Miscellaneous content from the original enlightened caveman. Some serious, some not. Take your chances.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

God and Hurricanes

I am amused by the thought that hurricanes are God's way of asserting his property rights - kind of a supernatural Eminent domain thing. It's the absurdity of it all that cracks me up, but, as usual, most folks don't see things as I do. A couple of nights ago on Fox News, which is increasingly demonstrating its Christian bias, some news guy (a Shephard Smith look alike - I forget his name) was talking to a man who barely survived Ivan last year and who decided to move a little further inland this time. Here's what he asked him: "Do you think that God was looking out for you and the people of the panhandle when Hurricane Dennis was coming ashore? I mean, this was a big storm and yet only a handful of people lost their lives."

The guy: "Oh yes sir. Definitely. And I can say for sure that God saved me and my wife last year during Ivan. If it hadn't been for Him, I wouldn't be here right now."

Uh, what? It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which people insist on painting God as this benevolent force looking down on us helpless humans. Apparently, it never occurs to these people to ask if God had it in for the panhandle by slamming it twice in less than a year with caregory 4 hurricanes. That's a legitimate question, is it not? After all, if God is all-powerful, (which of course, He is), then why have hurricanes at all? I'm perplexed about this.

The only conclusion I can come to is that religious people start all thought with the assumption that God is their friend, and that any questions related to Him must be couched in that context. Indeed, natural disasters, so it seems, are clear evidence of God's love. That is, so long as they happen to Christian folks. When a natural disaster, such as say a massive tsunami, hits distant shores, there are always those Christians who want to claim that God is handing out punishment for forgetting him. This has all the intellectual rigor of a tic tac toe strategy.

In my view, if God really likes us, then he should do away with any sort of natural calamity at all. Therefore, the sheer existence of these terrible events is evidence that God either does not exist or at least that he doesn't like us nearly as much as many would like to believe. The fact is that every natural disaster brings with it some good and some bad, and God (suspending disbelief for a moment) doesn't have a thing to do with it.

Two of my best friends were impacted seriously by Dennis - one in a very good way, one in a very bad way. My one friend owns condo right on Navarre Beach, which is just east of Pensacola. It was severely water damaged after Ivan, and he has only just recently completed the repairs and replaced all the damaged furniture. Now Dennis comes along and wrecks it all over again. Ain't that a bitch? But he's having a hard time getting too down about it. As it turns out, Dennis probably saved my other friend's life.

This other friend was set to travel by boat from West Palm Beach to the Bahamas on Sunday for a fishing tournament this week. Alas, the organizers postponed the tourney for a couple of days to let the waters die down after the hurricane passed through. So the crew modified their plans, deciding to leave on Tuesday, and it's a damned good thing. Shortly after sitting down to dinner Sunday evening, my buddy started feeling a little weird. He excused himself and retreated to the bathroom. A while later, his wife found him sitting there looking pale as a ghost. His arm was numb and his condition was getting worse and worse. They rushed him to the emergency room and learned that he was having a heart attack. Two hours later, he was in the ICU with three stints in his artery. This guy is 34 years old! Anyhow, he's doing well and the doctors say he'll make a full recovery (thanks to those evil pharmaceutical companies that make cholesterol-lowering drugs). The part that I can't stop thinking about is that he was supposed to be on a boat on Sunday evening way out in the ocean. Had his heart attack come on the open seas, it is highly likely that he'd be dead right now. Score one for Hurricane Dennis.

Now it would be easy to say that God was looking out for my friend. In fact, it would be easy to say that Hurricane Dennis was spun up just to save him. But what about the twenty-something people who died as a result of the storm? Where was God for them? Oh, that's right. Their passing was part of his plan. He has a plan, you know. In the end, it's obvious that religious people will rationalize events in any way they can to hold onto the fantasy of a loving God. And it is simply bad form to point to out the logical inconsistency of this kind of thinking. Nevertheless, someone has to do it. Might as well be me.

In closing, let's ponder one last strange thing about Hurrican Dennis - the name. Some of you may recall that there was a hurricane named Dennis in 1999 that hit the outer banks of North Carolina. So it's curious to me that we're already reusing that name. Are the folks at the National Hurricane Centers so uncreative that they've exhausted all male names and are now forced to start recycling them? If so, they are truly remiss. There's one male name that seems oh so fitting for a hurricane - Jesus. Maybe they're saving that for the big doozie, the category five hurricane that wipes out thousands of miles of coastline and kills hundreds and hundreds. That must be it.

