I do not think any disaster of nature is caused by God, now, or ever. There were Hurricanes, eruptions, tornados and floods all through earth’s history. There are Hurricanes that stay off land, and tornados that pass over wtih out touching ground, volcano’s that erupt and floods, where people do not live, It is people living in a area where such things happen. it is no more God punishing any one, any more than when people are killed in a plane crash or other accident. Things can happen just because they do.
I think that back in the good old days, priests and/or politicians pointed to natural disasters and said, “Look, God must really be pissed at the----” whatever group the speaker wanted to villify. Such views paid handsomely and our present day charlatans profit accordingly. I don’t know why people are willing to believe that any one man knows more about God and his motives than they do; no one, to my knowledge, has met God face-to-face and returned to talk about it.
Let me note that so far I’ve only seen the fringe of the fringe of the religious right make claims about the Katrina disaster being Divine wrath. The religious right boards I hang on have discussed the possibility & for the most part dismiss it.
Even the usual suspects Falwell & Robertson have shied away from this one.
Yes, and I am right about to take his word for it that not even the littlest babies he drowned were without virtue. :rolleyes: That is a really grim way of looking at things, you pixie.
Nah man, you’re not thinking right. It’s easy. All he has to is set up an infinite number of identical universes and then just fire at random. As soon as one hits the bullseye, just deconstruct the rest of the universes and wait until he is consumed with wrath again. Rinse lather repeat.
Maybe they are. But believing something and saying so publicly are different things. Saying publicly that God sent Katrina to wipe out sinners tends to make your religion, and to some degree all religion, look bad in the eyes of others. As I posted here, there are those who believe that making religion look bad in that way is a violation of the Third Commandment. So you’d better be damn sure God agrees with you before you start saying things like that.
And, of course, there’s the fact that this happened in the US. Sad as it is, that probably makes a difference to at least some fundamentalist Christians. It probably even makes a difference to some of them that white Christians were affected.
All I can say to that is:
(just wanted to end on a happier note, since this is all so depressing)
And, of course, there’s precedent for this interpretation. Remember when Pat Robertson was denouncing Gay Days in Orlando, with a hurricane bearing down on Central Florida that he pointed to as His impending wrath … and the storm turned north and hit Robertson’s HQ in Virginia Beach?
Many of the people who advocate such beliefs have neither Scriptural nor logical bases for their words.
I think you wrongly assume that someone, upon seeing the disaster, spent time praying and studying the Bible thoroughly, came up with a conclusion, and then decided that it was cool enough to share with the world.
More often than not, people who make inflammatory statements such as these already have their venomous speeches written out – they just wait for a disaster to fill in the little blanks.
If it wasn’t “Katrina is punishing New Orleans for a gay parade,” then it would have been “Katrina is punishing Florida State University for drunken debauchery” or “Katrina is punishing Washington DC for not confirming Roberts” or “Katrina is punishing Cuba for Castro’s communism.”
Heavy rains in LA? It’s because they produce R-rated and X-rated movies there! Earthquake in San Francisco? Serves the homosexuals right! Blackouts in Massachusetts? God’s punishment for making gay marriage legal. Tornados in Oklahoma? They’ll find someone to blame it on.
A friend of mine pointed out on her blog that those who are attributing Katrina to divine retribution are a little lax in their Bible studies:
And I’m sure there were plenty of rainbows visible around New Orleans. So their version of God isn’t only vengeful, but He welshes on his agreements. What a dick!
There’s a reason the immediate, intuitive reaction is to reject them as hateful. It’s bad enough when they use a guide to spirituality and twist it into an instruction manual letting them tell others how to live. When they disregard the work itself to support their own stupid conclusions, that’s just absurd.
