Why did God kill 230,000 Haitians?

[readme.txt]

A guy on another forum posted a diatribe about how "God f'n Rocks" for recently giving him a good deal on his rent.
http://www.freedomcrowsnest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83304

But when I said, "God's a swell guy. Sure, he just killed 230,000 people in Haiti, but he gave John a great deal on his rent", John rambled and obfuscated about why God killed the Haitians, and basically blamed them for not believing in Him enough.

Can anyone give a better reason than that?

I read the thread you linked in your post. Epic laughs. They kept saying you were "insulting" them? Wow John's responses were quite insulting. He told atheists to "go **** themselves". Pathetic. Almost everyone in John's thread is trying to explain the death of those Haitians. Unfortunately, they all have different explanations. Ad Hoc.

 

[The Atheist]

A guy on another forum posted a diatribe about how "God f'n Rocks" for recently giving him a good deal on his rent.
http://www.freedomcrowsnest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83304

But when I said, "God's a swell guy. Sure, he just killed 230,000 people in Haiti, but he gave John a great deal on his rent", John rambled and obfuscated about why God killed the Haitians, and basically blamed them for not believing in Him enough.

Can anyone give a better reason than that?

Haha! I had much the same discussion with some theists after the Samoan tsunami.

The Sa-sas are among the world's most christian people, and give thanks to their god for winning at rugby, but not for causing the tsunami.

What to do about it? Accept that theists see the world through god-tinted spectacles.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Dunno. Why did God give those 230,000 Haitians life?

So that he could watch them suffer horribly in a failed state and then die equally horribly in an earthquake, or continue to suffer in a failed state that has now gotten even worse.

I suppose Haiti is God's bull fighting range or something.

 

[Kopji]

Is it just me or are people of all religious persuasions becoming a bit more cruel these days? From the new agers who told Robert Lancaster that he brought a stroke upon himself through bad karma/bad vibes, to the James Arthur Ray followers who said the victims died because they must have been harboring negative thoughts, to Christians saying that bad things happened to other people because they don't believe enough or due to some past sin or because they practiced the "wrong" religion.

What ever happened to "It was just their time to go"? It may not be any truer than anything else, but at least it's a little kinder. God isn't mad, you didn't do anything wrong. It was just time.

When something bad happens to the guy in the OP, is he likely to say that it's because he didn't believe enough? Is he going to consider that maybe he's been practicing the wrong religion? More likely he'll attribute it to something that reflects well on himself. Maybe God is "testing" him, God's tests are meant to make people stronger, God's ways are mysterious, God wants him to appreciate his blessings more, etc.

But maybe it's always been this way and I just hadn't noticed.


ETA: Please note that I don't mean to imply that all religious people are behaving this way. It's just something I've noticed more and more in public forums and in the press.

I think that a defining characteristic of our age is wide and rapid communication. These (strange) opinions have always been around, part of a wide spectrum - we are simply more aware.

I am actually encouraged that many thinking and caring Christians probably recoil from this kind of talk and it can only bring about change for the better - or their religion will become irrelevant and forgotten like the Greek Gods.

 

[devnull]

Ever heard of lemmings?

Yes, I used to play it on Amiga, and even bought the (technically very impressive) Commodore 64 version.

Please try to stay on topic though.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Angel: "Hmm, let's see, people are not prioritizing the way I'd want them to. What can we do?"
God: "How about we take this third-world failed state that no one's ever heard of and kill a quarter of a million of their population, while throwing the country into even bigger turmoil than before?"
Angel: "Sounds like a plan. I'll get the choir of angel to start playing their HAARPs".

 

[Orphia Nay]

I notice that our resident god-botherers are keeping well away from this one.

Indeed. I find that rather interesting.

I read the thread you linked in your post. Epic laughs. They kept saying you were "insulting" them? Wow John's responses were quite insulting. He told atheists to "go **** themselves". Pathetic. Almost everyone in John's thread is trying to explain the death of those Haitians. Unfortunately, they all have different explanations. Ad Hoc.

QFT.

IIRC at least one other poster (although I'm pretty sure a few of them are all the same person (not John)) also told me where to go rather rudely. I think I said that that wasn't very godly of them.

Believers can avoid replying to this thread, but can they avoid the actual question itself?

 

[shadron]

Poor James seems to have some meterological confusion, but his message is clear.

 

[Thunder]

Because "God does not care about black people".

 

[Thunder]

Poor James seems to have some meterological confusion, but his message is clear.

he has good video personality.

too bad he is such a dick.

 

[KingMerv00]

Dunno. Why did God give those 230,000 Haitians life?

How else would he kill them?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

How else would he kill them?

God's very own little ant farm...

 

[CurtC]

God's very own little ant farm...

God's mom: "Little YHWH, I like your little ant farm you call 'Haiti.' But those poor ants - you should give them a better environment and more food!"

YHWH: "It's OK, mom, I'm just raising them so I can crush them to death later."

 

[billw]

I recall at the time he was too busy helping Serena Williams win the Australian Open to stop the earthquake.

God can't multitask?

 

[Sledge]

Be reasonable, you can't expect an omnipresent being to be everywhere at once.

 

[I Ratant]

God is evil. As soon as you accept that, it all makes sense.

.
Were there a god, the one we have is evil.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Cause I was busy that day.

 

[geni]

Is it just me or are people of all religious persuasions becoming a bit more cruel these days?

Just you. Things have been pretty quiet on that front over a century.

 

[Iamme]

I notice that our resident god-botherers are keeping well away from this one.

It's because they can easily answer it. They know that if they came here and told you 2 + 2 = 4, you'd ask them to prove it. So...they just sit back and smile, knowing you will burn someday for such blasphemy.

Christians(and others) have had millenia to figure out why even good people died back in the day when men were more like monkeys. They pondered back then, I'm sure, why an ant could fall off a cliff unharmed, while they would get killed if hit on the head by a coconut.

Even John the Baptist was killed (beheaded). Disciples were found and killed. Jesus died. God sent the flood. The Passover. Babies die. Missionaries get killed. THE tsunami. Katrina. Bangladesh floods and hailstones. Ministers shot dead in church. And on and on.

It's obvious God has a good reason for all of this. Benny Hinn, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Jack Van Impe, Jan Crouch, Robert Schluler, Franklin Graham, et al...obviously know this easy answer that they all have had plenty of time to figure out the answer to.

 

[fuelair]

.
Were there a god, the one we have is evil.

That's the one.