Religion and Natural Disasters.

[Angela Harlem]

Maybe the world is a perfect balance of good and bad, and this was a horribly acute dose of bad to balance out some of the good we somehow miss because good news doesn't sell as well as bad news. And I'm not talking media. We pay more attention to tragedy than good news, on the whole.

 

[For Honor]

I don't blame god for anything




As religious or unreligious as I may or may not be, I think everyone is accountable for their own life. I salute god for giving us a wonderful earth, upon which hurricanes and all matter of weather comes along.

A hurricane is not a bad thing, not evil, not the devil. If you choose to believe it is, so be it, I won't argue with you. But I can't honestly say it is.



This is my standpoint: Katrina was not bad. It was a good test, so to say, of peoples character, their ability to survive in termendous adversity, their ability to take heed of warnings, their ability to cope. It is nothing more than that. You can pray to god about it, and donate money - I don't have a problem with either.

You could say Katrina was an oppertunity for the USA, perhaps world, to come togeher.


Like everything else in life, it;s about perspective. But I don't think people should question their faith over this. Or "not like god anymore" or something silly like that. Besides, god has a heavenly kingdom for those who deserve it, right? So don't worry about those who died, either.


I think a big problem with the world, or american media, perhaps, is that we are so focused on the bad/good, or just negative media, labeling everything as a tragedy, etc. Don't get me wrong, Katrina is a hurricane I won't ever forget.


a few closing thoughts


god made hurricanes, but if that is so, he also gave us legs, ears, brains, which led to communications systems.... and also, the ability to govern, or not govern, ourselves wisely.......

I agree with melon, as far as the earth goes. There are cycles to everything, and hurricanes are NOT bad or evil.


when people say that it really does make me laugh.

The sun can kill you if you get much closer to it. But it also is a part of the cycle of how things work here on earth. It wouldn't be too great a stretch to say that a hurricane is exactly the same way....

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

anyone interested in this subject could check out this book

When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner

 

[u2bonogirl]

Would you expect God to just stop any natural disaster that comes along to spare everybody?
What if things are happening because we're ruining the perfect earth he gave us, or because the plates in the earth shifted naturally. Technically if we hadnt built on that land nobody would have gotten hurt right? Its not all on God, thats my point.
I once read, and Im not endorsing it, only offering it as a point of view to consider
That God allowed people to believe that natural disasters came from him and his wrath when they only had a vague knowledge of the spiritual realm and of how the planet works.
I have no details on this, sorry but when I read it it was a lot better put together

If you think about it, it was something of man that killed man in this situation. It wasnt the winds that drowned people, it was because they lived in an area that was vulnerable to that, and their structures failed.
If you dont want God interfering in your lives, so how could you expect him to interfere with something so grand as that?

I dont necessarily look upon this as God killing people. I look at it as a natural disaster. Something of nature.
God created nature, and set it on its course and here we are.
Just my POV

 

[Se7en]

Would you expect God to just stop any natural disaster that comes along to spare everybody?
What if things are happening because we're ruining the perfect earth he gave us, or because the plates in the earth shifted naturally. Technically if we hadnt built on that land nobody would have gotten hurt right? Its not all on God, thats my point.

perhaps god should have created an environment that didn't involve hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc.

 

[u2bonogirl]

wouldnt that be boring and static?

 

[Se7en]

wouldnt that be boring and static?

at least then we'd only have to worry about the terrorists.

 

[u2bonogirl]

and smoking, and cholestorol, and heart disease, and stroke, and hypertension, and diabetes, and......

 

[For Honor]

perhaps god should have created an environment that didn't involve hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc.

correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that supposed to be "heaven"?

 

[For Honor]

perhaps god should have created an environment that didn't involve hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc.

I think you are asking the wrong people. THough I wouldn't be surprised if God was a U2 fan.



Anyhow.... why didn't god make me rich? huh?
Why didn't he give me a car, and make me this or that?


Why didn't god

make me a god???



==========

 

[u2bonogirl]

correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that supposed to be "heaven"?

according to the bible, yes, heaven is supposed to be a perfect restored earth

 

[Irvine511]

maybe God wanted to see how we would deal with this crisis.
maybe God wanted to see how we would deal with our brothers and sisters.
maybe God earmarked a few of his souls in N.O. to come home early so that..
God could then relocate some of his children now who lost every earthly possesion to a predestined location to find a new mate, to perhaps find a new career, or to simply find themselves.

God has a plan inwhich we are all interwoven, loves us more than we know, but in our earthbound understanding we simply don't comprehend it yet, but will at a future date, maybe in this life we will or the life to come.


God knows all, God also will let us judge ourselves in his presence based all circumstances and all that we know about his existence. Many will then realize at that time how much they were and are loved by God.

Part of this life was and has given men their free will to seek God's will..Once we as his children understand that principle,life here is much more simplified.

