Meditation 993
God's broken communication system
by: JT
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I've written previously[1] about God's broken messenger system, his supposed practice of using prophets to communicate his messages to us. But it is not just prophets that God uses. Another element in God's communications strategy is apparently natural disasters. And it's a rare day when a natural disaster occurs, particularly in the USA, which some religious fool does not claim is a message from God indicating his displeasure with something or other.
Hurricane Isaac is no different. The holy fools have decreed that the hurricane passing near New Orleans at the same time as the city hosted Southern Decadence, aka Gay Mardi Gras is a clear sign that God opposed the festival. Hurricane Katrina also hit during the same festival seven years ago, so this is seen as somehow significant indicating God is quite displeased. (An even more idiotic claim about Isaac was the Christian fool who blamed the existence of the hurricane itself on Bill Nye's promotion of evolution.[2])
Saner people would regard this as coincidence. After all, it is hurricane season and New Orleans is on one of the several hurricane trajectories.
But suppose there is a God and he really is sending a message. Would this be an intelligent way to communicate? Just hit the places he is displeased with some years, and then let them off to party hard in other years? Wouldn't an intelligent God make a point of hitting each and every city which displeased him every time the displeasing event occurred?
And if he's uptight about LGBT festivals, wouldn't he make a point of doing something special which would not be automatically discounted by skeptics - say hit New Orleans each time with an earthquake and San Francisco with a hurricane. Now that would be a message if it coincided with every LGBT.
But God does not do that. So either God is extremely stupid in his method of communication, or natural disasters are just that - entirely natural events with no supernatural message at all.