Posted on 01/08/2005 5:37:56 PM PST by leight
We're doing reasonably well in coping with the physical needs of the millions struck down by the tsunami, but we're making a mess of coming to terms with its significance. Belief in supernatural forces and other delusions hasn't helped.
A widespread reaction, understandable among the illiterate, but reprehensible in the educated, is to allocate blame. Somebody has to be responsible. The common theme of the complaints is asking how God, Allah, or whatever his name is, could do this to us. Christians have a special bone to pick, since the blow fell at Christmas, when God might have been expected to be seasonably well-disposed toward his sinful creatures, but just about every believer feels let down.
Religions mostly offer explanations of the way the world works. That's how they get their followers into churches, mosques and temples. They are up against it this time, when it comes to explaining how an all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere-present Supreme Being could perpetrate such a crime. Retribution for humanity's ingratitude hardly fits the bill, since half the victims were children.
The world's religious leaders can't avoid declaring themselves one way or the other. If God couldn't see the tsunami coming in time to stop it, he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. If he could have stopped it and didn't, his decision shows a serious flaw in his all-loving character.
If the disaster had a natural rather than divine explanation, scientists have all the answers. No room for the Book of Revelations or the Devil. This view, however, throws the ball into the creationists' court, for awkward rallies back and forth among the proliferating born-again religionists who play an increasing role in the decisions of otherwise rational governments from the White House to Wellington. Now I come to think of it, I haven't heard much from Brian Tamaki on the tsunami, but he must have a view.
Those who express their views use the word "enormity", but this is properly a philosophical term, a measure of human wickedness, not of size or extent. Non-judgemental words such as enormousness, immensity, vastness and hugeness are available for large-scale events such as tsunamis.
Enormity is the only suitable generic word we have for mind-boggling wickedness, from the Holocaust and Stalin's gulags to monstrous murders committed in West Auckland and Lower Hutt. We need it to express universal condemnation.
Trotting it out when confronting natural events such as earthquakes misses the point. The tsunami was not wicked. The forces of nature have no morals, no ethics. Geological events, the unseen movements of continent-sized plates grinding against one another far below the thin planetary skin we live on need no more than the laws of science to explain them.
It is a matter of physics, no harder to understand than the collapse of a child's sand castle on a wet beach, which is about all the events of Christmas amount to in the cosmic scale. They had nothing to do with enormity, nothing to do with anthropomorphic delusions of celestial malevolence.
Another significant superstitious response to the tsunami was to explain the seemingly inexplicable by talking about luck. There were the deaths that should not have happened, the tourists who went to Phuket on a last-minute impulse. Those who see pure chance as a substantial entity or force accessible to its believers, spoke easily of the dead as the victims of "bad luck".
Then there were the "good luck" stories, the "miracles", the escapes and rescues that were achieved against all the odds, the people who at the last minute cancelled trips that would have landed them in the middle of the catastrophe. Oooh, weren't they lucky.
Believing in luck as the reason why some people died in the tsunami and some didn't is just as ridiculous as accepting the complicated edifices of exhortations, persuasions, bans and prescriptions of the religious.
Every race day we see people, who make perfectly rational business and domestic decisions the rest of the week, choosing suddenly to risk money on combinations of numbers in pursuit of good luck. When a favoured horse runs last, that's not because its backers lacked judgement, but because they had bad luck.
Thousands of Lotto ticket buyers insist they must have the same number combinations every week to maintain their luck, when anyone with half a brain knows all numbers go into the pot each time, irrespective of their past performances. Nature knows nothing of the way we shuffle our numbers.
Superstitious people don't want to hear there are no tsunami-beating miracles, there is no such thing as luck. When their credulity is challenged, the cry goes up, "What harm does it do?" Of course it does harm. Any mulish refusal to face facts does harm, especially when humanity is dealing with one of the planet's random, mindless disasters.
However he could well have put it in perspective with the estimated 46 million abortions performed throughout the world EACH year when comparing natural disasters with man made disasters. The tsunami deaths represent less than half of one percent of the deaths each year from abortions (abortions are of course inevitably fatal- no humour intended here).
Of course the extreme and wacky religious response is that of Sheik Fawzan al- Fawzan from Saudi Arabia (who is a thorn in the side of Islamic academic apologists) who, after earlier in his headline career confessing that slavery is part of Islam (correct/ read the Koran), recently stated the tsunami is Allah’s revenge against infidel tourists, particularly for the sexual perversion that occurs in countries such as Thailand over Christmas.
He didn’t explain why Aceh, a part of Indonesia with strict sharia law, and probably no tourists, (there is a civil war there initiated by Muslim terrorists aiming to carve off a strict Islamic state) should bear the full brunt of the tsunami with almost 100,000 deaths.
I understand the sheik thinks that Allah is warning Muslims to work harder at sharia law. Why? It seems Allah doesn’t reward them but picks on them for other people’s (“infidels”) sins. I thought the Koran says mankind, or at least Muslims, are not made responsible for other peoples’ sins? Contradictions can be awfully embarrassing can’t they? Even for the writer perhaps, but that’s the price for writing down your thoughts.
