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And at Cape Town, South Africa, John Scarp wrote in the Cape Argus: "Natural disasters like this reveal the ultimate weakness of nearly all religions.... The desperate attempts of religion to justify them as part of God's plan simply reveal the delusional nature of religious belief."
Shakespeare's King Lear lamented: "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport." But Shakespeare was speaking metaphorically. Privately, he had no use for gods (but he couldn't say so openly, in his era of blasphemy trials).
Throughout history, some intelligent observers have realized that disasters are purely natural, not guided by spirits. Regarding a plague that killed a third of the people of Athens in 430 BCE, Thucydides wrote that prayers and oracles had no effect on the disease, and Athenians who worshipped gods fervently died as readily as sinners did. After an earthquake, forerunner to the eruption of Vesuvius, hit Pompeii in the first century CE, Seneca wrote: "Keep in mind that gods cause none of these things.... These phenomena have causes of their own; they do not rage on command."
In the wake of the horrible Indian Ocean tsunami, thoughtful people everywhere may see the absurdity of worshiping a supposedly loving god who, if he existed, would reign over the drowning of children.
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