God's Role In Natural Disasters Gods warning or Nature at work?

[MajesticTreeFrog 0]

If God was going to rain down judgment I think it would have been here in the states.  Speaking of which.  Has it occured to anyone else that we've been having an awful lot of earth quakes lately? 

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Yeah, but the earthquakes hit california, which as any self respecting Neo-Con pastor would tell you, is a den of villany, pornography, and sin, so it is only natural that there would be quakes. LOL.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

I think it's arrogant to assume that God would send down judgment upon Thailand of all places.  Here  in The U.S. there aremore similarities to sodum & gamora than any where else.  Americans are the most self centered people on the planet.  If God was going to rain down judgment I think it would have been here in the states.  Speaking of which.  Has it occured to anyone else that we've been having an awful lot of earth quakes lately? 

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Thailand - did someone say thailand ?? OH MY GOD!! I live in Thailand (starts packing bags) ..

[MajesticTreeFrog 0]

Is it cheap to live in Thailand? I think I might like it there. Nice pretty women, nice pretty weather, Buddhist monks... I just wonder how cheap it would be to retire there....

[lorenzo 0]

a week after the tsunami happen my family and i went to a sunday mass. The priest talked about how we should feel about natural disasters and God. As a catholic, the priest said that we shouldn't think that God is punishing these people, for it is said in the Bible that God will always protect us and bring us to the paradise after death. I believe in this. I don't think God has something to do with natural disasters.

[jonassen-tjader 0]

Hi there,Actually do I belive that the highest god of them all is "Mother Earth" and the Gaia theory does really make sense to me. I found a article on wikipedia that descripes the sitiation about "Natural Disasters" very well as follow:"Gaia theories Early modern parallelsIn Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas makes an observation very much like Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis: "I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannot think of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking visible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern New England, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like, what is it most like? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell."Lovelock initial hypothesisLovelock defined Gaia as: "a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet."His initial hypothesis was that the biomass modifies the conditions on the planet to make conditions on the planet more hospitable – the Gaia Hypothesis properly defined this "hospitality" as a full homeostasis. Lovelock's initial hypothesis, accused of being teleological by his critics, was that Gaia atmosphere is kept in homeostasis by and for the biosphere.Lovelock suggested that life on Earth provides a cybernetic, homeostatic feedback system operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota, leading to broad stabilization of global temperature and chemical composition.With his initial hypothesis, Lovelock claimed the existence of a global control system of surface temperature, atmosphere composition and ocean salinity. His arguments were: * The global surface temperature of the Earth has remained constant, despite an increase in the energy provided by the Sun * Atmospheric composition remains constant, even though it should be unstable * Ocean salinity is constantSince life started on Earth, the energy provided by the Sun has increased by 25% to 30%; however the surface temperature of the planet has remained remarkably constant when measured on a global scale. Furthermore, he argued, the atmospheric composition of the Earth is constant. The Earth's atmosphere currently consists of 79% nitrogen, 20.7% oxygen and 0.03% carbon dioxide. Oxygen is the second most reactive element after fluorine, and should combine with gases and minerals of the Earth's atomosphere and crust. Traces of methane (at an amount of 100,000 tonnes produced per annum), should not exist, as methane is combustible in an oxygen atmosphere. This composition should be unstable, and its stability can only have been maintained with removal or production by living organisms.Ocean salinity has been constant at about 3.4% for a very long time. Salinity stability is important as most cells require a rather constant salinity degree and do not tolerate much values above 5%. Salinity is partially controlled by evaporation processes, which mostly take place in lagoons. The only significant natural source of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is volcanic activity, while the only significant removal is through the weathering of some rocks. During weathering, a reaction causes the formation of calcium carbonate. This chemical reaction is enhanced by the bacteria and plant roots in soils, where they improve gaseous circulation. The calcium carbonate can be washed to the sea where it is used by living organisms with carboneous tests and shells. Once dead, the living organisms' shells fall to the bottom of the oceans where they generate deposits of chalk and limestone. In short, a rock was weathered, the resulting carbon dioxide processed by a living organism, and returned to a rock through sedimentation process. Part of the organisms with carboneous shells are the coccolithophores (algae), which also happen to participate in the formation of clouds. When they die, they release a sulfurous gas (DMS), (CH3)2S, which act as particles on which water vapor condenses to make clouds.Lovelock sees this as one of the complex processes that maintain conditions suitable for life. The volcanoes make the CO2 enter the atmosphere, CO2 participates in limestone weathering, itself accelerated by temperature and soil life, the dissolved CO2 is then used by the algae and released on the ocean floor. CO2 excess can be compensated by an increase of coccolithophoride life, increasing the amount of CO2 locked in the ocean floor. Coccolithophorides increase the cloud cover, hence control the surface temperature, help cool the whole planet and favor precipitations which are necessary for terrestrial plants. For Lovelock, coccolithophorides are one stage in a regulatory feedback loop. Lately the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased and there is some evidence that concentrations of ocean algal blooms are also increasing."Much more it to be find here, and I know that people has to find these articles by themselves, but this is just to force to see things from an diffrent view.Take care of her, cause she wouldn't harm us if we don't harm her.Cheers!Jens

[ArmTheMob 0]

I'll add my own two cents. All the nautral disasters can be explained without god and everyone knows it... Come on... I can't believe people are still bringing this up in this day and age. I could have imagined ancient people doing this but to bring this up now? That just boggles my mind. Come on... That's just nonsense.

