Java Earthquake: Why does God hate the world?

Never mind the human-generated violence and environmental damage that threatens this planet. Those anthropogenic miseries are mere scratches on the skin of the world compared to the fury often unleashed by the earth itself. The 2004 Asian (Boxing Day) Tsunami. 230,000 dead. Katrina? In the thousands, but somehow know one really knows. Yesterday's earthquake in Indonesia. 5000 and rising. A complete inventory of death and destruction is a never-ending and depressing task

For those of us on the sidelines, we are again haunted by images of displaced survivors, many of whom have their hands and eyes raised skyward as if asking God "Why, why did you do this to us?". In the days to come, the media will give religious leaders an opportunity to answer this question. Explaining death from natural disaster is one of the trickiest things religion can be called upon to do. On the outer fringes, some groups have even blamed gays and lesbians for tragedies such as Katrina.

Anyone who tries to "make sense" of these things (i.e. spin things to make God look good) is not looking closely at the facts. If there is a God -- he/she/it is not a moral being. Or, if you insist that god is moral, then those morals can not be understood by mere humans. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you? Ha! Not this god. Rational self-interest? Not bloody likely. The Old Testament got things as right as any of them -- this is a wrathful god, a god of vengeance.

So why even bother to say any of this? If the Born Again Creationist types insist that only a Designer could have created sea shells, crystalline structures and complex life forms, then they had better admit that this god is every bit a Destroyer as well as a Designer. A more recent "Prophet" -- Khalil Gibran -- may have gotten us closer to the truth when he links life and death as entwined paths to God:

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

There is a poetry in Gibran's words that may appeal to some, but this is of little comfort to the millions who have died or lost loved ones as a result of natural catastrophes. The recent earthquake in Indonesia is yet another sign that moral codes are not handed down by God and the God that we find in the natural world does not provide us with any sort of moral role model. Morality is a human invention -- and it is something we must invent and re-invent on a daily basis. Here are a couple of places to start:

• Canadian Red Cross
• American Red Cross