Where do earthquakes and tsunamis fit in to either fine-tuning or God's plan?

[TimCallahan]

The latest estimate of fatalities caused by the recent earthquake + tsunami in Japan is in excess of 10,000. Disastrous as this is, it pales in comparison to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that took 240,000 lives. Still more lives were lost - about 300,000 - in a much smaller area in the 2010 earthquake and ensuing cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Often, in discussions of the problem of evil in a world created by a God who is both omnipotent and loving, believers cite human free will as the cause of most evil in the world. Fair enough, in that human evil caused the Holocaust and other genocides, both in the twentieth century and earlier (though it doesn't explain why a loving God wouldn't intervene). However, the over half a million fatalities caused by the three disasters mentioned above are not the result of human evil.

How, then, can one square such natural disasters with a God who is both loving and omnipotent? Further, how do earthquakes, the natural product of plate tectonics, mesh with the intelligent design (ID) concept of fine-tuning?

 

[Twiler]

Ineffability, tests of faith, etc.

 

[Aepervius]

GWIMW

Answers pretty much every paradox.

I nearly wish I could do the same with my life : AWIMW .

 

[Malerin]

The latest estimate of fatalities caused by the recent earthquake + tsunami in Japan is in excess of 10,000. Disastrous as this is, it pales in comparison to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that took 240,000 lives. Still more lives were lost - about 300,000 - in a much smaller area in the 2010 earthquake and ensuing cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Often, in discussions of the problem of evil in a world created by a God who is both omnipotent and loving, believers cite human free will as the cause of most evil in the world. Fair enough, in that human evil caused the Holocaust and other genocides, both in the twentieth century and earlier (though it doesn't explain why a loving God wouldn't intervene). However, the over half a million fatalities caused by the three disasters mentioned above are not the result of human evil.

How, then, can one square such natural disasters with a God who is both loving and omnipotent? Further, how do earthquakes, the natural product of plate tectonics, mesh with the intelligent design (ID) concept of fine-tuning?

If God exists (and an afterlife of some sort), death due to natural disaster would not carry any moral weigh (it might actually be viewed as a positive by those who've actually died).

 

[Cainkane1]

According to The National Lampoon creation is gods little game. He get bored and he feels that he has to tip the board a little. Hence god in his infinite mercy and love for humanity creates Tsunamis, tornados, Hurricanes etc to keep from getting bored.

 

[C_Felix]

How many Japanese are Chrisitian?


http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0002.html

In the first question, the participants were asked to which religion(s) they feel to belong. A majority of 52% indicated that they do not feel to belong to any religion. 36% feel to be Buddhists and 11% Shintoists. A large group of 11% indicated to feel closest to Christianity. As in the Christmas survey, female teenagers are especially attracted to the Western religion with 17% feeling to belong to Christianity.

• 52% do not belong to any religion
• 36% Buddhist
• 11% Shinto
• 11% Chrisitan

There ya go!
YWH is punishing them for not believing in the right God. Shame on them.

 

[dafydd]

He's a sadist.

 

[epix]

How, then, can one square such natural disasters with a God who is both loving and omnipotent? Further, how do earthquakes, the natural product of plate tectonics, mesh with the intelligent design (ID) concept of fine-tuning?

The Christians are simply wrong: God doesn't have the characteristics bestowed upon him by believers who would better ask for favors a deity that is very kind, loving and omnipotent to get the job done.

The older God grows, the more senile he gets. Consider those disasters oftentimes dubbed "acts of God," such as earthquakes, tornadoes, floods . . .
In the case of earthquakes, God can periodically hit those seismic faults near populated areas to release the building of pressure in order to avoid earthquakes with a very high magnitude, like it happened this month on Ash Wednesday in Japan where 7.2 quake hit to release some of the energy accumulated to avert a disastrous earthquake. Now the demons wondered: Here goes a quake on Ash Wednesday and we don't see any burning. How illogical of God!

You can call God stupid, whatever, but not illogical, coz he would attempt to "fix things."

 

[Twiler]

If God exists (and an afterlife of some sort), death due to natural disaster would not carry any moral weigh (it might actually be viewed as a positive by those who've actually died).

So, why not shift people directly to the afterlife?

 

[MG1962]

In the same period of time, how many have died from starvation or war

 

[Malerin]

So, why not shift people directly to the afterlife?

Why have a "beforelife" at all? Perhaps there are valuable lessons to learn/experiences one wants to have in this life (or multiple lives). If the incarnation we picked isn't working out for us, time to move on to the next life/realm of existence.

The point is that natural disasters are not proof that god is not a nice guy. Indeed, the often-dangerous world we live in provides all sorts of "easy outs" in case we decide we've gotten all there is from this life and want to move on.

 

[hgc]

Tides go in. Tides go out. No miscommunica.... ACK! What's that friggin' wall of water?!?