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

ah yes. yet another treatise on the existence of good and bad. this type of positionality ( duality ) has given rise to all sorts of sorting through the ages. assuming that anyone can know the opinion of everyone brings us such overtly misleading words like " obviously ". if there is AN exception, there is NO rule. triumph and tragedy are mere millimeters from each other. witnessing is being. observing is doing. are you a human being, or a human doing? peace.

7/13/2005 12:17:00 PM

 
Blogger Clupbert said...

While I don't think that god is a proactive force in the world, I think the argument that "After all, if God is all-powerful, (which of course, He is), then why have hurricanes at all?" is flawed. For two reasons I think this. One is christians believe that Adam and Eve did live in eternal bliss in the garden of eden and that was all ruined when they committed their first sin. So sin, and satan, and bad is all a punishment for that. Second, what would be the point of living if everything is good? You wouldn't even know what good is. Life would be boring. Hard work is much more satisfying, and if I was God and had to make beings go through some sort of trial, I would make sure that they are tested to live out the range of all emotions to really appreciate the good ones. Otherwise I agree that God does not make hurrices and does not save people either.

7/13/2005 10:31:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amen to that!

7/15/2005 06:08:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have very mixed feelings on the whole good/bad, God/satan, and whom of the above creates/destroys/saves/controls the lives of us here on earth. Maybe God does create catastrophes here on earth as a form of population control (as he only knows, the vast majority of us aren't capable of this on our own) to keep us from overrunning ourselves. Maybe catastrophes are a means of "weeding out" people that have outlived their usefulness. I personally fight the God/no God fight every day W/myself. If there is a God, I think he takes who he needs, when he needs. I lost my father to diabetes complications, my paternal grandparents to congestive heart failure ( within 5 years of each other ) and my maternal grandmother to lung cancer. BUT! Ive also had my mother in law fall 10 - 15 feet, landing headfirst on CONCRETE and only get 2 shattered vertebrae out of it. My brother developed multiple inoperable brain tumors at age 18.He's now 28. he wasn't supposed to live to 24. My buddy's daughter had a very rare form of cancer well known for its rate of mestastization. Her aunt started a prayer chain all the way down to Florida. she had one tumor excised. Other than that, she hasn't a trace then or now (3yrs later). My beloved wife of five years was helping with the yardwork, stepped in a hole, fell and punctured a lung. While doing bloodwork looking for infection, it was discovered she had spreading ovarian cancer. The cell levels were so high that if she hadn't come in when she did, they estimated she wouldn't have lived another 3 months... she has a 17% chance to live past the 5 yr mark. If you were given years to live and love friends and family or months which would you choose? We try to cherish most of the time we have left. Maybe there is a God. Maybe there are gods such as in the greek/roman/norse mythologies. Possibly, its a bunch of aliens rolling dice overhead.:)

7/18/2005 03:55:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

to quote a song of forgotten title, "He who made kittens, put snakes in the grass."

7/18/2005 04:01:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

God exists, but is obviously malicious and yet only successful 80% of the time. I believe that explains everything.

7/19/2005 07:22:00 PM

 
Blogger Chris Wilson said...

Entropy is about going from order to disorder, which would bring about the exact opposite inevitability. Indeed, this is the lynchpin in so-called creation science - if all things tend toward disorder, then there must be a God to explain the order of things.

In case you missed it, and you are a masochist, check out one plausible materialist explanation for the order in this universe.
http://www.enlightenedcaveman.com/2005/01/evolution-versus-creationism-part-3.html
(Funny to read the comments. Remember Meph, anyone? Guess we were too hard core. Also, note that I preceded, and was vilified by, Crichton's book on global warming.)

Clupbert, my question as to why an all-powerful benevolent God wouldn't just do away with hurricanes was very much meant to be sarcastic. I was alluding to how Christians are all about praying to have God help them with their calamities. If God is so good he answers prayers when bad things happen, then why wouldn't he just make it easy on himself and eliminate disasters altogether? Or, if God has grand plans that are beyond our comprehension, then why pray at all? See what I mean?

And this idea that all of this is punishment for Adam and Eve, can I just say, "Holy Reparations, Batman!" Can you even imagine the class action lawsuit against Adam and Eve that we could mount? Seriously, this idea that an all-powerful God would create a species and give them free will and then punish them in perpetuity when they used it wrong just paints a picture of a real fucking supernatural asshole. If my choices are disbelieving or having to believe in the biggest douchebag of all time, I'll take the latter.

