As I watch the horrible scenes unfold in Japan, the massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake and the more devastating tsunami that followed, my thoughts immediately turn to the people involved. Homes, possessions, even family members gone. Torn away from them in the unstoppable torrent of water.
My heart goes out to them, I cannot imagine how hard it must be for everyone over there. After the initial shock and sympathy, my thoughts today turned to God. A group of Jehovah's witnesses came knocking at my door this morning, as they often do. (I usually send them packing an hour later after an extensive explanation as to why everything they believe is wrong) And they began to proclaim that the Bible had predicted this event. Of course, they didn't specify dates, times, locations, magnitude, death toll etc. So in reality all they predicted was the already well established principle that earthquakes = bad. Astonishing. I can do that right now. I predict that somewhere in the world, a massive volcanic eruption will decimate half the world. No dates, no location, no times, no death toll, just that a volcano will erupt, and it will be bad.
Its stupid. Anyone can read into something after an event has happened and proclaim it to have predicted it. If they had come to the world a week ago, and said "God says there will be a big earthquake and tsunami, located east of Japan, of 8.9 magnitude, on a Friday, many will die" then you could be excused for thinking this may be real.
Now I move to the nub of my frustration today with religious people. If God had have come to someone, any one of the billions of people who believe in him worldwide, and predicted this, we could have saved all those people that have died in this tragedy (as of writing, just over a thousand people, with many more missing).
How can they then claim that God is a kind, gentle, forgiving, loving sentient being? How can you call someone "all loving" when they needlessly wipe out a thousand people, decimate thousands of acres of crop land, cause massive fires, cripple an already weak economy, as well as causing many nuclear plant warnings including one explosion? That sort of outright destruction was once favoured by a certain Mr Hitler, and his big idea to try and wipe out half of Europe. (He too believed that God supported him)
Why is it that whenever a premature baby survives, someone gets rescued from a burning building, someone recovers from cancer or someone survives a life threatening surgery, people thank God for saving them. But over a thousand people needlessly die, and no one blames him? A one way street if ever I saw one. After all, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes and the like are called "acts of God", but you don't see the Vatican coming out and condemning God every time one of the above wipes out a few thousand people. Mind you, they are a bit busy these days, what with covering up child molesting and all, so you can forgive them for missing a few things.
At the end of the day, you cannot say God is responsible for saving people, while not condemning him for killing many more in natural disasters. It is a two way deal, so don't go around proclaiming that God is "all loving" when he is wiping out random countries for no reason.
You couldn't even make the case that he is just smiting those that don't believe in him, since Sweden is the most atheist country in the world and gets nothing in the way of devastating natural disasters. As for Japan, they are not a highly Christian country (numbers have been increasing though), instead they incorporate many religions, mainly Buddhism, probably the most peaceful religion of them all. So in essence he just tried to decimate a very peaceful, non-threatening country, while they were struggling with their economy. Wow, God's a bastard.
"The God of the old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins
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