I feel like God is punishing us.

[jillan]

Do you ever feel that way? We are having one natural disaster after another. Hurricanes/wildfires/tsunami/drought/genocide/bird flu/west nile virus...on and on....

I know that it is because of global warming.

But this is suppose to be the worst hurricane ever.
And I am not a very religious person, but I can't help but wonder.

[The Straight Story]

1. Reminds of what I once told someone

They asked about why god would punish us. Here is what I told him:

"You tell your kids 100 times not to run out into the road without looking. They see other kids do it and nothing happens. Then they run out after a ball and get hit."

To me, god would be the parent and we the kid. We have wisdom, and not using that wisdom is not punishment, it is consequence.

[BillZBubb]

2. Probably true for letting a minor anti-Christ become pretzeldent.

Things have gone downhill for us since he stole the first election. Call if Karma, or God's wrath, whatever...

[SlowDownFast]

18. "minor anti-Christ"?

he's major on my little list of anti-Christs.

[Cleita]

3. God's not punishing anyone.

If he were into punishing, he would have set a tornado down on the Bush ranch years ago.

It's just nature reacting to what we have done to it and the fact that we don't really make our elected officials plan for these events as well as they should.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. No. I don't believe in that kind of a God. I believe this is Nature, but

exacerbated by our impact on the envrionment.

[XanaDUer]

No.

THese things happened long before humans were around and will continue long after we die off or kill ourselves.

[Elidor]

5. Perhaps God is punishing us for tolerating Fred Phelps

:evilgrin:

[Faygo Kid]

14. Fred Phelps is a powerless idiot who makes me puke. Try GWB.

Who will continue to enjoy his vacation Monday, as hundreds die and New Orleans is destroyed. Ya think God might not approve?

[NJCher]

6. I don't see it as God punishing us

I see it as a natural consequence of our behavior. We were given the tools to understand Mother Nature and we do understand much about the natural world--enough to know that what we're doing has consequences.

Our time is coming, no doubt about that.




Cher

[OrlandoGator]

7. Lots of red-state disasters...it's a little hard to ignore.

n/t

[BlueJac]

8. Bush cooked books on global warming threat too!!

[kentuck]

9. God is punishing us for Pat Robertson....?

For a "man of God" to say we should kill someone is "ungodly"... Of course, Pat Robertson would say it's because of the "homosexuals"...

[Faygo Kid]

10. It's because Disney World has gay day

God moves in mysterious ways. But this ain't one of them. This is the logical consequence of global warming, which predicted that hurricanes would grow in number and intensity. We are just getting started on paying that price. It's not a religious issue.

[KyndCulture]

11. hoping the religious debate threads

don't bleed onto yours. It's gettin' ugly out there.

[Beelzebud]

12. I don't belive in superstitious nonsense. This is the weather.

It's a natural phenomena.

It's a terrible thing for sure, but if there was a God, I don't think he would "punish" anyone.

If so. Fuck him.

[JanusAscending]

21. IS ANYONE OUT THERE?

I agree with your statement that it's a Natural Phenominon, and that it's ALL of our fault that we've taken this world for granted!! I don't even want to try to persuade you that there IS A GOD, because you seem to have made up your mind on that. I wonder what you would do though, say you were stuck in NO right now, with no way out, who would you call out to for help? I know if I were an atheist, or an agnostic, I would be calling out for help from anyone "out there"!!! I wouldn't want to burn my bridges behind me, JUST IN CASE !! But the God that I know would probably save your butt anyhow, because He is forgiving, and a loving Father!! PEACE !!!;)

[Ladyhawk]

29. self-delete

not worth the aggravation.

[Double T]

13. Ever since bush has taken office, it has been one disaster after another,

man made and by nature. I think 'SOMEONE' is really pissed off that the 'majority' of Americans voted for bush, and made the same mistake twice. It's not nice to screw Mother Nature.

[dogday]

26. I have found that negativity

breeds negative events and there happens to be a load of negativity when it comes to this administration and the feelings of the people against this administration.

