The Great Lie--The Haitian Earthquake as God's Wrath

When you're sitting back in a comfy studio or office or church or living room, it becomes easy to attack those who are doing everything they can to help others who are suffering. But the worst is to attack the victim, to blame the Haitian population for the earthquake, some sort of "wrath" from God for a 200-year-old so-called pact with the devil. Now, even some of the victims themselves are saying it may be a punishment from the heavens.

Stop it! Stop it now! 

It's simply the earth doing what it always does: MOVE. There is no place on the planet that is not susceptible to that movement. So, get over the attacks. No god caused the quake. The earth herself simply shuddered. And then shuddered again off the coast of Argentina. And recently she shuddered in China, and before that Iran, and before that California. And it will continue. It is the nature of things. And it's good. Without that movement, everything would die.

For those of you who might think that God sticks his supernatural finger into the natural world to punish this group or that group; to think that God can actually be angered by the musings and activities of this little human species; to yell and shout that some kind of wrath is about to be poured out over the earth, well, you need to understand a thing or two. Allow me…

1. The King James Bible is not the Word of God. We don’t have the Word of God. Even if the original writers were given that Word, we only have copies of copies of copies of copies of more copies. And human hands have changed much of what started out as original. And that’s the only way it can be, given the fact that we ourselves are less than perfect.

2. Also, a rather poor version of the Greek text, called the Textus Receptus, was used to create the KJV. It contains many, many errors and contradictions. Virtually all scholars, religious as well as secular, know this fact. If you want a Bible that comes anywhere close to the original, you have to go to copies that are much more refined than the Textus Receptus. Even the older Latin Bibles are a better choice.

Point? The god of the bad copies does not have any power here. Earth is a natural, shaky, quivering, semi-circular globe that is traveling through space at incredible speed. Of course it’s going to quake now and then. Of course there will be tsunamis and hurricanes and tornadoes and forest fires; lightening strikes and flash floods; auto accidents and plane crashes; disease and animal attacks.

But none of these are the wrath of a god. They are simply the way of things.

I, for one, am glad.