So those who die are never righteous and those who live always are?
According to some. I recall hearing a woman who was trying to defend God sending the Flood asked about all the babies who drowned; she replied “they were evil babies!”
Or, God liked Ted so much he let him jump the line early to get into his club, while you’re still stuck in the waiting room. The horrible tornado-filled waiting room.
That’s the Pat Robertson-ish way of looking at it. Of course even a lot of religious people know he’s a lunatic.
The Supreme Deity works in mysterious ways. Who you are you to question an intellect greater than yours?
If I go around your office randomly punching people in the face and I choose not to punch you, you wouldn’t thank me?
You mean like ‘anything’.
The correct answer to the OP’s question is “it’s a figure of speech”.
Don’t you see how the “God works in mysterious ways” answer allows you to evade any question?
But, I wasn’t questioning “an intellect greater than (mine.)” I’m asking you: Is everyone who dies in a disaster wicked (or at least non-righteous?) If Hitler had survived a deadly earthquake or, let’s say, a bomb attack under his desk, would that have made him righteous?
Yes, those Haitians are a wicked lot.
Exactly. THis is the same answer to"Why do people say ‘Knock on wood’ when they express satisfaction with their own fate?". IMO posters here would have no trouble discussing the cultural origins of the phrase in a more or less factual matter. But bring God into it, and there are no shortage of posters waiting to ridicule some fictional strawman’s entire system of belief.
Pancake Mix Robertson represents the opinions of too many religious people, but not all of them. I think you’re going after low hanging fruit here.
Of course. That’s the whole point.
“Faith means not wanting to know what is true.”
– Nietzsche
Indeed.
Ok, so you agree you’re picking an easy argument. What do you think you’re proving by doing that?
Your argument about Pat Robertson is different than what’s referenced in the OP. One who thinks only wicked people are killed by natural disasters is a different animal than one who thanks God for sparing him during a natural disaster as opposed to any other day. I believe the former is rarer and more unstable than the latter.
I agree. Still, so what? It’s not hard to understand why people are thankful they’ve been spared from disasters.
I can’t answer the OP’s question, but this seems like a great place to share this story, which I think is funny.
So my dad is a hard-core, true-believing mormon. He wears the magical underpants and everything – which is crucial to this story. Many mormons believe their special underpants protect them from harm. My dad is apparently one of them.
Many years ago, he bought a new tent. He loves camping, so he set it up in the backyard and proceeded to seal all the seams to make it watertight and decided to sleep out in the backyard for a test run before taking it camping. Somehow, he managed to talk my stepmonster into sleeping out there with him. During the night, a very strong thunderstorm blew up. Before it got too bad, however, my stepmonster bailed and went inside to sleep in her bed for the rest of the night. Clad in his magical skivvies, my dad stayed out there.
He told me that the storm blew a neighbor’s tree right over and part of it landed in his yard… inches away from his tent. “What does that tell ya? HUH?” He asked me, with obvious great pride in his iron-clad faith and with obvious pride in his faith in his magical underoos. The implication was supposed to be, to me, that the mormon church is true because Dad’s Magical Mormon Man-Panties® protected him from being smashed by the tree; therefore, I should repent and rejoin the church and be a happy little mormon again.
I waited a couple beats and then said, “Well, that tells me that you don’t have enough sense to come inside out of the rain.”
And he shut right up and stopped tempting the gods by sleeping outside in a tent during a thunderstorm. Silly rabbit. 
That’s a more entertaining example of the problem with this kind of thinking. 
To answer the OP’s question …
I believe in God.
A tornado missed me and my family by about a quarter mile last spring.
I believe God is intimately involved in my life, so when good things happen (such as, not getting killed by a tornado, or narrowly missing getting hit head on in traffic, etc.), of course I’m going to be thankful to God. What’s so hard to understand about gratitude?
Anyhow, OP, there’s your answer. Given the tone of the thread, I won’t be returning, but hope this helps 
Well…
What’s so hard to understand about cause and effect, i.e., post hoc reasoning?