If you didn't already know, I was
angry as I wrote this.
Nature. An impartial and harsh mistress to the affairs and suffering of humanity, who on occasion has very violent fits. It is this perspective of nature that is often avoided by the deeply religious when discussing "divine perfect creation". After all, after such events occur, our species found it to be more comforting to appeal to the invisible beings that is master of whatever natural phenomena occurs. The forefathers what came before us quickly realized that the world around us is a pretty hostile place: Stronger, tougher and faster animals than us, poisonous plants, fevers and diseases, not to mention the natural forces themselves. Faced with the hostility and apparent unpredictability of natural forces, which can be as brief as it is devastating, led our ancestors to assume that unseen magical forces; gods, are behind them. So we conjure up several gods to appeal to. For the sun gods: Ra, Krishna, Apollo, Surya were worshipped across different cultures; for the storms, Raijin, Zeus, Thor, Enlil, Indra, Shango, Set, Raijin,...Yahweh...and gods who create earthquakes, such as Poseidon and Yamazu. Over time, we began to understand these forces for what they are: natural processes, explained by chemistry and physics.
On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced its most powerful earthquake and the world's fourth most devastating, with a magnitude 8.9-9.0 on the Richter scale. In the actual earthquake, Japan did relatively fine for reasons I'll come on to, however, the real killer was the tsunami it brought towards Sendai. A waves between 4 metres and three stories would wipe out entire towns and villages. As of today, around 1,700 people are confirmed dead, with over 1,900 injured and 1,700 missing. with an estimate of casualties reaching tens of thousands. In addition to this, Sendai has around 11 nuclear power plants, six of which are, of have experienced failures. The Fukushima I nuclear reactor had experienced a partial meltdown after there was an explosion at the building, but the reactor itself was not damaged. A similar incident happened on reactor 3 of the plant. As for the Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant, all four units were successfully shut down, amidst the earthquake. While it isn't expected to be another Chernobyl, the fears of a full meltdown led to the evacuation of 200,000 people. So yes, things are bad and very tense.
This Sunday has been a pretty crap one, if I say so myself. Not as the crap as those in Sendai, of course. But still pretty bad. Now I regularly watch the program,
The Big Questions. There are occasions where it's really good, and those where is just a talking shop. In this week's episode, one of the topics of discussion was whether the Sendai earthquake brings into question a loving God. Since I've come across theodicies long before I did theodicy in religious studies class, my response upon hearing this subject, was this:
For me, it got a little bit worse. You see, there was an Islamic philosopher, Adam Deen claimed that the earthquake in Japan was, of all things, a test provided from the Invisible Almighty himself. Now, I've heard a lot of this stuff from Muslims in my religious studies class, school, Facebook perhaps more times than I heard it from Christians, and I still live in a fundamentalist Christian household (officially). Anyways, my point is: I don't understand why it is when faced a the problem of an omnipotent, omniscient deity, who is somehow able to relate with humanity to the point he is personal, and becomes involved with the physical world through "miracles", often in relatively moderate problems to solve, somehow wants to test millions of Japanese people by permitting a natural disaster to directly kill 1,700 people (as of Sunday 13th), and injure almost two thousands, while forcing hundreds of thousands out of their homes. Sure, you could argue that the survivors could have learned something really important about the human spirit. But then, does it
really have to come at the consequence for someone's father, someone's mother, someone's grandparents or aunt's and uncle's, someone's children; who are if not directly killed by the earthquake and tsunami, are missing with no knowing of whether they are even alive or not?
We sit here and make pointless pontifications on the "morality" of an earthquake, when time would be better spent preparing for them, or investigating how they occur or if it already occurred, aiding the ones that have suffered. Surely, it's equally just as plausible that if an entity beyond the physical laws in which he can interfere every so often, isn't it equally plausible such an entity is not only not all-good, but actively malevolent? And personally gives out natural disasters to torture humanity, as it's more fun than outright killing all of them? Also, that such a being would only give out spurious relatively tiny "miracles" to pretend that it/he/she possesses a form of morality? So yes, That's the first form of being a bit cheesed off.
The next form of when I was, once again, pressured to accompany my family so that they can get their "Jesus High". I has hoping nothing stupid was said about the Japan earthquake during my uncomfortable stay. But I was to be disappointed. Turns out the Japan earthquake was predicted, yes,
predicted...by the Bible. Funny thing is, Matthew 27:51 was mentioned, which says:
"And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;"
And it continues on to 27:53 which says:
"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose; and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into went into the holy city, and appeared unto many".
And then, Hebrews 12:25-29:
"See that ye refuseth not that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised saying, Yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain, Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire."
(They didn't read it in King James but, yeah.)
And, my response was this:
You see, I've actually written on them confusing natural geological activity for prophecies in the same book from people who really didn't have much foresight past the next generation or two. Such as the Icelandic volcano eruption and the resulting ash cloud to which they inconsiderately cite the um, Wrath of God™ for secularization or selfishness or whatever. So it's kinda part and parcel with these people. But this is where I really got cheesed off:
If you don't know, there's a group of jingoistic asshats who've ironically done a great disservice to their country by affecting how people perceive them. You see, these select few Americans thought it'd be okay to spout some nationalistic fervor and claim that the earthquake was just deserved. And this is when I got pissed off:
Apparently, the earthquake was some form of judgement or karmic payback for, of all things, Pearl Harbor. On Facebook:
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| The censorship was all me. They should be thanking me for protecting their worthless identities from (more) hate. |
Yes. Because all Japanese people need to recompense for its Imperialistic outlook introduced by a man who's been dead for over twenty years, publicly apologised, renounced his status as a descendant of Amaterasu (kinda), and had his country under occupation by the Allied forces for over seven years. There's also this little tidbit they'd seem to have forgotten after Pearl Harbor happened, for (*cough*) "karmic retribution":
Yeah. I'd have thought people remember that little incident in their history books. And learned how 80,000 people were killed when the Fat Man detonated at Nagasaki. Perhaps remembering this can put a bit more perspective to those jingoistic nimrods. But never mind me. Here's a reaction to such bullshit from Christian user on YouTube that funnily enough, I actually have time for (And by Christian, this extends into the morality sense. And no, I'm not being sarcastic). Maybe I should be careful about these posts, since I often need to remember that not all religious people are jerks disconnected with reality. So here's her reaction to the donuts who think the earthquake in Japan is "karmic retribution":
So allow me to you guys in: We now know how earthquakes occur. They occur from the build-up of tectonic activity on the two opposing plates, with a sudden release of energy. In this case, the event of one ocean plate being pushed under a plate of land mass, or subduction. As the island of Japan is near the subduction zone, it will receive several earthquakes, and issue out warnings when seismic activity is detected. It is not completely unexpected outside magic books like these...prophecy jerks like to insist, neither is a test, or "karmic retribution". It is a natural event. Granted, it's the most powerful earthquake Japan has ever experienced, but it's a natural event nonetheless. That's all. All we need to do is show our support to the organisations offering to them. Thanks for reading.
