Rants
Java Earthquake: Why does God hate the world?
May 29, 2006 | 
Author 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:
Posted in 
Sunday evening anger
So Tony Blair is trying to convince himself that he did the right thing by toadying up to George Bush and committing British troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. As reported in CNN:
“If we want to secure our way of life, there is no alternative but to fight for it,” he told a joint sitting of the Australian parliament in Canberra on Monday.
Well Tony, “our way of life” seems to be different all over the world. In Afghanistan, mainstream clerics and citizens want to execute a Muslim because he converted to Christianity. George is “troubled” by this. Condi calls President Karzai to explain the unacceptablilty of the situation. In that same country, village elders smiled and chatted with Canadian soldiers and then dispersed instantly (and knowingly?), when a young rebel ran out and slammed an axe into a Canadian soldier’s head. And yet:
…in the struggle to defend global values, Blair said there was no prosperity without security, and no security without justice. He said a global alliance should be pushing to defend universal values wherever they were under threat.
Here’s the thing. There are no universal values of justice. We can’t even enact and apply laws equally and justly within our own countries. Don’t pretend that bringing democracy to Iraq or Afghanistan or any other country is an altruistic gift that has no political or economic — or cultural — strings attached. Don’t pretend that you are not filled with blind arrogance and a firm belief that your values, laws, god and way of life are superior to those of the countries you invade.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that any country that tries to run itself according to the laws of a medieval (or older) religion is a ridiculous enterprise that, when left to itself, will only lead to bloodshed and failure. But such countries should be permited to work out their problems without our “help”. Unfortunately, when European and North American interests interfere, the misery of these failing states is usually prolonged. The only way to help is for the keepers of these “universal values” to stop selling arms and chemicals.
George and Tony: if you insist on spreading universal values, call it for what it is: an attempt to forcfully stamp Judeo-Christian-Capitalist values on every other culture on the planet. After all, the New York Times reports that Bush “was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons” according to a confidential memo written by David Manning, Blair’s top foreign policy adviser.
Will Iran be the next country to bend over to be freedomized by George and Tony?