7/21/2005 03:46:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"If my choices are disbelieving or having to believe in the biggest douchebag of all time, I'll take the latter."

Glad to know I've gained another disciple. Send me your wife, your firstborn & 10% of your wages & I'll get back to you on your next assignment.

7/21/2005 09:59:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark Twain pointed out that we suffered from God's hookworms for thousands of years, but the first thing we did when we learned to avoid hookworms was say, "Praise God".

We encounter around 8,000 random events per day. We can attribute any of these to God, Satan, or anything else. Or we can accept the fact that these are random events over which no one and nothing have control.

7/21/2005 10:07:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

there appear, for me, two types 'o folk here on the third rock: those who choose to see only perfection ( hurricanes, locusts, vaccines, elm trees, etc. ) and those who choose to see only flaw ( see previous parenthesis ). this is another example of the dogmatic blindness brought on by our theologic position. be before bad, good or sorta / kinda. simply be.

7/25/2005 11:57:00 AM

 
Blogger Rob D. said...

I posted something about the whole global warming/hurricance correlation, or lack thereof, here.

http://thatsridonkulous.blogspot.com/2005/07/hurricanes-for-you-suv-owners.html

7/29/2005 01:44:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"To a heterosexual soldier coming home from two months of all-male field exercises, an average-looking woman has less of a delta than she does if she meets him when he's been in the general population for a while." - I was in iraq (for 15 months) and saw a comment on the inside of a latrine..."two more weeks until the gals of 501st stop looking so good!".

8/13/2005 05:35:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's generally the hardcore Christians who attribute bad things to God punishing the unbelievers.

For example, some hardcore Christians says that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Which actually kind of makes sense, because if He says that homosexuality is a sin, then why not punish the sinners?

But the majority of Americans who are lightweight Chistians only want to believe that God is good and would never punish someone for a "sin" they don't really believe is that bad. Then they carry this over into the misguided belief that all religions are somehow "good."

Religions aren't all good. Religion is just a creation of man, just like Nazism or Communism. I find it hard to understand why Islam, for example, isn't condemended the way Nazism is condemend, since both philosophies seem to be in favor of killing Jews.

8/17/2005 02:55:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

1. Making God out to be a micromanager trivializes God.
2. Those that think of him as a micromanager most often think of ways they can use religion to better their individual circumstances. Herein lies a central problem with how people use religion rather than being truly spiritual.
3. It is entirely plausible to believe that there is a God or underlying force that created the heavens and earth, and the wonderous overall structure of the universe which supports life. To believe that God micromanages this wonderous creation or that built in "fiddling" was preprogrammed into the structure is beyond obsurd. The notion that God is "all powerful" and "all knowing" does not necessarily presuppose that God thinks of this creation as a Ninetendo game.
4. Jesus largely taught us to think, not to follow. To be Christ-like or even infinitely practical, we should understand our world, work with it not against it (and that includes the inhabitants of course too), and attempt to better understand the world so that we can better our lives.

It is also widely apparent through Christ's teachings (and anyone who truly respects nature for that matter) that it is up to US to save ourselves....not God.

With this in perspective, we see man today as simply using the resources of the world for his own benefit...and largely forming a concept of God and religion which largely suits selfish needs.

12/05/2005 02:16:00 PM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

The philosophical debates of the existence of “God” can extend beyond time. Do the character traits commonly assigned to God truly define God? Who knows, for we are defining a being that has only revealed his existence in the verses of the Bible. I am not at all convinced that the Bible is “the word of God.” History has shown us that events often result in legendary tales.

Take a more recent event of “Paul Revere and the Midnight Run” for example. Most Americans are taught that this as a depiction of an historical, frantic event. One of a frantic midnight run as a result of a sudden, previously unknown possibility that the British were attacking the Colonies and Paul Revere was riding his horse at full and breathless speed to spread the news that the enemy has begun to attack the hapless citizens of the then English-governed colonies, when in fact, the “ride” was not much more than a chance encounter with 2 British regulars manning a road block. Revere, suspecting a problem rode to the home of Jonas Clarke in Lexington, Massachusetts where Sam Adams and John Hancock were hiding out to pass this information to Adams and Hancock. Revere’s previously assigned duties were fulfilled. No frantic midnight ride, no lantern bearing patriot hell-bent on warning the colonial population of pending attack and doom.