If anything this event should show us that we are all human beings, all Americans, subject to nature disasters. And that we should all come together to help overcome these disasters and not be so split in our politics. These storms don't care about who is right or wrong in Washington...

[longship]

15. Situation normal.

In the scheme of things, it is normal for bad things to happen. Myself, I have a big problem with attributing bad things, or good things to some fairy in the sky.

If they are bad, it begs the question of what kind of asshole this sky fairy is.

If they are good things, than it begs the question of what kind of asshole this sky fairy is who can make good things happen, but does so only in rare cases.

For bad or good things there will always be somebody who attributes the cause to some form of magic or supernatural. For things within mankind's direct control, it denies that control. For things outside, it denies mankind's need to study such phenomena. Either way, mankind loses the desire or rationale to enlighten himself.

[DerekG]

16. As a Christian, I beg you not to entertain such a notion

Recall that those Constantinian X-tians--Falwell and Robertson--thought the horror of 9/11 was divine punishment for abortionists/homosexuals/pagans.

God is not the triggerman of history.

[Surya Gayatri]

17. Not punishing, just balancing

There really is a wheel of cause and effect--what goes around does come around. "Prakriti" or Mother Nature is just balancing the scales.

[phish420]

35. Amen. nt

[renie408]

19. No

I don't.

I think that you need to get out more. Watch TV less. Read this board less. Get a girlfriend/boyfriend. Hell, get a dog. Reduce your expectations of life. Something.

[jillan]

22. excuse me???

I have a great life, a dog, a husband, great kids...

So what is your point?

I said I'm not a religious person but I am a person
that is asking a question.

We are being punished - being punished for not taking Global Warming seriously. And IF there is a God, who created the universe, we have destroyed this planet. And if you don't know that, then maybe YOU should watch more free-speech TV, and read the boards more often.

[sam sarrha]

20. I really wish it was that simple.. ..........Tashi Delek

[DerekG]

23. Please realize that those left behind are mostly impoverished

Remember that Jews and Christians, for the most part, abandoned the tribalistic, murderous god of Genesis some time ago. And recall that the God of the prophetic books is the god of the "widows and orphans"; recall that Jesus--who may or may not have been the human incarnation of God--favored the poor and the helpless.

So do you honestly believe this God would decimate a city that has been abandoned by all but the dispossessed?

[sam sarrha]

24. i brought that up this morning and got a bunch of Sh*t from someone

[DerekG]

27. What did they say?

n/t

[Deja Q]

25. Not 'global warming' as much as increasingly erratic weather patterns.

But if God isn't punishing us then God is abandoning us.

And the fault of it isn't the gays; the Bible points out far worse crimes (selfishness and especially greed)

[Raksha]

32. God will never abandon us, no matter what.

It's a wake-up call, to make us realize we ignore Nature and try to place ourselves above it at our peril. Many of us already know this. The question is, will we finally know it as a nation?

This could be (and SHOULD be!) the death of the myth of American exceptionalism. I pray it will be, because that's the only thing that will save us.

[phish420]

36. lol..god abandoned me a looong time ago...nt

[peacetalksforall]

28. It's part nature and part our stupidity and greed.

The poor burn the trees for cooking and heat - and there are landslides. Good souls in the Peace Corps (a Kennedy legacy) have helped to explain and come up with alternatives and assistance, but countries like the U.S. gave money to their leaders to become more rich instead of helping their poor.

Greedy corporations contribute to the Republicans to get permission to plow out our forests - and there are landslides.

People build houses in the wrong places because of greed or poverty - ignoring the options and warnings.

People don't care that corporations are supporting Republicans and some Democrats to get legislation off the dockets - legislation that would require earth protection. Most corporations don't give one damn about the earth. They have other priorities. And their stockholders don't give a damn either.

There were some people who saw the light of the present day dilemna 30 + years ago - started biking and refusing to own a car.