Another Muslim commentator, Walid Tabtabai wrote in the Kuwaiti Al Watan newspaper that the tsunami was a warning from Allah to those who delay and neglect prayers, indulge in free mixing, and listen to music and songs. He has almost covered the ENTIRE human race here! Does he know this?
I liked the question from commentator Deroy Murdock (National Review On line) who asked, on the basis of this sort of “ logic” why Allah didn’t simply level Las Vegas instead?
Back to Frank’s question. It is a difficult one to answer to any one’s satisfaction. Certainly prejudice and enmity are often the motivation for such questions, but I agree not always. Often it’s simply anger and confusion. We have to blame someone but why God?
I understand that mankind does in fact have substantial degree of control of the earth and its resources. There are inadequate early warning systems for tsumanis in place. A job for the UN here perhaps. Something useful and tangible I mean!
Who is responsible for providing early warning systems or safe living environments for people, given the historical knowledge man has about nature? God or man(particularly governments)? Why does mankind insist on living in vulnerable parts of the world knowing death and disaster are likely to occur from time to time?
These are rhetorical questions. God is in fact there before and after disasters. He provides for example, mankind with the intelligence and opportunity to care for their citizens,which they invariably chose to stuff up for their own selfish reasons and uses human agents to demonstrate compassion and provide relief after disasters.
Jesus demonstrates that God is caring but love assumes free will and God gives man have free will.
There are consequences for that. So, for example ,nations throughout the world short change the needs of their people and spend oodles of filthy lucre on military arms and political weapons of oppression. Let’s put them in the dock instead.
With responsibility comes accountability.
One could conclude that a one world government seems on the surface to be an answer. The downside of that is George Orwell’s literary prophecies.
What a pickle mankind has fallen into.
Another d*mn good vanity...probably ought to ask admin moderator the correct etiquette for such...but you are an excellent writer...
If you are from Vermont...send me an email...I think we are related.
Oh to try to comprehend the ways of God. I still cannot figure out his great mercy in my life, it has been unspeakably abundant and totally undeserved.
How can we as humans even begin to think we can understand his ways.
If you think that was bad, how about this:
Massive explosion detected from black hole
Last Updated Fri, 07 Jan 2005 18:26:08 EST
CBC News
LONDON - Scientists have observed the largest known explosion, in which a supermassive black hole sucked in matter estimated to be a billion times the mass of our sun.
In the study, researchers used NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope to find two cavities roughly 650,000 light years across in a distant cluster of galaxies.
Chandra X-ray image of galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421. (Courtesy: NASA/CXC/Ohio U./B.McNamara et al.)
"The eruption, which has lasted for more than 100 million years, has generated energy equivalent to hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts," NASA said in a release.
The telescope detected the powerful explosion, likened to a nuclear blast without the light, near a galaxy cluster called MS 0735.6+7421, about 2.6 billion light years away.
Astronomer Brian McNamara of Ohio University and his colleagues said the energy was likely generated as matter fell into the rapidly growing black hole.
Radio emissions from the cavities show jets from the blast erupted particles, magnetic fields and energy to create the cavities.
Intergalactic material is expected to cool but McNamara's team suspects heat generated by the cavities prevents the gas from cooling to create stars.
The amount of energy in the shock wave also suggests the supermassive black hole is consuming more matter than expected.
"It's like a 300-pound person eating 100 pounds of meat in one sitting," McNamara said.
The study appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/01/07/Chandra-explosion050107.html
The biggest tragedy is when people are not compassionate towards one another; all other tragedies pale in comparison.
Belief in a just, merciful Father of us all instills in us compassion, generation after generation, like nothing else.
Look at the Creation and structure of the natural universe, the spread of early Christianity, and the return of the Jewish people to see the imprint of God in history.
Isn't it curious those that say there is no God, those that follow the religions created by their own hands and worship the work of their own hands, Those that live by the rationalizations of their own darkened understandings Universally and unanimously point there finger to The God of Israel and Jesus Christ to blame.
They do not accuse Buddha Krishna Vishnu Thor Zeus or any other man made-deity.
How is it that there is a universal cry of anger in their unregenerate souls and it is laid at the feet of God and Jesus Christ?
It is precisely because man is created in God's Image and Likeness and we bear his breath of life --
Psalm 107:11-12 because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High: Therefore he brought down their heart with labor; they fell down, and there was none to help.
It seems evident that all these people feel conviction and sense God and so they cry and rail against him.
Isaiah 1:2-3 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Isaiah 63:9-11 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
What is life when we are told in the bible that men are eternal beings? What we call life is but a blink of an eye. It is a sigh it is a breath But what is determined here is ones destiny will men chose to follow and serve to lord with all their hearts not caring to be drawn away by the enticements of this world? Or will their foolish hearts be led astray. Will we spend eternity with God and the upright or spend eternity with the unrighteous and the devil and his angels.
