I don't mean to sound critical, but...

Photo by RussSwift

There were several deadly tornadoes that blasted through middle Tennessee on Friday. Two people died including a nine week old newborn. (Apologies for the resource-hogging website from Channel 5) This was a tragedy for the surviving husband and father. I cannot even imagine what it must be like for him to lose his wife and his newborn like that. My thoughts are certainly with him though I don't know him.

I heard a lot of delusional talk from people whom I would call friends. Disclaimer: these people are religious. They said things like "I just got home and am SO thankful to say that we don't even have a trashcan turned over. Thank you, God." and "I prayed hard that there wouldn't be many deaths." and this doozy: "Well God must be looking after us because there were only two deaths"

After doing a spit-take on that last one, I thought to myself, out of respect, and as a part of my lets-bend-over-backward-to-respect-other-people's-religion policy.

I thought: If God existed wouldn't it be better to simply pray for no more tornadoes? How about no more hurricanes? Or How about no more earthquakes? No more tsunami's? No more famine? No more slaughter of the innocent? No more malaria deaths (currently 1-3 Million per year from a parasite. A parasite the creationists would have you believe God himself designed.)? No more child murder? In which a Sunday School Teacher killed an 8-year-old girl whose body was found in a suitcase dumped in an irrigation pond. Give it up for that Christian Morality We always hear about!

Or how about ending Child rape? (More of that Christian Morality I have been nagged about because us atheists don't get our morality from anywhere, if we don't get it from the bible)

If god does exist, doesn't this just show how much of a sick bastard he is? That woman and that nine week old newborn did not deserve to die from an "Act of God". You have to sit and think for a minute of why God would allow 25,000 children to die every single day of starvation. How is this in any way demonstrable of "God's Love"?

The world is full of suffering. In the animal kingdom, which includes us - yes we used to hunt and be hunted -more on this in a later blog post, the creationists would have you believe God "designed" the cruel day-to-day occurrence of predator hunting prey. And the incredibly cruel goings on of parasite and host. Why would God design a cruel system of perpetual suffering? Why would God design organisms that can experience pain and suffering and will all eventually die when he himself is immortal? For fun? Because he is one sick bastard?

It may seem tough to question these poor desperate people's faith. But isn't bracing truth better than false hope?