 

[aviolet4u]

I've seen videos and its very scary indeed. There were people in cars and bikes along the road and water rising behind them rapidly. They didn't think it was going to be that serious and turn around to see that wall of water coming at them. It makes you wish there was an afterlife of some kind...when whole families, towns are wiped out in minutes like that.

 

[Quad4_72]

god just wants to have fun sometimes. He also takes pleasure in allowing rapes, child molestations, grizzly murders, genocides, starvation, and radical islamic terrorism to take place.

 

[BTMO]

Where do earthquakes and tsunamis fit in? Between cyclones and volcanic eruptions.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

In the same period of time, how many have died from starvation or war

Good point. It could stop those things, too, but it either chooses not to, or it doesn't exist.

 

[SusanB-M1]

There was a Bishop and someone else, who also appeared to be a God-believer, on the Stephen Nolan show during the night, between 00:00 and 00:40, on BBC Radio 5 Live. The Bishop came out with the 'God does this, can't do that, gives comfort to those suffering etc etc' I find it hard to believe how they can sit there and say all this stuff. A friend phoned me yesterday morning, having heard the BBC 1 'Big Question' show where various religious spokespeople had been saying similar things.

I did think about rattling off a few e-mails! However, I expect others have done so even though I didn't get round to it.

 

[Twiler]

Why have a "beforelife" at all? Perhaps there are valuable lessons to learn/experiences one wants to have in this life (or multiple lives). If the incarnation we picked isn't working out for us, time to move on to the next life/realm of existence.

The point is that natural disasters are not proof that god is not a nice guy. Indeed, the often-dangerous world we live in provides all sorts of "easy outs" in case we decide we've gotten all there is from this life and want to move on.

If staying in this life is potentially a good thing, then doesn't that invalidate your previous point? Or does YHVH arrange for natural disasters that only kill people who are better off dead?

 

[MG1962]

Good point. It could stop those things, too, but it either chooses not to, or it doesn't exist.

So could we - We just choose not too

 

[Filippo Lippi]

I try my best, but I'm not omnipotent. If I were and I did nothing, would you not think me a monster?

 

[MG1962]

I try my best, but I'm not omnipotent. If I were and I did nothing, would you not think me a monster?

Do you make your kids clean up their room or do you do it

 

[Malerin]

If staying in this life is potentially a good thing, then doesn't that invalidate your previous point?

No, it's potentially a good thing. It might not actually be a good thing for a lot of people.

Or does YHVH arrange for natural disasters that only kill people who are better off dead?

I'm not Christian.

 

[Cavemonster]

Do you make your kids clean up their room or do you do it

If the neighbor's kid barged in and made the mess, or if the mess was the result of an earthquake?

 

[Filippo Lippi]

"Evasion noted"

 

[bokonon]

I would like to float the heretical idea that such disasters give human beings the opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with their creator, by allowing them to practice the divine art of forgiveness.

Many fundamentalists (and others) advance the notion that the god they worship is perfect -- all-knowing, all-powerful, and good as the taste of chocolate.

Yet we know from at least one divinely inspired book that man was created in God's image, and no one would argue that man is perfect.

The existence of natural disasters should be ample proof, if any were needed, that at least one leg of that omni-stool is shorter than the other.

Forgive God. He makes mistakes, or gets distracted, or tries to stop disaster but just can't manage it, or plays with matches and lets things get away from him ... It doesn't matter which particular flaw is manifested in these displays of widespread destruction. Forgive him. We've all made mistakes, and sought forgiveness from our loved ones.

A perfect God wouldn't need your forgiveness. The God we so obviously have is obviously not perfect. Practice forgiveness. It will do your heart good.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

There was a Bishop and someone else, who also appeared to be a God-believer, on the Stephen Nolan show during the night, between 00:00 and 00:40, on BBC Radio 5 Live. The Bishop came out with the 'God does this, can't do that, gives comfort to those suffering etc etc' I find it hard to believe how they can sit there and say all this stuff. A friend phoned me yesterday morning, having heard the BBC 1 'Big Question' show where various religious spokespeople had been saying similar things.

I did think about rattling off a few e-mails! However, I expect others have done so even though I didn't get round to it.

I caught the Big Question show on Sunday am and there was some odious cretin on there saying that he was sure God had a morally sound reason for this tsunami.

Others at least were decent enough to look a bit sheepish and confess that at least this is something of a challenge to their faith, before dismissing it and insisting that they still love their God.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

So could we - We just choose not too

Well..no...we couldn't...could we? Certainly I couldn't. God could though. He just chooses not to.

Do you make your kids clean up their room or do you do it

Do you make your kids stop hunger and war? Do you shake your kids room so that everything breaks, your kids get badly injured and have no water, power or food and then ask them to clean it up? Do you make your kids think up analogies that aren't really analogous or do you do that yourself?

I would like to float the heretical idea that such disasters give human beings the opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with their creator, by allowing them to practice the divine art of forgiveness.

Many fundamentalists (and others) advance the notion that the god they worship is perfect -- all-knowing, all-powerful, and good as the taste of chocolate.

