Hot Topic (1/29): What causes natural disasters? God? Does He even exist?

[Cafe GroupAdmin]

Why does God allow natural disasters?

At the heart of Haiti's humanitarian crisis is an age old question for many religious people - how can God allow such terrible things to happen? Philosopher David Bain examines the arguments. Evil has always been a thorn in the side of those - of whatever faith - who believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God. As the philosopher David Hume (echoing Epicurus) put it in 1776: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" Faced with this question, Archbishop of York John Sentamu said he had "nothing to say to make sense of this horror", while another clergyman, Canon Giles Fraser, preferred to respond "not with clever argument but with prayer". Perhaps their stance is understandable. The Old Testament is also not clear to the layman on such matters. When Job complains about the injuries God has allowed him to suffer, and claims "they are tricked that trusted", God says nothing to rebut the charges. Less reticent is the American evangelist Pat Robertson. He has suggested Haiti has been cursed ever since the population swore a pact with the Devil to gain their freedom from the French at the beginning of the 19th Century. Robertson's claim will strike many as ludicrous, if not offensive. And even were it true, it wouldn't obviously meet the challenge. Why would a loving deity allow such a pact to seem necessary? Why wouldn't he have freed the Haitians from slavery himself, or prevented them from being enslaved in the first place? And why, in particular, would he punish today's Haitians for something their forbears putatively did more than two centuries before? So what should believers say? To make progress, we might distinguish two kinds of evil: --the awful things people do, such as murder, and --the awful things that just happen, such as earthquakes   Would those hailed as brave still exist in a Magical World? St Augustine, author CS Lewis and others have argued God allows our bad actions since preventing them would undermine our free will, the value of which outweighs its ill effects. But there's a counter-argument. Thoroughly good people aren't robots, so why couldn't God have created only people like them, people who quite freely live good lives? However that debate turns out, it's quite unclear how free will is supposed to explain the other kind of evil - the death and suffering of the victims of natural disasters. Perhaps it would if all the victims - even the newborn - were so bad that they deserved their agonising deaths, but it's impossible to believe that is the case. Or perhaps free will would be relevant if human negligence always played a role. There will be some who say the scale of the tragedy in natural disasters is partly attributable to humans. The world has the choice to help its poorer parts build earthquake-resistant structures and tsunami warning systems. A still smoking Krakatoa in 1883, which caused a devastating tsunami But the technology has not always existed. Was prehistoric man, with his sticks and stones, somehow negligent in failing to build early warning systems for the tsunamis that were as deadly back then as they are today? The second century saint, Irenaeus, and the 20th Century philosopher, John Hick, appeal instead to what is sometimes called soul-making. God created a universe in which disasters occur, they think, because goodness only develops in response to people's suffering. To appreciate this idea, try to imagine a world containing people, but literally no suffering. Call it the Magical World. In that world, there are no earthquakes or tsunamis, or none that cause suffering. If people are hit by falling masonry, it somehow bounces off harmlessly. If I steal your money, God replaces it. If I try to hurt you, I fail. So why didn't God create the Magical World instead of ours? Because, the soul-making view says, its denizens wouldn't be - couldn't be - truly good people. It's not that they would all be bad. It's that they couldn't be properly good. For goodness develops only where it's needed, the idea goes, and it's not needed in the Magical World. In that world, after all, there is no danger that requires people to be brave, so there would be no bravery. That world contains no one who needs comfort or kindness or sympathy, so none would be given. It's a world without moral goodness, which is why God created ours instead. But there is wiggle room. Even in a world where nothing bad happens, couldn't there be brave people - albeit without the opportunity to show it? So moral goodness could exist even if it were never actually needed. And, anyway, suppose we agree moral goodness could indeed develop only in a world of suffering. Doesn't our world contain a surplus of suffering? People do truly awful things to each other. Isn't the suffering they create enough for soul-making? Did God really need to throw in earthquakes and tsunamis as well? Suffering's distribution, not just its amount, can also cause problems. A central point of philosopher Immanuel Kant's was that we mustn't exploit people - we mustn't use them as mere means to our ends. But it can seem that on the soul-making view God does precisely this. He inflicts horrible deaths on innocent earthquake victims so that the rest of us can be morally benefitted. That hardly seems fair. It's OK, some will insist, because God works in mysterious ways. But mightn't someone defend a belief in fairies by telling us they do too? Others say their talk of God is supposed to acknowledge not the existence of some all-powerful and all-good agent, who created and intervenes in the universe, but rather something more difficult to articulate - a thread of meaning or value running through the world, or perhaps something ineffable. But, as for those who believe in an all-good, all-powerful agent-God, we've seen that they face a question that remains pressing after all these centuries, and which is now horribly underscored by the horrors in Haiti. If a deity exists, why didn't he prevent this?

 

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Do you believe God even exists?

Do you think God allows disasters, like the one in Haiti?  Did He cause the disaster in Haiti?  

How do you explain suffering in the world?  How do you explain goodness in the world?

[Goodwoman614]

If by "God" you mean Mother Nature, then it's b/c that's how the Earth works. 

Perhaps the better question to ask most ppl is: Is there a God?  In the way my JudeoChristian background taught me there was?

[athenax3]

I don't think God has anything to do with it. It's the natural behavoir and cycles of the earth, people just accidentally get in the way.

I sometimes wonder why so much suffering, but essentially I think we've created it ourselves, just as we can create good ourselves, but it's too difficult and not particularly rewarding in the material sense so in large part we just choose not to.

