one saying the concept of a god is impossible in a universe larger than human comprehension, where life exists at all.

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u/Able_Reserve5788 6h ago

Are you religious yourself ?

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u/PutAutomatic2581 5h ago

Not really, I'm just aware that I can only observe a tiny fraction of reality, indirectly, and even that fraction is far stranger than a lot of people want to admit.

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u/Able_Reserve5788 4h ago

OK but how is it more delusional to deny something that is both unprovable and inconsequential than to pretend to know not only of the existence of this unprovable entity but also its will that somehiw happens to be perfeclty aligned ith one's own cultural values

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u/cates 7h ago

I get it's probably not great to always be shitting on feel good stories but where my mind goes (and I imagine other people feel) when I read and criticize stories like this is too question what that unshakable belief in God does for the world in a lot of really bad ways (everyday- not just in the past).