But, people like myself wanted to travel further and wider and not have to walk on the ice or walk through a heavy shower to go somewhere or not have to wait to go out for supplies to all four corners of the town instead of planning ahead. People like myself let the city municipalities tear up the trolleys and reduce the bus and train service.

We do it toourselves. We have been doing it to ourselves.

The Repulican Party delights in destruction of the planet.

Do you know that the Republicans are eyeing the largest aqua fir in the world by their growing occupation of Paraguay?

We just read the latest bill for the parks - a grand OK to everything that most people with a conscious abhor. Why? Because some of their friends are going to make money. The more money they make, the more then can contribute to the secret sub-government run by the former founders of the Iran-Contra secret sub-government.

God is not punishing ourselves, but she is making us learn the hard way - for those who can learn. For those who are not into greed in a non-religious way.

If God is punishing us, then the Amish and the environmental hippies will be saved.

The Republicans lie to say that the ice cover is not melting or that there are no holes anywhere.

Lies, theft, greed, deception, and the attempt to change our reality.

[BigBearJohn]

30. I think we are punishing ourselves for being so complacent..

[VPStoltz]

31. A Repug "friend" of mine who coincidentally lives in NOLA

was spewing the line after 9/11 that "God left His guard down" because we are such shitty people. I always thought it was the other way around, God gave us Bush so that we would finally come to our senses, revolt, and make the US a truly better place to live. Katrina is just icing on the cake.

[true_notes]

33. We're Punishing Ourselves

Through Centuries of decadent behavior towards the enviroment. It's just the earth's way of trying to find equlibrium (i.e. getting rid of the problem:Us.)

[phish420]

34. more specifically than 'global warming'...

...I have been contending since we here in central florida got ripped by 3 hurricanes last year, that it is the relaxed environmental regulations that have dumped so many more pollutants in the air than ever before that the earth is just balancing itself out. Everyone said 'oh its just a cycle'...well, cycles dont go from a few instances one year to a dramatic 10 fold increase the next year...you go from a couple a year to 3-4 to 6 or 7 and so on...last year (a very busy season) we had what? 9 storms? we have 8 already. And its August. Hurricane season goes to November 30. This is insane. Add the tsunami (which I still contend was man made), the mudslides, the record tornado day, the floods...
Look, we can not kill the earth. It is a living breathing organism much larger than us (obviously) and it will take care of itself. We are merely little virii irritating its surface and it is cleaning up. In the past 5 years we have literally changed the make up of our atmosphere through the dumping of tons of waste and pollution which was strictly regulated until this administration. There are others that will say that our government is also releasing pollutants in the air in an attempt to actually control the weather by 'plasmatising' our atmosphere - and I don't dismiss this at all. But even without this, just the complete evisceration of our skies, forests and waters has caused the earth to do drastic things to take care of itself.
Im glad my 'loony conspiracy theories' are finally being rationalized by others :-)

(edit: spelling errors)

[sweetheart]

37. I sometimes feel that way too

I don't know about "god" but
there is such ignorance and
such suffering, brutal unnecessary
suffering avoidable with a little
human maturity, but rather, the sick
little twisted patriarchs have created
a world of self-flagellating sinners,
unrepentent sinners who claim their
egotism as their moral views.

And so it was the same way when
american colonies were first formed
by the puritain prodestants from
England and Netherlands (mayflower).
These were people who reserved the
right of a parent to kill a "bad"
child. They were nutty terrorists,
and here several hundred years later,
the descendent nation of nutty terrorists is
"suprise" a bunch of nutty terrorists
who create their own terrorism by pushing
the arms trade and their commercial
ethnocentrism over others, invading others
raping others, inserting themselves in to the
wet vulva uninvited, to fuck people, and
they are unreptentent sinners, they like
fucking people and think nothing of it.

Were one day an american leader that were a christian.

sigh...

[Roland99]

38. More like the effects of global warming/deforestation/normal earth cycle

than any supernatural being.

[lonestarnot]

39. 7th Seal has been broken for 2 years our time.

So flame me...LOL