Why are so many more people killed by comparable natural disasters in non-Christian countries?

Toward Tradition ^ | December 29, 2003 | Rabbi Daniel Lapin

[adgirl]

Old article, but interesting.

[al baby]

Because we are all journeymen or women to the great carpenter. And reap what we sow

[Brilliant]

It's more likely that the Devil was behind Katrina than God.

[untenured]

Natural disasters kill large numbers of people in poor countries, not non-Christian ones. Hurricane Mitch in Central America killed about 20,000 people, for example.

[SIDENET]

For one thing, it doesn't take much of a wind or quake to bring down a building held together with string and dung.

Well, there goes my next building project.

[4mycountry]

lol

[Chi-townChief]

Not sure if it's entirely true. How about Latin America vs. Japan for example?

[MineralMan]

"It's more likely that the Devil was behind Katrina than God."

I see. I guess natural weather patterns that have been generating hurricanes for uncounted numbers of years had nothing to do with it. Well...I'm sure glad to hear that.

[lsee]

I agree, Baynative...

Dispassionately examined, the evidence suggests a spiritual rather than a seismic explanation for the disparity.

An economic explanation seems more likely.

[Doohickey]

I wonder why so many in secular society are so put off by religious people?

[jackson29]

just another white christian conspiracy....we just have to conjegate american, west and bush.

[bella1]

But you prove his point. Judeo-Christian societies long ago moved out of "string and dung" buildings and developed. Most, if not all, non Judeo-Christian countries are still in the dark ages. Just look at the Middle East. And if it weren't for oil (ironically discovered and now removed by Western oil companies) the Gulf states would be as backwards as the rest.

[NormB]

Allah's punishing them for their crappy building standards.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Of all twenty, only three have taken place in nations where Christianity has had a profound influence. Two were volcanic eruptions in Sicily and Italy that killed tens of thousands of people; the other was the flooding of part of Holland during a violent North Sea storm in 1953 drowning about two thousand people.

This guy's research sucks. How about Hurricane Mitch killing 18,000 people in Central America (a heavily Catholic region) in 1998? Heck, the 1906 San Francisco quake killed more people than the flooding of the Netherlands - why doesn't it rank?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Natural disasters kill large numbers of people in poor countries, not non-Christian ones.

Corollary: Most non-Christian countries are poor.

[MeanWestTexan]

Bingo.

Similar per-capita death toll in some recent Mexican eathquakes, if I recall correctly. (Difference being that Mexico is not quite as poor and not quite as densely populated.)

Poor, dense population is the chief determining factor.

[MeanWestTexan]

How about the Black Death.

[alarm rider]

"I wonder why so many in secular society are so put off by religious people?"

Guilt?

[Barney59]

Building Codes.