I've been considering, most of my on-line day, what to say about folks who take a disaster and attribute it to the Wrath of God, such as Mr. Mohammed Jaber al-Tamini of Iraq, who opines that the Columbia disaster is God's response to Israeli aggression against Iraq.
It's not, certainly, something that is attributable to Islam alone. After all, one of the more famous examples of it, of late, was the Rev. Jerry Falwell's attribution of the 9/11 attacks to God being torqued with gays, liberals and feminists. His brother in service to Christ, the Rev. Pat Robertson, has similarly suggested that Florida gets hit by hurricanes because, among other things, DisneyWorld allows "Gay Days."
So it's not a sectarian thing. Hmmm.
How about idiocy? Can we blame it on idiocy? Heartless, egocentric idiocy? 'Cause, to be honest, that seems to cover all the bases here.
Filed under :: Religion
These folks remind me of the faithful who explain the death of a loved one as "God needing their help in heaven."
What all-powerfull, all-knowing God would be that capricious? "Yes, I created heaven and earth in six days, but I really need Bob Smith to do my taxes."
Give me a break.
I'm willing to give a little bit of slack to those who try to attribute motivation to God to comfort themselves or others -- the sentiment, at least, is there, regardless of the theological issues.
For those who do so in order to go "Neener-neener-neener," or to compel others to toe the line, or to hurt others, I cut no such slack.
Interesting comments on this post here.
The proper way to look at tragedy is not now evil they are but how evil we are because as Jesus stated above [Luke 13:1-5] being a victim of tragedy does not show greater guilt. To answer Dave's question, it is a combination of being egocentric and a mechanical view of how God's wrath is meted out. As we see from verse five, that is for the next world, not this one.