Full Of Smite

[filkertom]

I wonder if the jerkface religious whackos who are already saying that God sent Hurricane Katrina to destroy New Orleans because of a gay rally to be held there this week (a notion handily dismantled, as if it really needed to be, on About.com's Urban Legends page) realize how much they sound like terrorists groups taking credit for the most recent atrocity.

Comments

[takaal.livejournal.com]

...and then, there are those who are saying "God didn't like the fact that it's a Red State..."

Honestly, you'd think people would focus on the fact that other humans are in trouble and need help.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I admit I hadn't heard that one....

[kimpire.livejournal.com]

When four hurricanes hit Florida in quick succession, a lot of people were quick to point out how they had "only damaged Republican counties".

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Eeyup, and that one was also nicely debunked (http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/hurricane.asp) at Snopes.

[kimpire.livejournal.com]

To someone as politically focused as I am, I got vertigo looking at the inverted red and blue in that electoral college map...

[fractalwolf.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Sounds like a re-hashing of the myth that circulating that the three hurricanes that battered Florida last year went primarily/exlusively over red counties, and went on to hit a couple more red states before petering out. http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/hurricane.asp

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Urgh! Ya got me, podnuh!

[kimpire.livejournal.com]

Anybody remember how a lot of imams claimed, after the tsunami, that it was Allah's punishment for allowing Americans and Europeans to vacation on Malaysian beaches?

Then again, a lot of those same imams tried to claim that the same tsunami was actually caused by an American or Israeli nuclear device under the Indian Ocean...

"Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots." - Jay Lessig

[fractalwolf.livejournal.com]

"Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots." - Jay Lessig

Nice quote!

[mrteapot.livejournal.com]

The really disturbing thing is the poll at the bottom of that About.com page. When I visited, 38% of people visiting the site thought the Hurricane might be God's punishment for New Orleans's sin (and that's after reading the page, presumably).

Actually, it's only 200 odd people, but it's still too many people believing that ridiculous of a statement.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Damn it Storyville closed YEARS ago....

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the question in the poll is badly phrased. It asks if people think the hurricane *could* be God's punishment, not if they think it actually *was*. I have to answer yes to the former, but no to the latter. Based on the evidence avialable to me, I think it *very unlikely* that this was a punishment from God. But since I don't know what the people of New Orleans (and surrounding areas) have been getting up to lately that may or may not have pissed God off, I'm not in a position to say it definitely wasn't.

If it *was* a punishment, however, then based on biblical precedent, I would expect there to have been at least one and probably several prophecies given in advance of the hurricane to the effect of "Don't make me come down there...", *and effectively communicated to all those concerned*. A bunch of people miles away making claims after the event don't count.

And again, based on biblical precedent, my response to those who now are in need of rescue *should not be influenced one jot* by whether I believe those folks were the most heinous sinners. Or whether they deserved what happened to them. The whole thrust of the Gospel is that what we *deserve* is not an adequate indication of what God wants us to have, or to give to each other.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Based on Biblical precedent, it should've been via any method of natural disaster *other* than flood. There was a promise made about floods. :)

(Yeah, I know, only global ones, technically. But still.)

[anneb.livejournal.com]

I read on CNN today how Trent Lott's house in Mississippi had been utterly obliterated. You'd think that in itself might keep some of those attitudes in check.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Another house completely destroyed was Beauvoir, the final home of Jefferson Davis and his Presidential Library. Unfortunately, it means a lot of historically significant papers and artifacts have been destroyed.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

With every atom of respect to the human suffering and loss of lives and livelihoods involved here, it does rather seem more like the God of Climate Change trying to punish someone for violating the commandment that runs "Thou shalt not ignore an ecological catastrophe that thou and thy predecessors helpedst (oh, all right, didst help) to cause." Unfortunately, gods have very poor aim and usually miss the one person they're trying to target.

[billroper]

I've also seen statements (some from people that I know personally) that Hurricane Katrina is a result of global warming. Or, at the very least, they certainly conflated the two events.

It appears that hurricane frequency and intensity is controlled more by some long-term cycle that we don't understand than by global warming. We had a bunch of hurricanes in the 50s, then a long quiet cycle while people built a bunch of stuff on the coastline, followed by another active cycle starting around 1995.

My personal (and slightly educated) opinion on why Katrina developed in such a nasty way follows:

We started out with a very active hurricane season this year. Then, we went through a substantial period where conditions were temporarily unfavorable for hurricane formation. We had Harvey and Irene in the Atlantic, neither of which were any great shakes, followed by Jose which blew up and immediately down as it hit the Yucatan. That wasn't much activity for August.

If Katrina had followed a normal path, it would have crossed Florida from east to west and curved north, pretty much following the coast. It never would have gotten very strong and would have dumped a lot of rain and done a little bit of damage.

Instead, Katrina was blocked and veered south across the Everglades. It didn't lose much strength crossing the wetlands and it got into the Gulf of Mexico, which was very warm because there hadn't been any tropical cyclones churning it for quite some time. The storm moved really slowly, still blocked by the atmospheric phenomenon that had forced it south, giving it plenty of time to intensify.

Once it got around the blocking event, it could recurve normally, but now it was a Category 5 storm aimed at New Orleans and the central Gulf Coast.

So we got a catastrophic storm instead of a couple of smaller ones.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Sounds reasonable to me. I do believe that global warming had some small bit to do with the warmth of the Gulf, but not as much as some pundits are trying to make out.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Well, except that I doubt very much that *any* of them actually caused Katrina.

Sounds like?

[nimuejohn.livejournal.com]

I can't find the article now, but some terrorist groups in the Mideast are claiming Katrina was Allah's punishment of the U.S.

Which only goes to show that originality is not the strong suit of religious extremists of any stripe.

Maybe

[zachkessin.livejournal.com]

It was G-d giving us a chance to perform acts of kindness to people who nead them (no I don't really think that is true, but it is to my theology a lot more plausable than some of the other things)

I don't try to undestand devine motivation in this kind of thing, I don't think we can.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Stunned.

[argentee.livejournal.com]

My heart is breaking over Katrina... People using this to push a religious or political agenda is just... vile. If they were really religious, they'd take a look at the images of the children, the babies... and start praying.