God and earthquakes

[DMB]

A heartwarming story of divine intervention:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6070052.ece

I'm happy for this family that the young man survived, but why does God always get the credit for someone surviving but not the blame for killing so many others?

[sidhe]

I'm happy for this family that the young man survived, but why does God always get the credit for someone surviving but not the blame for killing so many others?

I'm of the opinion either would be wrong.

1) It makes inherent value judgments about the quality of life and the quality of death, as in life=good, death=bad. A rapid and cataclysmic demise for a hundred people suffering from a painful, terminal illness could be seen as an act of mercy, and sparing that same hundred from harm in a cataclysm that kills their caretakers would be an act of abject cruelty.

2) It presumes to know deity's motivation. Again, working from that I allow for old-style, petty, vindictive, and arbitrary deities who are playing a game with us by rules that we aren't allowed to see, that one young man could have been spared because the level of cruelty he'll set as a precedent for future serial killers will be a thing of awe, or because he'll take this experience, become interested in geology, and discover a system for predicting earthquakes, or because he'll one day be selling the ShamWow in stores around the world.

3) Time spent discussing the "Will of God" in the aftermath of the earthquake is time that could be better spent helping the earthquake victims.

[Daynna]

My favorite example of this is when a tornado hit Arkansas years ago. There was as lady on the news holding a bible in front of her demolished house. Her husband had been killed. But God was looking out for her and he left the bible UNTOUCHED to prove it!