Such is the tale of “God,” “Jesus Christ” and the “Holly Spirit.” The only difference here is that the ride of Paul Revere is recent enough (in man’s history) to analyze. Where does the legend of “God” and “his son, Jesus Christ” fit in this comparative scenario? We’ll never know for sure, but the logic of historical “embellishment” will give us a clue. The natural wonders sited in the Bible are very likely an embellishment of natural occurrences.

If you take the logic a few steps farther, you will see the inconsistencies of the beliefs of and the attributes assigned to God. -

For millennia, human beings have devoted their entire lives to the proclaimed existence of a multitude of “gods.” The transcendental assignment of supreme beings ruling over our world has driven generations to heated debate, sometimes ostracizing their neighbors, friends and even family. Religious beliefs have been a source of self-comfort, self-pardoning and promoting. Religions have fueled wars born of utter hate for those holding perspectives of the gods and their kingdoms that differ from one culture to the next. The theoretical existence of God has given birth to massive corporations in the name of God and created entire industries. What is the nature of “God?” The most prevalent theological foundation today is that God is an “omni-powerful being.” What is the reality? Religions and guided spirituality have existed since the ice age. From Paganism to Christianity, gods and the worship of those gods has worn many coats; but are they all the same coat with a different color? If there is a god, can he truly be the super-being most current religious philosophies of the world tout? I say that either God does not exist, or God is not the all-powerful being proclaimed by many modern religions from Christianity to Islam. The terms most often used to describe God are conflicting and nebulous.

Primitive man encountered simple things such as lightening, thunder, the stars, earthquakes, floods and wind. In the absence of knowledge and understanding, he began to create powerful, super-human beings that held the keys to the frightening occurrences going on around them. After all, they could not evaluate and reason the existence of the natural phenomenon that took place in their lives, for they had no understanding of the reality of the natural world in which they lived. Gods and their teachings or theologies have existed and evolved since man made his first appearance on Earth. Even the most primitive man was curious and wanted answers to the reason for his existence and the answers to why things happened. “Long before recorded history, humans lived, out of necessity, much closer to the natural cycles. It is out of this affinity with nature that humans first began to personify the inherent energies of the land as individual Gods and Goddesses.” (History of Paganism 101) The history of religious worship includes Paganism and Wiccan. As man became more sophisticated and knowledgeable about his surroundings, these religious beliefs evolved through the millennia to a more “civilized” form of theology - a monotheolistic and trinitarian approach to the same old routine. People continue to devise a means to answer the questions they can not answer themselves - through mystical beings and powerful gods.

Viewing religion objectively, one can trace its roots to pre-historic man. His attempts to quell the ordeals of his daily life with gods specific to occurrences in his life are obvious. He imagined separate gods to account for the horrific winds of nature, the god of lightening produced by the storms in his life and the thunder that followed. Because he could not rationalize the reality of the natural occurrences taking place around him, it became necessary in man’s mind to create super humans that could create such disturbances. In fact, later in history, the Greeks had an extensive list of these gods, so extensive that they even had different gods for different winds, depending upon the direction of the wind. The gods were separated into two categories - the immortals and the mortals. (Greek mythological figures. Wikipedia.) As man progressed, the prophets began to develop new directions for the pious. As they became more sophisticated, the clerics began to envision gods that were less preposterous to keep their gatherings - their believers and their congregations enthralled with their teachings. The common traits of the deity of the modern religions include: Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence. While the four are separate traits, they must logically interact with one another.

Omniscient! The definition of omniscient - All knowing, all wise” (World Reference) God knows all and is therefore the ruler of humanity. If any god is omniscient, he would, by definition, know all things. And if in fact this god knows all things, then he would certainly know that all of life’s occurrences were about to happen before they happen, including diseases, natural catastrophes and natural or unnatural events. Given this trait, let’s examine the relationship between omniscient and the other three common characteristics of “God:”

Omnibenevolent! If in fact any god was both omniscient and omnibenvelonet, how would this god, knowing in advance that a child was about to be born with spinal bifida allow that to take place? How would a god who is omniscient and omnibenevolent allow a squirrel pup to be burned to death in a raging forest fire? How would a god who knows in advance that a tsunami was about to occur allow it to continue, knowing that it would probably kill, debilitate and horrify hundreds of thousands of people? What would the purpose be in any of this? Many would say there is a purpose in God’s will and we’re just ignorant of this purpose or he is testing us. “It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which people insist on painting God as this benevolent force looking down on us helpless humans. Apparently, it never occurs to these people to ask if God had it in for the panhandle by slamming it twice in less than a year with category 4 hurricanes. That's a legitimate question, is it not? After all, if God is all-powerful, then why have hurricanes at all? I'm perplexed about this.” (Enlightenedcaveman) I say; why would any omnibenevolent being test anyone in a manner that would be so horrific to the individual used as a test subject? How could any being who is omniscient and omnibenevolent allow horrific disasters to happen for the sake of “testing” other individuals (such as parents?) What purpose would this serve? And if there is a servable purpose, why such drastic measures from the omnibenevolent being? Why would an omnibenevolent being create a pain-response pattern so intense that someone placing their fingers on a hot surface would encounter intense physical damage and mental anguish? Why not simply reduce the pleasure threshold from the norm to a “less pleasurable response?” Is this omnibenevolence or simply a sadistic approach to the ignorance of man? Or is God simply a cruel being?