[Rayxzerox 0]

*sigh* An all powerful being who told US "thou shall not kill" who uses his power to one: tell people to kill, and two: make nature kill. Can someone tell me how this makes sense? A perfect being, who is also a hypocrite? Not buying it, I hope YOU aren't either.

[Dominus 0]

It's completely understandable why people would think that god would create catastrophies as a sign to warn, or as a punishment to man since "god is the creator of all things". However, the way I understand it from my study of the bible and from the teachings of many theological scholars, once god finished creating the universe and all that is in it, he rested and in the beginning, man was given authority, but with responsibility. God also gave mankind dominion over the earth and finally gave man free will to love or hate and do as he pleased. So in reality, god created all things good."God saw that creation was good." "And God saw that it was good." "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good."[post="http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ would god, the perfect almighty being, the creator of all that is good, want to destroy it all. He wouldn't. God allows "bad" things to happen; God does not cause them to happen. Most "bad" things which happen do so because God gives a radical freedom to God's people; we are free people, not puppets on a string."Therefore, we might best respond by saying that God does not Will "bad" things to happen in life. Rather, "bad" things happen in the freedom that comes with the gift of life. When "bad" things happen to any of God's children, God is grieved and suffers with us, experienced most vividly in the hurt and suffering of Jesus the Christ for all humanity. Any "bad" thing which happens is never the last word. Rather, God is the deepest and last word, and that word is love and eternal life with God."--The Rev. Dr. Douglass M. BaileyAll of this being said, the true question here should be this; Why does god allow bad things to happen?, or why doesn't he stop them? I mean, doesn't it seem to stand to reason that the perfect, almighty being would want to stop bad things from happening.It's true. Nothing would make god happier than to put an end to evil and suffering. However, if he did such a thing, wouldn't he be breaking his promise to man? He most certainly would. Here's why. It all boils down to the god given free will that we all enjoy so much. The freedom thay many of us would fight and die for, and many of us have. It is that freedom which causes everything on earth to happen the way that it does. God does not take pleasure in it yet he is fulfilling his promise to us and to himself. What good is there and what pleasure can there really be in making everyone do "what is right"? Can you make someone love you? Can you beat them into submission to do what's right? No you can't? They will do and feel as they will, otherwise it's just not real!In closing I'd just like to say that it is because of this freedom of choice that the world is in the shape that it is in today. You know as well as I do that man caused pollution and the climate change that ultimately is causing many of the natural disasters including the sunami of Thailand.Here are a few more links where I obtained a few quotes to support my opinions and so that you may further investigate for yourselves that these are not just opinions of my own but they are truly rational and believable conclusions and teachings of many.[post="http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Edited August 10, 2007 by Dominus (see edit history)

[Chesso 0]

I don't know much about the god aspect, I mean it's a bit like the american/indians (so you know I don't mean India, indians), they just danced till it rained.......We know it's most likely going to rain, some time or another, and we also know natural disasters happen one time or another, so anyone can say it's some message, or special power.But it's not really that important as to why it happened, unless the frequency of these events kick up, then you need to wonder lol.

[Sohaib1405241555 0]

well...I believe that natural disasters are some sort of signals from God. disasterz happen to remind us that we all are mortal and we have to go back to Our God and we are answerable for our good and bad deeds.so yes .... tsunami and other disasters are happen to remind us that we are nothing but a human created by God and we could have juzz died in this disaster so we should start preparing for hereafter and should not forget asking forgiveness from God.

[CaptainCanuck 0]

Hey Guys,To kick off this forum ... I found this article while reading the paper this morning. It really amazed me that modern day religious leaders suggest that the Tsunami disaster was a message from God ... almost like the Sodom and Gomora (unsure of spelling) story!

I think this is nature pure and simple. As a matter of fact, I actually liked the buddist response best of all of them. I can come closer to believing in harmonic/karmic forces more than the 'hand of god sending us messages' line. To move off topic a bit, I even see the Buddist monks explaination come close to scientific Chaos Theory.

What are your thoughts??

cheers
hashbang

Those that say God plays a role in natural disasters are assuming God was made in our image and likeness and not the other way around. In other words, they assume God has human characteristics and, if that is so, a natural disaster would be God's way of showing both His displeasure with us, as well as His might and power. A little vain don't you think? I believe that God has a master plan and He had put that plan in motion in the very beginning. Natural disasters may be a warning to us that things are not unfolding as they should. God is not taking an active role in these disasters but He is not going to save us from suffering the consequences of our actions. The biggest disaster of all is the mess we have made of the home He has given us. We have cut down forests too numberous to count and wonder why there are mudslides. We have burned fossil fuels for centuries and wonder why our air is polluted. We have hunted animals to extinction and over-fished the oceans, lakes and rivers. We have reproduced at an alarming rate without any thought of the poor quality of life that will be faced by future generations. Does God need to have a hand in the creation of natural disasters? Certainly no, we are creating them oursleves.

CaptainCanuck