The purest truth and commandment given us is that we have unconditional love for our brothers and sisters, the same type of unconditional love that God has for us.

Again once we do this all things fall into order, an order ordained by God before the earth was created.

db9

so God kills thousands of the poorest in order to make a point?

how needlessly cruel.

then again, perhaps he views the poor as expendible, little pawns he destroys in order to allow the holiest of us to teach those less holy lessons.

 

[melon]

perhaps god should have created an environment that didn't involve hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc.

Maybe "perfection" is a human concept.

Melon

 

[XHendrix24]

Another Christian perspective on the matter:

All of the deaths that were caused by Katrina are only sad when death is viewed as a sad thing, as it is most of the time in our modern culture. Death is only sad because, to many, it is seemingly the end of life. I don't think the God who controls a heaven would necessarily think of it as such a bad thing. I'd imagine that God would view it as more of a glorious passage or transformation rather than a sad, unneccessary end.

And as far as the people who did not die but are suffering: just because these people are suffering at the moment doesn't mean that God doesn't love them. After all, the one person that you would think God loved the most - his Son - suffered a great deal. This does not mean that God didn't love his Son, so why would we think that God doesn't love us just because we suffer? Perhaps suffering is a necessary part of life that makes us more grateful for how we normally live. Perhaps without suffering, we would not be able to properly appreciate the many blessings that God has granted us.

 

[nbcrusader]

So you do believe that God controls nature and therefore must have been able to either create or prevent the hurricane? In which case, how can it make sense that God would wish such horrible suffering for people? If God loves people then how can He want to see them suffer so badly? I can't imagine the sort of horror that people in New Orleans have been through, and yet you're suggesting that God actually chose to inflict that suffering on them (at least I think so -- if you believe "God controls nature" then He must have controlled the hurricane?). It just doesn't make sense to me -- how can I believe that God loves people if He chooses to inflict that horrible suffering on people? Am I using the wrong definition of love? Is there another definition of love that would make it okay to inflict horrible suffering on people if it's all part of some grand plan?

Ugh, I don't understand.

A couple of things. I think you've gained some understanding through some of the responses you've made thus far.

Also, we tend to get hung up on the concept of God's love. We expect God to love in a certain way, expect that there be no suffering, expect to know when someone's appointed time will come, etc. If we are the ones answering those questions, we are essentially playing the role of God.

Are we really believing in God when we stand on equal footing with God? No. We do not and cannot understand the scope of His Purposes and Ways.

 

[BonosSaint]

Another Christian perspective on the matter:


And as far as the people who did not die but are suffering: just because these people are suffering at the moment doesn't mean that God doesn't love them. After all, the one person that you would think God loved the most - his Son - suffered a great deal. This does not mean that God didn't love his Son, so why would we think that God doesn't love us just because we suffer? Perhaps suffering is a necessary part of life that makes us more grateful for how we normally live. Perhaps without suffering, we would not be able to properly appreciate the many blessings that God has granted us.

Perhaps it is the randomness of the suffering. Or perhaps those that suffer the most already are often the ones affected the most. Why is it that those who have the least are often singled out for these lessons? Often those who have the most are spared those lessons.

Christ suffered for purpose, for a purpose he knew and accepted.
To my thinking, suffering has no purpose, but it is often a testament to the human spirit that it creates purpose out of suffering.

Things sometimes just happen. Sometimes to say "Things happen for a reason" just adds to the grief and the hopelessness. Some people hear those words as comfort; others as adding insult to injury.

 

[Irvine511]

Perhaps it is the randomness of the suffering. Or perhaps those that suffer the most already are often the ones affected the most. Why is it that those who have the least are often singled out for these lessons? Often those who have the most are spared those lessons.

Christ suffered for purpose, for a purpose he knew and accepted.
To my thinking, suffering has no purpose, but it is often a testament to the human spirit that it creates purpose out of suffering.

Things sometimes just happen. Sometimes to say "Things happen for a reason" just adds to the grief and the hopelessness. Some people hear those words as comfort; others as adding insult to injury.

great post.

you've summed up, very nicely, the frustration i feel.

i suppose i view suffering as the thing to work to eradicate in the world. i can think of fewer things more unacceptable than suffering. thus, i simply don't see why a loving God -- and if we are to view love as universal, why should God be exempted from our basic expectations of love? i understand the "we cannot know" idea, but at the same time, why would you worship something that (in this view) intentionally causes suffering? don't we tell women to leave husbands who beat them?

this isn't to say, however, that i don't believe in God. i just don't believe in a "plan" -- other than, if we were to get all meta, than the absence of a plan, properly understood, is the "plan."

God's got a lot to answer for. and i don't expect answers, or even demand them, and there might very well be a perfectly good answer to things like this, or the Halocaust, or Rwanda, or mudslides that wipe away 25,000 people. but i do think that we should and we must, then, question why such things happen and be angry (anger can be a good thing, i'd rather someone be angry than submissive).