To live is God to die is gain. To live is Christ to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord -- this is the hope of all that believe. So whether by gun or bullet whether by volcano or tsunami earth quake or famine to those that truly have Christ in their hearts we are ready. For those who are not they cling to this life and the things of the world. Many in th church are like this also.
Concerning the second coming of Christ Jesus said: Therefore when you see the "abomination of desolation,'[c] spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), 16"then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. 23"Then if anyone says to you, "Look, here is the Christ!' or "There!' do not believe it. 24For false Christ’s and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25See, I have told you beforehand. 26"Therefore if they say to you, "Look, He is in the desert!' do not go out; or "Look, He is in the inner rooms!' do not believe it. 27For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 28For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. The Coming of the Son of Man (D) 29"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
If we are at the end we were warned. No more than that we have been promised that God would cleanse the church from all unrighteousness and cleanse the world. So get ready -- better yet get yourself ready
You are after all the master of your own soul and the master of your destiny -- whom will you chose, whom will you serve.
Liberal hate the thought of divine judgment. This is just another example of a liberal.
An act of nature is not the same thing as an act of God IMHO.
The Flood, remember?
This is just pure BS!
No need to read further. Sophmoric atheist rant.
Very True.
The explanation for the tsunami can be summed up in two words:
God's sovereignty.
Neal
Since most "evos" are atheists, trying to quote scripture to them doesn't have much of a positive effect. They don't hold the Bible in high regard. They have to have "the right soil" for planting. If they are not interested in the Word, then they are hard to help, and prayer is nearly all one can do.
I posted a response a week ago, on a thread mostly occupied by evolutionists, with a similar topic. I picked one out and asked him/her if they believed that they have a soul, and if so, how did it evolve?
The battle for souls is similar to other battles, take the offensive, attack at their weakest point, reminding them of their mortallity and the prospects of being eternally wrong.
I'm not one of the world's religious leaders, but I am here to tell you. I've been telling God how to run things most of my life. Funny thing is he doesn't always listen. When that happens I simply require a "time out" to get the thinking right one more time.
I find the article haughty and ignorant.
I find your commentary pretty wonderful.
Certainly LOVE requires free will.
Free will requires authentic consequences for authentic choices.
Bad choices yield bad consequences and suffering.
The tens of millions of abortions are evidence of acted out rebellion against God and His standards and priorities.
Secular man says--CONVENIENCE AND SELFISHNESS are my God, Up yours, Almighty.
God is not amused.
I believe He is currently on an increasing program of communicating that displeasure. I don't know why He tends toward meat axe--coarse messages. But He does. I've prayed and asked Him why He couldn't choose something like the event in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. I don't think I have much of an answer yet.
Perhaps there's a hint or two. He seems to be very big on extremely dramatic statements VERY STARKLY DRAMATIZING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EVIL AND IT'S CONSEQUENCES AND GOOD AND IT'S CONSEQUENCES.
We have seen such in this Tsunami situation.
The raw damage is horrid on all fronts and in a list of ways. Yet in the midst of the horror are loving acts; protectiveness; redemptive deeds and happenings.
And, these are not always child-like clear or simple. Many times they provoke great pondering and thoughtfulness. It appears that the pondering and thoughtfulness--AND ESPECIALLY THE PROVOKED SEEKING OF GOD'S FACE may be a LOT of what God desires to result from such.
Certainly this ghastly Tsunami is nothing compared to the willful and deadly murder of innocent infants for pleasure and convenience around the world. Quite logically, God does equate this with the tossing of children in the fires of Molach in Old Testament times. This generated some of His greatest punishment and anger on record. We are not immune.
Any pontifications not realizing this, imho, are terribly selfish, ignorant and addicted to a world view which blocks out the possibility of God telling the individuals concerned how to live their lives.
No one would go to a high paying coveted job and treat THE BOSS that way by a wide margin. Yet, such people dare to think of and treat THE SUPREME BOSS as crassly and arrogantly as they can imagine to do.
He's not impressed. And He will have individual and collective responses to such attitudes and behaviors.
Thanks for your commentary.
This was something that was freepmailed to me after 9/11....a hypothetical.
Say I was driving slowly along the road, and came to a bridge that was over a chasm thousands of feet deep, and it was washed out, with no warning signs, or safe median, or anyway to keep from going over. I went back to a bend in the road, a little before it, and parked my car off the road. It became dark and extremely foggy, but I just sat there with my lights out, observing. I started to see a line of cars driving towards the washed-out bridge, at a high rate of speed, but I did nothing, just watched. All those cars went off the bridge, and the people fell to their deaths. To make matters worse, all those people were family members that I loved and cared for.
Am I guilty of anything?
What if I were responsible for the bridge having washed out?
I had no idea how to respond to this.
AMEN
QUITE SO and well said.
Thanks.
Oh, I try and format long passages of Scripture so there's eye relieving white space more frequently. Long unparagraphed text is hard on most eyes.
Well said.
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