Not long after the earthquake in Japan, Glenn Beck, in his infinite wisdom, stated on his radio show that perhaps the earthquake was a result of people not following the 10 Commandments. Aside from being a completely asinine assumption, it highlighted one of the biggest issues I have with fundamentalist religion, and that is every disaster, natural or otherwise, must somehow be a punishment from God.
Beck is far from the first to make a statement of this nature; last year, Pat Robertson pointed out that the people of Haiti had made a pact with the devil in 1796 (failing to mention that it was done to relieve them of the oppressive rule of the French, which was as close to living in Hell as one can get), so perhaps the earthquake was a result of that pact. Rush "Maybe John Edwards wants a woman who does more with her mouth than talk" Limbaugh claimed the earthquake was punishment for Obamacare. When I hear someone make a comment along this line, whether it be Glenn Beck, or Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh (Rush? Really?), I often wonder just how well they really know the Bible they so claim to follow, or if they really know it at all. (Notice I'm not touching Fred Phelps - that asshole is in a league all his own.)
It is true that the Old Testament was full of punishment; you looked at someone wrong and you were liable to end up nothing more than ashes in a pile. Cities were burned, first born died, civilizations were razed, and every living creature on earth, save those in a floating boat, drowned, so yes, punishment was a very real factor in the OT way of life. But something happened around 2,000 years ago that was suppose to change all of that, and that was the coming of Jesus Christ. He was suppose to have brought a new way, a new meaning to the world where this sort of atonement would no longer be required. He was suppose to bring peace; his blood became the sacrifice and he was the way, the truth and the light.
So what am I missing?
I'm sure someone will look at this and tell me that as an atheist, I can't possibly understand, and that person would be right...I don't. I cannot justify in my own mind how they can say "God is punishing", when Jesus supposedly bore the sins of the world on his own shoulders. I mean, didn't he die, so we, in a spiritual sense, would not have to? Or is this simply suppose to be of God's own picking and choosing, and people like Beck are the chosen? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense.
And there is another problem with these assumptions; I have heard that the disasters in Japan and China are a result of their "godless" beliefs. While it is true that the majority of Chinese and Japanese are not Christian, that isn't the case in Haiti, or Peru, or even Louisiana. Haiti and Peru are predominately Catholic; in fact, over 90% of Haitians claim Catholicism...so does the argument then become that Catholics aren't true Christians? Where do we draw the line with the: "God must be punishing them for something!" rhetoric?
What really angers me about people like Beck and Robertson (and Dobson and Osteen and so on and so forth) is that they diminish true Christianity; if I believed in false prophets, these people would strike me as such. While I am not a believer, I know people who are (one of my best friends, as a matter of fact), and I have never once heard them pass this kind of judgment on another. In fact, the ones I know have been the first to offer whatever assistance they could to those who have been struck by a disaster of whatever sort, whether next door, or halfway around the world.
Yet this is not recognized; instead, people like the ones above become the faces of what the others see as Christianity, and instead of realizing the good, they resent the bad. Honestly, if you had lost family in Japan, and you heard Beck say that maybe it happened because we weren't following the 10 Commandments, followed by the phrase: "I'm just saying", would you think, oh! He must be right! Or would you be more likely to want to find him and tell him to go fuck himself? I know what would happen if it were me, and I would not be nearly so nice about it.
And what saddens me is there are people who actually believe this; who follow him and Robertson (among others) blindly, without question. They would rather be told what the Bible says, instead of picking it up, dusting it off, opening it up, and finding out for themselves. I have always found it amusing that as an atheist, I know more about Christianity (and religion in general) than a lot who claim the faith, and I'm not alone; a Pew Forum study found that those who identified as atheist or agnostic were often far more knowledgeable about what was in the Bible than those who identified as Christian. When I took the test, and not just the little 10 question quiz, I nailed every question. However, the average Christian scored somewhere between 50 and 60%...doesn't that strike you as odd? (The fact that I am a Biblical scholar not withstanding, of course.)
At any rate...
Personally, one of the best things I think Christians can do is actually find out what the book they believe in says for themselves, instead of letting people like Beck tell them, and then talk for themselves, rather than let people like Robertson talk for them.
Perhaps then earthquakes wouldn't be punishment, and Christianity as a whole would be a lot better off.
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