[Vision2020] 01-05-05 Belfast Telegraph: Attention Cult Master Wilson

[Art Deco]

South Asia disaster may lead more to see religion as bunkum


By Eamonn McCann

06 January 2005 
In the Belfast Telegraph yesterday, Mary Fitzgerald and Judith Cole asked local leaders of religious groupings how they reconciled the pitiless horror of the tsunami with the notion of a loving god.

The Rev Ian Paisley answered - misquoting the text (Luke 13:2-3) but no matter - by reference to Pilate's slaughter of Galileans: "'Were these Galileans sinners above all the Galileans?' He answered with an emphatic: 'No.' Then He said: 'Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.'"

It might have occurred to a less reverent person than Paisley at that point to stop and say: "Steady on there, God. If it wasn't sinfulness which resulted in the Galileans perishing, how could repentance of sin protect other Galileans from suffering the same fate?"

That would be the logical question a rational person would raise. But logic and rationality have nothing to do with religion. 

I am not picking on Paisley. Dr Brian Fletcher of the Methodist Church told Fitzgerald and Cole of a call he'd had from a minister in Sri Lanka who had lost his home and was living in a refugee centre. 

The fellow intended to take Job Chapter 2 as his text the following Sunday, "in which Job says that even though he has lost everything he will still trust God."

Why does Job retain trust in God? Chapter 2 doesn't tell us. None of the poetical (it's the best-written book of the Bible) 42 chapters of Job gives a hint. Job continues to trust God because, well, he just does.

And so, Dr Fletcher suggests, should everybody. 

Archbishop Sean Brady explained that the Catholic bishops have called for "a day of solidarity" for the faithful to "consider the meaning of what has happened."

The archbishop has a special prayer for the occasion: "Oh Thou that has compassion for all that lives! Embrace all those who suffered loss of life, limb or property! May their sacrifice be a word from You to us! Enable us?like You to have compassion on all that lives."

May we become as compassionate towards all living things as the being which capriciously unleashed this cataclysm of suffering upon myriads of innocent humanity? 

It's almost a relief to turn to straight-talking Pastor James McConnell of the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Pastor James has no time for nice allusions. "Something had to happen to this planet the way things have been going on? This is just the start. It's not the act of a vengeful God but of a God who told us what would happen as a result of man's sin?"

Somebody had to get it for the way God was being dissed. Turned out to be Thais, Acheans, Andaman Islanders, etc. But nothing personal. Could have been anybody. 

Pastor Billy Colville of the Baptists made the same point, more discreetly. "It is a reminder that He is there and that His authority, compassion and love have been ignored by most people most of the time."

Ignore my compassion, would ye? Try this bit of a tsunami out for size, then!

It would be wrong to suggest that none of the religious spokesmen showed any tenderness or made sense. 

Buddhist Kelsang Drolkar said: "Any of us can die at any time and because of that we need to use our life meaningfully to the best of our ability. We need to be prepared for that happening because none of us has any control over our death."

My friend Brian McClinton of the Humanist Association urged "a moral philosophy that acknowledges that we are all one species and we do need to care for each other in order to survive."

No-one else quoted in the feature made that simple and, to us atheists, obvious point.

It's been said more than once over the past fortnight that good may come of the evil which has befallen our world.

Maybe. Maybe more people will see religion for the bunkum which it is.
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