The Tsunami Question

As the death toll in South East Asia rises as a result of the Tsunami earth quake/storm/flood, people of all religious and non-religious persuasions are asking why such horrendous occurrences happen in this world of ours. Inevitably God is often blamed or criticized for either causing or permitting such catastrophes.

Recently in our local newspaper a man wrote a letter starting with the question, "Have the representatives of religion accepted responsibility on behalf of their deity for the thousands of Asian tsunami deaths and offered to liquidate their assets and give the proceeds as reparation to the victims of their deity's atrocity? If not , why not?" He then answered the question himself with a further question. "Is it because such cold blooded murder by their god is acceptable, because when God does it, it's not evil?"

This man's negative attitude and vitriolic condemnation of God and the people who believe in Him is indicative of the questions many people ask at times like this.

In answer to his letter I wrote to the Editor giving my response:

Dear Editor: Re Letters

Mr. William H's assertions about God's responsibilities seems out of place coming from a person who obviously does not believe that God exists. (Why don't religious folks hold God accountable for Asian storm deaths? RDA January 5, 2005).

So what is his purpose in expressing his holier than thou attitude toward people who do believe in God.

He might better utilize his mental energy by admiring the multitudes of both religious and non-religious people who have responded so generously to provide assistance to those storm victims who have survived and are yet in dire need of support and aid. But I suspect that he might rather prefer to write another scathing letter about God making it snow in Red Deer.

I along with many "religious folks" do not hold God accountable every time something we don't like occurs in this world. We give Him credit for creating a world in which everything was "good" and then He gave us human beings the ability and responsibility to be custodians over it all.

We sometimes fall short of using all our capabilities for all people, which was clearly demonstrated in our not fore warning the people in Asia when we in fact had the information and knowledge of the pending earth quake through the means of seismic sensors in Alaska and other locations around the world.

The leaders of many countries often spend more energy and resources on their own self- interests than in addressing the ways and means of protecting their citizens. But we don't blame that on God.

I am not suggesting that we should be able to prevent everyone from dying as we are all going to do that sooner or later, but who are we to say that it is better for us to die comfortably in our own bed at age 99 than to drown in a tsunami storm.

Religious folks of all true religions have an underlying faith that our life is more than just the physical life we enjoy, or screw up here in this world.

We believe that our real life is our soul or spirit and that we continue to live a spiritual human life after we depart this world. Living here is a privilege we enjoy in preparation for eternal life.

A lesson we can learn from recent happenings would be to use our resources and knowledge more wisely.

Surely we can trust the God of heaven and earth much more than the gods of economics, greed, wealth, power and selfishness.

David Sonmor
Red Deer, Aberta

We too must ask the question, "Why?" when tragedies such as this arise, but just blaming God or others isn't going to answer the questions for us. One positive thing that happens though is that they certainly cause people to turn to God for support not just for themselves but also for others including the victims of the event.

It has brought to light also the fact that these catastrophic level events are not new to the physical world, which is constantly changing and evolving. The aboriginal people of the north west coast of North America have in their oral tradition stories of a similar size Tsunami occurring approximately 300 years ago off the coast of Vancouver Island. This event has been proven to have occurred by means of modern seismological technology.

My Geography textbook from the late 1980's tells me that ," Earthquakes are violent shaking or vibrating motions (tremors) of the ground caused by the passage of seismic waves. The seismic waves are caused by the release o energy from a sudden movement along a fault . Faults are fractures in the earths crust where there has been a displacement of rock. Each time a displacement occurs along a fault, an earthquake of some size is produced.

Most earthquakes are small and cause little or no damage to the landscape. Seismographs record an average of more than 2000 tremors each day that are never felt by humans. Great earthquakes like the ones that destroyed Lisbon, Portugal in 1755, San Francisco in 1906 and T'ana-shan, China in 1976, occur every 5 to 10 years for the earth as a whole and 50 to 100 years in California. (EARTHSCAPE A Physical Geography 1987).

The destructive ones are also a reminder to us that life on this earth is not to be thought of as some kind of human right, and taken for granted, but that it is a gift from God and should not be wasted on just making ourselves comfortable and happy.

It has also been heart warming to see the generous responses that people of all nationalities and religions are giving to the victims and survivors and how they are working together and putting aside their political, ideological and social differences. They are proving to world leaders that it is better to work together than to fight and make war on each other. The whole spirit of humanity has just received a very positive jolt. Hopefully we will not be quick to forget it and go back to the old ways of dealing with our differences of opinion. Hopefully we will not return to the man made false gods of dominance , self-pity, possessions, perfectionism, anger, jealousy, self-interest, jealousy and a host of other selfish, self-serving interests. Hopefully the eyes and ears of all world leaders have been opened and new strides can be made in resolving world conflicts.

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