I think your denomination plays a large role in how often Satan gets mentioned. A lot of Catholics I know don’t spend much time on Satan, but the concept is more popular in Protestant faiths. I grew up in an evangelical Christian church, and the devil was mentioned liberally in every sermon. It wasn’t quite the fire and brimstone you see in some religious programming (I have a fascination with these shows as theater), but there were lots of temptations out there. I remember being stunned about 7 years ago when a fellow grad student, who was a fairly devout Catholic, told me he didn’t believe in hell, and gave me a bunch of historical information about how the concept was tacked onto existing Catholic belief early in the church’s history.
As for the tsunami, Angie’s description fits what I saw growing up. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction is the work of the devil. Natural disasters leaving tens of thousands dead were usually God’s tests of our religious conviction. Much of the time, there was also a bit of innuendo about the devastated region’s lack of Christian faith, and a story about Sodom & Gomorrah.
If the Tsunami was Gods way of punishing swedes, someone really ought to infor the almost-all-knowing God that there are more swedes in, well, Sweden, than in all the asian countries combined…
Well, the area of Texas I’m from is fairly hardcore about it, but Satan no longer gets blamed for much of anything, even at a very abstract level. Decline of society? People are evil - 100 years ago it’d be satanic influence. The devils still there, but he’s just an annoying temptation, not an active agent blowing up cars.
Most evangelical christians I know are not comfortable with the notion of a powerful or fearsome Satan: they are much more comfortable thinking in terms of the fallen nature of man and divine “tests” to strengthen our character/faith as explanations of horrible events. Satan as psychological excuse.
The other extreme are what I refer to as Wal-Mart Christians… the sort who believe that all “worldly” music is “of the devil” and may result in demonic possession that would manifest itself by causing an otherwise sane person to buy an imported car instead of a good old reliable GM pickup truck.
I don’t think an honest reading of christian scriptures would give any foundation to either of these notions, but then again I think there’s probably a lot of little beliefs and habits your typcial American christian have that can’t really be traced to any sound biblical doctrine.
It’s funny. I’ve found that most die-hard athiest/agnostic folks base their opinion of christianity on the lowest common denominator: all the stupid inbred christians they’ve ever encountered, rather than any actual examination of various christian doctrines… as evidenced by the fun little snarky comments we see in this thread.
Here’s what it means: earthquakes happen because they’re part of how the Earth works. Tsunamis happen because they’re part of how the Earth works. Volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning strikes, forest fires, locusts… they’re all a part of how the Earth works. None of them have one god damned thing to do with what ethnic group is trying to kill what other ethnic group, how many abortions people have, what countries are allowing gay marriage, how many people said their prayers last night, or anything else that humans do.
So yes, I think that it smacks of an extremely inflated sense of self-importance when someone misunderstands their place in the universe to the point that they think that a tidal wave caused by an underwater earthquake is not just something that happens, but must somehow be related to something they, or at least someone else, has done. Sure, it has to be God. He’s trying to tell us something. He’s trying to punish us. He’s trying to blahblahblah. You can say it’s whatever you want; the fact is, it’s none of those. You might as well blame it on Kaiser Soze.
Sorry, it just annoys me a little bit that so many people just can’t cope with the idea of something huge happening that has nothing to do with them.
Actually it was my fault. Just reached 17th level with my druid and wanted to try out the new Earthquake spell. Figured the middle of the ocean… safe and all. Y’know?
Yeah, the guy in the OP has a misguided but admittedly popular view of God. I consider his view sort of God as Santa Clause: you pray for what you want and if you’re good He drops down the chimney and puts it under your tree. If you’re naughty, you get the Tsunami. It’s just an incredibly adolescent view of the world.
Is there any religion that promises you will never have anything devastating happen in your life? I really doubt it. My experience with this is that God helps you get past the devastating bits. Asking why God created Tsunami is like asking why we have to die. It’s utterly pointless because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it: it is just life on life’s terms. You might as well muster righteous indignation that a compass points north.
Gonna side with Tim on this one: the Christian folks I’ve talked to believe that if there’s any blame, it’s that the folks chose to live in tsunami country on account of free will and all. God made the earth, he made people, people left the Garden, people deal with the consequences (which happen to include natural disasters). Like Tim says, the godliness or ungodliness of a giant tidal wave is more of an issue to those select folks who believe everything that occurs on this world is the result of God’s direct and immediate action. I really don’t think the average Christian frames it in those sorts of terms. Obviously, they feel bad and really want to help, but they don’t really ascribe blame to God or man – just to bad luck and the nature of this extra-Eden earth.
Hey Extarbags: thanks for the explanation. It’s sort of what I thought it was going to be, but honestly wasn’t sure. When I was reading your rant, I couldn’t help but imagine you arguing with Jeff Goldblume about Chaos theory right before a giant dinosaus starts chasing you. :lol:
Angie: I’m not sure how any reasonable person would characterize your comments in this thread as “snarky.” I tend to enjoy reading the posts you make - even in P&R, which is saying something considering how annoying most P&R threads wind up.
Doug’s stated preference sounds to me an awful lot like Deism… God made the universe and then stepped back to watch it all unfold. The point of the article Jason linked, imo, is that events like the Tsunami are difficult to explain for those who believe in a Good, Loving, and All-Powerful God who intervenes in human history. Basically, the God of the Bible – very different than the picture of God most Deists have as a divine clockmaker. The basic contention of the whole theodicy thing amounts to, if God exists as characterized in the Bible, why does he let bad stuff happen?
Back to extarbag’s comments, while I do not share his strictly naturalistic view of the world, I have a similar annoyance with those who offer pat explanations. My take on why the Tsunami had to hit the way it did? I believe in an all knowing, all powerful, good and loving God who currently allows the existence of evil and evil doers and makes no promises about shielding people from the nastiness of mortal life. My explanation? I don’t have one - my outlook for stuff like this happens to be: Shit happens, I don’t always know why, and anyone who pretends to know is a little too sure of what nobody can be sure of.
They aren’t Deists by any stretch; they’re a sort of genial Baptist. The believe that God intervenes through souls, not through nature, and that we have to look to the dictates of free will to deal with the natural world. In their mind, God makes life on Earth deliberately difficult because we forsook the Garden and he’s not gonna pull any punches and that any good Christian should be looking to the state of his or her soul given that death could come at any moment and in any form. Really, they largely believe what you just said: that God “makes no promises about shielding people from the nastiness of mortal life”. People die, sometimes badly, but with the eternity of Heaven before them, it ultimately doesn’t matter.
Of course, I’m reading a little more into a few remarks made in front of the TV by the in-laws, but I don’t think it’s a misrepresentation by any stretch.
They must be genial baptists if they’re willing to watch TV with you (unless you were watching some awful melodrama on the PAX network).
I grew up in a Baptist church and still crack up at the memories of my mom hiding the wine and rolling the tv into the closet when church people came over.
I’ve been to their church on a number of occasions, and it really is very friendly and non-judgmental (inasmuch as a midwest Christian church can be nonjudgmental – they still aren’t big on homos and rap music and John Kerry). They can get a little fire-and-brimstone-y on occasions, usually depending on what’s on the news, but by and large, they’re a really tame and good-natured lot.
That said, my mother-in-law was pretty disgusted when my wife was watching VH1, so we just left the tube on HGTV and – here’s the weird one – the SciFi network. The mother-in-law just LOVES Stargate SG-1 for some unfathomable reason. :/