Omnipotence! “The omnipotence paradox is a philosophical paradox which arises when attempting to apply logic to the notion of an omnipotent being. The paradox is based around the argument that if an omnipotent being could create circumstances that would limit its own omnipotence, then it would not in fact be omnipotent; on the other hand, if the being could not create such circumstances, then its omnipotence would also be negated.” (omnipotence paradox) Let’s review the omnipotence of any god of choice. If a god is omnipotent; would he or she not have the ability to do anything and everything? And if that were the case, could this god create a rock too heavy for him to lift? Would this god have the ability to create a universe too expansive to understand? If not, is he truly omnipotent? Would this omniscient and omnipotent being have the ability to know all things, including who his creator is? Would this god have the ability to prevent the spinal bifida, and if he did, yet chose not to do so, is he or she truly omnibenevolent? If a god were truly omnipotent, why would he create a world full of frailties, errors and problems? Why would an architect create a house with no doors, no windows and no roof? Would this be yet another “test” for someone? A test designed to “stress one’s faith?” Where is the omnibenevolence in a god who continually searches for a means to create failure in his or her subjects?

Omnipresence! Omnipresence, by definition is the ability to present one’s self at any time and any place, simultaneously (Omnipresence. Wikipedia). If a god were in fact omnipresent, would he not see the daily hardships of mankind? And if he were in fact omnipresent, would he not want to reduce the anguish of life? Would he not be able to reduce the anguish of life? The nature of defining a “supernatural” individual’s traits requires that all those definitions be logically supportive. One of the foundations of theology today is the belief in “Hell.” One definition of Hell is the absence of God and the omnipresence of Satan (Omnipresence. Wikipedia.) How can a god be omnipresent, yet not be present in Hell?

The common belief in God is not logical, and in fact defies the very laws of logic and reason while creating contradictory philosophies. Considering the wars, hatred, atrocities, bigotry, and the distrust created by the religions of the world, perhaps it’s time to step back from the puritanistic and emotion-filled concept of blind faith. The history of the influence of religions, the reckless abandon of the pious in support of their beliefs, the wanton disregard for other’s belief systems because it conflicts with that of our own is testament to the fallacy and the divisive nature of religion, or any other philosophy that teaches one to believe intensely, regardless of the lack of logic, or the unreasonableness of those beliefs. Based upon the interpretations as seen through their hegemonic lenses, people are too quick to judge other cultures, to diminish their relevance based upon religious beliefs. Perhaps if our clashing cultures were not based so strongly upon the pedestal of religion, blind faith, and God we would posses more of an ability to see other’s as less threatening, less misaligned, and less misguided.

If personal religious beliefs were instantly removed from all humanity, humans would loose a major contribution to their motives for mistrust and misunderstanding. Blind, deep-seated faith in differing beliefs in the various gods of humanity would no longer provide a basis of rejecting others for their beliefs. In a world, devoid of sectarian prejudicial concepts, would we continue to shun others and the possibility that their beliefs are just as “right” as those of our own? Would we continue to fear eternal residence in Hell simply for the acceptance of other theologies? I say - absolutely not.

Blind faith in “God” is misguided. Blind faith in “God” is divisive.” Logic and knowledge is centering for the human race. I believe that if the blind-faithful are trusted and followed, we are a doomed race and a failure to humanity. The continuance towards a prejudiced approach in answer to the existence of humanity is nothing more than a self-guided attempt to do so and is a misleading, mythical, and myopic definition of the world and its natural occurrences.

Perhaps if blind faith were abandoned, the conflicts of the world would diminish, the common prejudices towards other cultures would cease to exist, and our cultures would learn to live in harmony. I see little value in the current beliefs in the divisive religions and beliefs in “God.”

12/07/2006 12:17:00 AM

 

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