Yet we know from at least one divinely inspired book that man was created in God's image, and no one would argue that man is perfect.

The existence of natural disasters should be ample proof, if any were needed, that at least one leg of that omni-stool is shorter than the other.

Forgive God. He makes mistakes, or gets distracted, or tries to stop disaster but just can't manage it, or plays with matches and lets things get away from him ... It doesn't matter which particular flaw is manifested in these displays of widespread destruction. Forgive him. We've all made mistakes, and sought forgiveness from our loved ones.

A perfect God wouldn't need your forgiveness. The God we so obviously have is obviously not perfect. Practice forgiveness. It will do your heart good.

This could be true however it doesn't fit with any definition of God I have seen posited by believers. The problem potentially being that if God makes mistakes how do we know when he's being mistaken and when he's not?

 

[edge]

The latest estimate of fatalities caused by the recent earthquake + tsunami in Japan is in excess of 10,000. Disastrous as this is, it pales in comparison to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that took 240,000 lives. Still more lives were lost - about 300,000 - in a much smaller area in the 2010 earthquake and ensuing cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Often, in discussions of the problem of evil in a world created by a God who is both omnipotent and loving, believers cite human free will as the cause of most evil in the world. Fair enough, in that human evil caused the Holocaust and other genocides, both in the twentieth century and earlier (though it doesn't explain why a loving God wouldn't intervene). However, the over half a million fatalities caused by the three disasters mentioned above are not the result of human evil.

How, then, can one square such natural disasters with a God who is both loving and omnipotent? Further, how do earthquakes, the natural product of plate tectonics, mesh with the intelligent design (ID) concept of fine-tuning?

This is all prophesied.
It's more of a reduction of Gods protection and then a promise to return.

 

[dafydd]

I would like to float the heretical idea that such disasters give human beings the opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with their creator, by allowing them to practice the divine art of forgiveness.

Many fundamentalists (and others) advance the notion that the god they worship is perfect -- all-knowing, all-powerful, and good as the taste of chocolate.

Yet we know from at least one divinely inspired book that man was created in God's image, and no one would argue that man is perfect.

The existence of natural disasters should be ample proof, if any were needed, that at least one leg of that omni-stool is shorter than the other.

Forgive God. He makes mistakes, or gets distracted, or tries to stop disaster but just can't manage it, or plays with matches and lets things get away from him ... It doesn't matter which particular flaw is manifested in these displays of widespread destruction. Forgive him. We've all made mistakes, and sought forgiveness from our loved ones.

A perfect God wouldn't need your forgiveness. The God we so obviously have is obviously not perfect. Practice forgiveness. It will do your heart good.

Evasive nonsense.

 

[Psi Baba]

Tides go in. Tides go out. No miscommunica.... ACK! What's that friggin' wall of water?!?

You win 100 internets.

 

[TraneWreck]

Tides go in. Tides go out. No miscommunica.... ACK! What's that friggin' wall of water?!?

That's what happens when god decides to DO IT LIVE!!!

 

[Beerina]

GWIMW

AKA "I don't know and I'm just assuming there's a good reason rather than concluding God doesn't exist, is not all-powerful, or is not good."

That religious cop-out has been irritating me to no end for decades.


Of course, that "God lets it happen" proves, if you ask me, that God cannot simultaneously be all-powerful and good. Certainly God could come up with a better way to let things unfold without letting babies get raped to death.

 

[Beerina]

He's a sadist.

 

[Beerina]

I try my best, but I'm not omnipotent. If I were and I did nothing, would you not think me a monster?

If it's Good and Proper for an all-powerful, perfectly good creature to do nothing, then would it not also be Good and Proper for us to do so, too?

If you see an injured person lying there, leave them there. That's the Godly thing to do.

 

[bokonon]

This could be true however it doesn't fit with any definition of God I have seen posited by believers. The problem potentially being that if God makes mistakes how do we know when he's being mistaken and when he's not?

How do you know when you're mistaken, and when you're not? Maybe time will tell. I say it's time we stop holding God to these impossibly high standards. Perfection? Puh-lease. If this world isn't good enough for you, build a better one...

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

How do you know when you're mistaken, and when you're not? Maybe time will tell. I say it's time we stop holding God to these impossibly high standards. Perfection? Puh-lease. If this world isn't good enough for you, build a better one...

You could be right...but like any other possible definition of God I'm going to have to ask 'How do you know?' and secondly 'does any religion actually teach/any believer actually believe this?'

 

[Belz...]

So could we - We just choose not too

No, we couldn't.

 

[Belz...]

all-knowing, all-powerful, and good as the taste of chocolate.

Blasphemy !!!

 

[bokonon]

You could be right...but like any other possible definition of God I'm going to have to ask 'How do you know?' and secondly 'does any religion actually teach/any believer actually believe this?'

Spread the word!

 

[tsig]

If God exists (and an afterlife of some sort), death due to natural disaster would not carry any moral weigh (it might actually be viewed as a positive by those who've actually died).

Your prize is waiting at the gate.