¿WHY DO NATURAL DISASTERS HAPPEN?

SO THE OTHER DAY ON FACEBOOK, I POSTED THIS THE QUESTION AS A RESULT OF THE EARTHQUAKE THAT TOOK PLACE IN JAPAN AND THIS IS THE RESPONSE I GOT:

Here we go: The confusion of the natural and the supernatural, promoted by religion, damages the ability to think logically. Religious people are good at ignoring the evidence for scientific explanations of the things they think are supernatural. 

For example, ten people can have ten different explanations for an event such as avolcanic eruption:

1. It is a result of natural forces, pushing hot magma to the surface through cracks and weaknesses in the earth’s crust. 

2. It is an expression of God’s anger. 

3. It is a result of Mercury’s opposition to Venus, causing a period of unfortunate natural events to occur, of which this was one. 

4. The volcano is itself a God, and it overflows at random times to show us that we must respect nature. 

5. It is sheer bad luck, and it’s happening just to keep me from getting that flight home, that I can’t afford to miss. 

6. It is a result of all the negative emotion in the world filling the earth with fear and hatred until it overflows. 

7. It is erupting because we failed to sacrifice a thousand virgins to the volcano. 

8. It is happening because the old hag at the end of the village has cursed us all. 

9. It is happening because it was destined to happen. 

10. I thought about this happening, and therefore I made it happen. 

11. Gaia is trying to rid itself of this pestilence of humanity, which is eating into its surface, and taking out the oil, gold, coal, copper, tin, and water. 

As with every event that occurs, the natural explanation – No:1 on the list above, is supported by the evidence, and no matter how convinced you are that any of the other explanations are the reason for the volcanic eruption, they are unnecessary, given that we can prove the physics of the natural explanation, which we can. 

Of course, you can argue that the natural explanation is the way God works – throughphysical laws. However, a similar argument can be made for luck, or Gaia, or astronomy, or the old hag at the end of the village, or any of the others. This being the case, it invalidates the argument that God works through physical laws. That is really just a way of saying, that nature rules. 

Religion, by eliminating the need to think, and by preventing critical thinking, encourages intellectual blind spots, and that’s just one of the bad thing abouts religion.