Making it perfectly clear that I don’t believe in this at all – anymore than the original poster did – but playing devil’s advocate…
Florida’s been hit by, I think, eight hurricanes in two years now. (After this many I start to lose count. Don’t even ask me how many tropical storms we’ve had on top of the hurricanes or you’ll make me look it up.) Where I live has been hit by two of those hurricanes.
The area hardest hit, practically wiped out, was, of course, the beaches. Now if you buy that wealth = sin or at least making it harder to get in the kingdom of heaven
What’s the meaning of Jesus’ teaching about the camel going through the eye of a needle?
(Hey, only my second post and I get to reference not one, but TWO columns.)
If you buy that premise and since the beach is populated by more rich people than other parts of town then the fact that it is they who got smacked harder by the hurricanes could be God’s warning to the wealthy.
Then there’s the premise that the beach is an area for the flagrant display of bodies which leads to thoughts of lust – one of the seven deadly sins. (Though some of the bodies I’ve seen on the beach could be used instead of cold showers in killing sexual appetites.) Plus we have a homosexual beach and homosexuality is considered a sin in Christianity as well as in Islam and probably a few other major religions.
So you could draw a correlation between God’s wrath and the beach getting destroyed twice in two years.
Frankly, I put it down to the beaches being barrier islands, but then I’m a skeptic when it comes it religious mythologies.
(Or the hurricanes could have been a warning to me to change my doubting ways and my inland home is only standing due to the mercy of God and not due to my choosing a sensible location to live. )
When it comes to hurricanes, there is one group of people who I absolutely do not have any sympathy for. Those are people who build their houses on barrier islands. Inevitably, they’re shocked that their home was wiped off the map; inevitably, I want to slap these people on their faces and say, “Dude (or Babe) you built your house on a tiny little island which exists for the specific purpose of bearing the brunt of any hurricanes that might come along. How stupid are you?”
Plus, doesn’t it say in the Bible that “It is a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand”?
What always bothers me about God smiting the wicked, etc. is how come we never hear news about really wicked people getting their retribution?
Sure, the “holier than thou” folks are so quick to rejoice about unfortunate events befalling “wicked” people such as prostitutes, gamblers, homosexuals, etc.
But by damn it how come we NEVER hear news stories such as these?
• “A lightning bolt struck San Quentin prison killing all the inmates on death row.”
• “Osama Bin Laden died when he fell 3 miles into a fissure created by a massive earthquake”.
• “A flash flood caused a drunk driver to be run off the road and killed just seconds before he would have smashed into a car killing all occupants.”
You’ve got a city filled with people stewed to the gills on booze, who’ve come there for the express purpose of getting drunk and gambling, suddenly you have to tell all of them that they can’t gamble (no lights to see the cards, no power to run the machines) and that they’ll have to take their drinks warm (no ice), how long do you think it’ll take for them to start rioting? Me? I give them about 5 minutes, with Las Vegas looking like post-Katrina New Orleans in about an hour. If there’s any Hunter S. Thompsons in town, I give it even less time.
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