26 December 2004
God is a Terrorist
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For God so loved the world that on Christmas Day 2004 (early the next day, local time) he sent a 9.0-magnitude earthquake to the Indian Ocean, creating tsunamis that would kill hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, etc. Similar numbers would be wounded, and millions left homeless, hungry, and sick, as far away as Africa. With one singular "act of God" he easily belittled the result of years of planning and four jetliners by al-Quaeda in 2001.
This wasn't his first holy-day attack. It was exactly a year (almost to the hour) after he caused a 6.6-magnitude quake in Bam, Iran, killing 26,000. Four decades earlier, on Good Friday, he sent a 9.2-magnitude quake to the waters off Alaska. Erzincan, Turkey lost 30,000 in his 7.8-magnitude quake late on Christmas in 1939. On Christmas in 1932, he killed 70,000 in a 7.6-magnitude quake in Gansu, China. (Where he'd killed 200,000 in an 8.6-magnitude quake in mid-December 12 years earlier.)
He hasn't been limited to seismic attacks, as evidenced by the cyclone he redirected on Christmas Eve in 1974, doubling back and nearly wiping out the city of Darwin, Australia (population 43,500). On Palm Sunday in 1965, dozens of 250-mph-wind tornadoes hit the North American Plains and Midwest, brutally killing 260, injuring 1500, and doing billions of dollars of property damage. Including demolished churches.
Which is not to mention the massacre nearly two millennia earlier, in which countless boys under the age of two in greater Bethlehem were killed in connection with the birth of God's son Jesus. And flip through the Old Testament for more large-scale attacks, hitting the children of Egypt at Passover, the cities of Gomorrah and Sodom, flooding the entire world, etc.
Of course as these last examples show, not all of his attacks have been timed to established holy days. That would make them too easy to prepare for. Instead these "acts of God" often happen randomly. Sometimes, like a human terrorist phoning in a bomb threat, he'll provide some advance warning, as with hurricanes, but that only emphasizes our inability to actually prevent these disasters. It's much more effective when he slaughters an estimated half a million souls without warning, like he did in Tangshan, China in July 1976.
God's followers generally argue that it's not God who causes all this suffering, but his evil counterpart Satan. Which begs the question of who's responsible for causing Satan. Also, the notion that God is incapable of protecting us from Satan is a little frightening. And the notion that God is unwilling to protect us is downright horrifying.
Personally, I find comfort in the notion that there is no such being. Given a choice between believing in a malicious or impotent or indifferent deity, and a universe in which everything happens by mere chance... I'll take my chances with chance.
# 2004-12-26 09:50 AM | TrackBackI would say "Amen to that" but that wouldn't sound right.
Posted by: Alan W at December 29, 2004 10:39 AMThere isn't anything to lose in faith...despite what the majority of Christians may say, you don't have to change your life drastically to believe...you just give in to your curiosity, and seek out God...and believe. It's just the other way around...once one believes...their faith changes their outlook on life and then maybe some things in their life will change...there is something unexplainably satisfying about faith...and at the same time, it leaves you on the edge, searching, wanting revelation, longing for impartation or information...If it's true at all, wouldn't heaven be better than hell? Seek the answers to these questions...wonder why these things happen...what does God say about satan? What does God say about disasters and horrors? Having hope is a beautiful thing, it keeps one going, it keeps one seeking, and it is truly satisfying. I would urge you to really really read and study the scriptures, not to pick and choose, but to study in context...go back and read the history of those times that is not even in the Bible...God is working on you even now as you are wondering and writing about all of these events! And...if you never believe...or care to try, or whatever...the God of love still offers His heart...still loves you and knows you personally. He will always love you and want you no matter what you choose.
Posted by: kliob at January 27, 2005 09:37 PMSounds like you're making the old "safer bet" argument: since you stand to win more by believing and being right, and more to lose by not believing and being wrong, you should believe. Which is of course the kind of faux faith that the New Testament warns against.
Like most evangelical theists (Christians in particular), you seem to be assuming that anyone who doesn't believe what you do just hasn't heard the "good news" or hasn't tried it yet. I've read the Bible, read about its history, studied theology and the philosophical arguments for theism, and probably know more about all that than most Christians. I believed in and worshiped this God of yours for two decades of my life. And yes, it was generally comforting as you describe. That's why people invent God: it makes them feel better.
But the reason this blog is called "God's ex-Boyfriend" isn't because I broke up with Him; He broke up with me. The holes in the picture painted by the Bible became more obvious. Not only did its believers do evil (slavery, crusades, etc.), you could see the justification for that evil in their "holy" book, demonstrating that it wasn't a guide to Truth or the word of God, but just another flawed human attempt at making sense out of a nonsensical world.
Posted by: God's ex-Boyfriend at January 28, 2005 08:17 AMAre you seriously suggesting that to believe in God he must conform to your standard of goodness? Your reasons for rejecting God are because of your subjective perspective that God is bad. To use an example lets imagine that God is a painting with a hundred or so people looking at it from all different angles and distances. It seems to me that you are looking at the painting from your own subjective place and then concluding that because it is not beautiful from where you are standing, it is not beautiful at all. But there are clearly other people looking at the painting indeed alot more saying that it is beautiful, yet you stand by your leap in logic that if it is not beautiful from your perspective then it is not beautiful at all, I think that maybe you should consider that maybe there is something bigger going on 'above' your perspective on things. If it is really impossible for you to imagine this then it shows just how wrapped up in your own opinion you are. You could turn my argument on its head and say that cos i am saying god is beautiful from my perspective then he is beautiful from all perspectives, but i am not saying that. I confess that God might not exist and that he might be evil, but my argument aims to show that the evil pain and suffering argument is a highly subjective one.
Posted by: mat at March 17, 2005 07:46 PMNo, I'm saying that for me to believe in God, the concept has to hold together under a little intellectual scrutiny. That includes the rather minimal requirement that he be a better person than I am; worship pretty much demands that .
If God is ugly from certain perspectives, that kinda shoots a big hole in the whole notion of his perfect universal beautiful goodness, don't you think? The flaw in your logic is that God isn't supposed to be just kinda good; he's supposed to be completely good. If you see any badness in him, then he's not Omnipotent Omnibenevolent God; he's just some flawed, limited pretender. That whole theological house of cards falls apart if you actually test any of the pieces with a little critical pressure.
Posted by: God's ex-Boyfriend at March 17, 2005 10:19 PM
