Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Germs

These are forces of nature.  Earthquakes/volcanoes, hurricanes, infernos and tsunamis.

Alongside them we also have cosmic rays, asteroids, diseases.

These are the things that no-one can be blamed for: natural events and forces that occur because of where we live - on a spinning planet with a moving crust floating over molten rock, in the path of a massive stream of energy from a nearby star, in a Universe populated by hurtling rocks.

However, if you suddenly conjure up an invisible being who is supposedly in love with his creation, caring for it and tending it - we are entitled to ask some questions about his competence.

Christmas Day 2004
Christians all over the world prayed for "Peace on Earth and goodwill to all men".
Boxing Day 2004
The very next day, 250,000 men women children and babies died in a giant tsunami.

Lisbon, Portugal: November 1st 1755
This was a Christian holiday (All Saints' Day).  Most families were attending church, and while on bended knee to their supposed creator, the ground began to tremble...

The Lisbon Earthquake destroyed almost every important church in and around the city.
Approximately forty minutes after the earthquake, an enormous tsunami engulfed the harbour and downtown, rushing up the Tagus river. It was followed by two more waves. In the areas unaffected by the tsunami, fire quickly broke out, and flames raged for five days.  About 100,000 people died.

This earthquake shook much more than cities and buildings. Lisbon was the capital of a devout Catholic country, with a history of investments in the church and evangelism in the colonies.

So thousands of people died violent deaths, on a Christian feast day - in churches which collapsed on top of them.  If the quake had happened any other time, fewer people would have died.  This event was of major importance in the Enlightenment: the birth of a new way of thinking.  Thinking rationally about the quake also hastened into being the new science of seismology.  In other words it got people right across Europe thinking - and realising that a real god would simply not have allowed such a thing.  Christians brought up in their beliefs from birth try to rationalise and justify god in committing any horrific action - but this one was simply too much.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus

Trachoma

The following is taken from a Christian website:

Can you imagine a daughter or young grandchild of yours crying for hours on end, with no relief or comfort, and gradually going blind? Tragically, that's happening right now to thousands of children who have the awful disease Trachoma. What is trachoma? The medical facts are simple. Trachoma is an eye infection that strikes children who live in dusty regions, and quickly spreads from child to child. Parents are at risk too because it's they who care for the infected children, kissing away tears, wiping dirt and discharge from small faces. As children pass the trachoma infection back and forth - and flies carry it from face to face - the inside of the eye-lid becomes scarred. This pulls the eyelashes down and they scrape on the eye. It's like a wire brush scratching the eye every time the victim blinks. The pain is horrific and can lead to permanent blindness.

That's a pretty harrowing description of a terrible illness.  The Christian writers have made it especially harrowing because they want your money.  Hopefully most of the money will be spent on medication, but some of it will doubtless be spent on proselytising the religion (ie making new Christians) too.

The obvious question is why? Why children, why such hideous and pointless suffering, why such anguish inflicted on parents?

The answer is easy: it's because we live on a planet that's full of evolving organisms.  The organism that causes trachoma prospers in the environment of children's eyes - so it reproduces and passes on its genetic code to make more trachoma viruses.  The phrasing of the question is really nonsense - there is no "why?"  It is simply a fact of life.

The topic only becomes difficult once you start talking about gods and devils and punishments and good and evil.   It's like trying to explain how a washing machine works by saying there's a ghost that pushes the drum around.  Totally irrelevant, superstitious nonsense.

Geoff Mather 2007

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