God may have had a hand in our creation in one way or another, but I think at this point he's cut us loose to see which way we run. At this point he's just an observer, he's given us all the power we need to make or break ourselves. He/ She is likely VERY disappointed, lol.

[home-sweet-home]

Do you believe God even exists?

Do you think God allows disasters, like the one in Haiti?  Did He cause the disaster in Haiti? I do not think God CAUSED the natural disaster, but I do believe He allows it. We cannot know the entire picture and we never will, but we go through trials that grow us. Tragedies that make us better people. Evil IS necessary for good to exist. The world was perfect before Adam decided to eat of the forbidden fruit. When things happen bad in our lives, there is always a reason and whether we choose to believe it or not, they are for our benefit.

How do you explain suffering in the world?  How do you explain goodness in the world?

 

We are like young children and may not know why God is doing what He is, but we should trust that they are right. Think of a 3 year old. They see candy, they want it, they don't understand why they cannot have it. As a parent, we know that it is almost dinner time and so if they get it, they will mess up their dinner. We see the whole picture, the child only sees the now. That is how it is with God.

When Jacob first regressed into Autism, I was devastated. I thought, here we are at seminary, serving God, why would He do this to us. But, I now can see the whole picture. It has protected my other children in that I have changed a lot of the way we live, eating healthier, no vaccines etc. Also I have had the chance to minister to and comfort other moms that are going through this. If I had the chance to go back and change what happened, of course I would, but I am happy that God was able to make good come from it and I have grown so much.

When I was pg with my first child, I had a miscarraige. I was heartbroken. I loved that baby from the minute I know it was in there. It was very hard to go through, but 2 or 3 months later I became pregnant with Matt. Matt was meant to be here and had the first pg continued, he would not be and my soon to be grandson would not be. There was a big picture, I could not see at the moment. I would have loved the first baby, but Matt was supposed to be here.

I just do not understand how anyone could go through such a tragedy without the peace and comfort of God.

 

[partygal19dani]

I was Catholic for 30 some years.  When I was 35, I decided that I had serious doubts about my faith for many reasons - including this BIG one!!!!  "Unnecessary suffering and evil" are what turned me off to "God", and I decided that I was truly agnostic - because I can't say for sure if God exists or not.  But if he does, I certainly question the rationale behind all of the natural disasters or human nastiness on earth.  Doesn't make much sense to me and I don't buy the theories anymore!!!  I have unbrainwashed myself.  lol  And I have gone through tragedies of my own, without leaning on "God."  Somehow I have gotten through things on my own.  It takes positive thinking and a good human support network!!!  When I have read articles in the news about the Haitians praying to God thanking him for saving their lives, I think well what about those who didn't make it?  Why were some spared and others weren't?  And why the heck would you be praying to a god who either made this happen or allowed it to?!!  Again, makes no damn sense to me and fires me up instead!!!!  If there is a God, maybe he is a touch sadistic!!!

[forsythia_18]

I'm agnostic and I don't adhere myself to any particular relgion.  I believe there is a higher power but I don't believe he/she is as spiritually connect to us as an "individual" as people tend to want to think.  Natural disasters happen.  We should stop pondering god's part in what happened and just handle the disaster the best way we know how.  Help, use empathy, and accept you don't have all the answers.

[Serenity7]

Yes there is a God

 

[survivorinohio]

Do you believe God even exists?

Yes, with all my heart.

Do you think God allows disasters, like the one in Haiti?  Did He cause the disaster in Haiti? 

I think that the natural order that God set up was disrupted by the introduction of sin.  I think that he allows these things to happen as a new harsher natural order. 

How do you explain suffering in the world?  How do you explain goodness in the world?

The greed of corrupt men is responsible for most of the suffering in this world.

True goodness is hard to find today IMO but it exists and behind all of it I believe is a loving father who wishes we would see and stand up for 'right"

[hsteele]

Because she is Mother Nature and nature works how she will, whether we want her to or not. Part me wonders if she is not trying to right herself by whatever way she can. I do not see "God" as some being with deciding who lives and dies and who is happy and who is miserable. I think that is personifying something we have no capacity as mere mortals to understand.

[hsteele]

I agree. Take Haiti for example. There have been stronger earthquakes in Haiti with less damage and relatively less loss of life. However, these occurred before Haiti had concrete buildings and structures that just do not stand up to Earthquakes. When the buildings were wood that can bend and move as the Earth does, there was less damage. We try to conquer the earth and this is the result.

Quoting athenax3:

I don't think God has anything to do with it. It's the natural behavoir and cycles of the earth, people just accidentally get in the way.

I sometimes wonder why so much suffering, but essentially I think we've created it ourselves, just as we can create good ourselves, but it's too difficult and not particularly rewarding in the material sense so in large part we just choose not to.

God may have had a hand in our creation in one way or another, but I think at this point he's cut us loose to see which way we run. At this point he's just an observer, he's given us all the power we need to make or break ourselves. He/ She is likely VERY disappointed, lol.

[Talee]

Do you believe God even exists?

Yes

Do you think God allows disasters, like the one in Haiti?  Did He cause the disaster in Haiti?  

Yes he allows the natural system of things to go on...

How do you explain suffering in the world?  How do you explain goodness in the world?

I believe in sin and satan, I also believe in angels and God...I think the struggles we have here on earth are ..For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against authorities and powers, against the world-rulers of this dark night, against the spirits of evil in the heavens.

I believe sin entered this world a long long time ago and its been growing and festering all this time in so many ways...