Whose fault?

Lens is the name of the newsletter which St. Leonard's Church pops through my letter box from time to time. It always gets thrown away but the February issue caught my eye and I discovered that I was to blame for the Tsunami. In the immortal words of Basil Fawlty, 'Oh, so its MY fault!'

A E Halifax is surprised to find that she's to blame for the tsunami. (from the Flying Post)

Apparently blame has to be apportioned somewhere because people are asking 'Why does God allow such things?' If you believe in God then aren't you supposed to believe that he is all powerful and all benevolent? I have difficulty in believing in anything supernatural so I declare my atheism. Epicuras had it sussed in 300 BC when he wrote: 'Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent, Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?'

This won't do for Christians of course. In their newsletter they quote the great Richard Dawkins who said them there is no 'why?', just bind physical forces. It's random misfortune that the earthquake occurred where and when it did to cause a catastrophic wave. Muslims end Jews think it's God's judgement on the people killed. One Muslim cleric apparently said that we shouldn't make God angry. The Chief Rabbi said that it was an 'expression of God's great ire with the world'.

The writer of the Lens article then tells us that Jesus' answer is neither to blame God nor to blame the victims, but to blame us all. 'We are all to blame,' he says. Now I don't know about you, but I take exception to this. I am not to blame for an earthquake at the bottom of the ocean. What a ridiculous thing to say and because it's rubbish I shall throw their newsletter away again and ask them to save the forests and stop putting them through my letter box.

What worries me, though, is the effect this could have on lonely, depressed people who should not have to read that the Tsunami, or anything else which we have no control over, is their fault.

This doesn't mean that we are not to blame for anything. We obviously have a responsibility to the planet for future generations We need to address overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, global warming and the part we play in all these things.Christians and those with other faiths need to be doing something about the things we can prevent like global poverty, like children in slave labour, like the treatment of women in many societies because of their in religious traditions.

I know that many do, particularly Christian Aid, but a lot of them need to stop wasting their time wringing their hands over problems which are not preventable. We cannot prevent volcanoes or earthquakes. We can only help the people who are affected as best we can - and many of us do just that without needing to pray and without being motivated by religious belief. Altruism is not just for believers.

Posted by Pat Mathewson (picture from the Flying Post).