ANSWERS: 4
  • No. I think different natural disasters are caused by lots of different things. For example, forest fires can be caused by the majority of smokers who seem to think that their cigarette butts just magically disappear from this plane of reality when they toss them out the window, rather than bounce along the roadway, still smoldering, leaving hot ashes in their wake, able to start a fire when conditions are dry enough, or, best case scenario, leave a blob of toxic waste that accumulates with the swaths of others their equally inconsiderate brethren discard, that will someday blanket the entire earth, if it continues at the current rate.
  • Yes, but God's anger is a righteous anger, not mean anger like humans have. God does things for a reason, and there is usually many lessons and growth experiences involved in natural disasters.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      So, for example, you believe that the California wildfires of autumn 2018, which killed 85-87 people and completely destroyed over 10 000 homes, were a result of God's righteous anger? What lesson or growth experience could possibly be intended for the 911 operator who had to tell an elderly woman that no emergency personnel were available to help her evacuate, even as the fire swept up her home and she burned to death, too disabled to outrun the flames? I've asked this before, and wasn't happy with the answer "it's a test of your faith." What does that even mean? What if God tests your faith so much that it reveals that you didn't have enough faith? Then God punishes you with eternal damnation? But it's righteous, not mean? If a medieval king had a knight swear fielty to him, but sentenced that knight to be tortured day and night for the rest of his life in a dungeon, for questioning how burning his mother in a fire was "just to test his faith," wouldn't that king go down in history as a jerk? Yet God does this every day to His worshippers, and no one bats an eye. I just don't get it.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      I'm sorry, that probably came off as overly salty. I don't mean to direct it toward you, but I'll leave it as is, because I hope you'll have an answer.
    • Linda Joy
      If they die they get to go to Heaven and their pain and suffering and earthly trials are over. Isn't that the ultimate goal of a Christian anyway? What's the big deal? Death is a natural end to life. I only burned my hand, but if I was that lady I wouldn't want to live through being burned!! That shit hurts intensely for along time!! And leaves horrible scars! I watched my mother die of cancer. Sometimes death is a more humane choice!
    • Linda Joy
      But for you, an example: 9-11. People died, but our country came together in prayer and fellowship like had not been seen since WWII. People started thinking about someone other than themselves. I couldn't possibly list all the lessons that were learned because that happened. After the tornado disaster in 2011 I remember donating stuff to be put in the sanitation gift bags. I was homeless at the time and had never done that before in all my more prosperous years! I'm sad for anyone who can only see the evil in discipline and not the final product. Like the purification of metals its hot arduous work, but the final product is beautiful! We are all being refined in the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tuscaloosa%E2%80%93Birmingham_tornado
    • Linda Joy
      It helps us grow empathy.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      Maybe there's some good advice in there, but it's difficult to think of how people came together after you have to tell someone that no one is coming to help. It's difficult to think of how the nation developed a deep fellowship over a disaster that the president tried to politicize blaming "environmental laws" and "diverting water into the ocean" for the fires. As for death being the ultimate goal, I don't think it really is, though, especially not burning in a fire for the benefit of literally no one. If she died trying to feed starving children or even bringing Bibles to tribal peoples, you might be able to justify it that way, but it all seems so senseless to me.
  • i hope not
  • Nope. Even in the bible, they are the result of human incompetence and ignoring the signs of nature.

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