Calamities: God's wrath or man's undoing?

For thousands of years, long before realizing the full potential of his noggin’s power of observation and logic, primitive man bowed before smoking volcanoes and offered sacrifices of both human and animals to appease an angry deity. As man progressed --- from merely a food gatherer and hunter --- he began offering part of his harvest to the gods to insure fair weather in the coming months, believing that a happy God is a merciful God.

For our ancestors, the changing weather, volcano eruptions, and earthquakes are believed to be controlled by some god or is the result of their disobedience to God, as it is in the bible. Hence, pleasing the big boss up there is very much part of the culture.

Myths arose from the fertile minds of our ancestors as explanations of events not understood. It provides an explanation to something that was unexplainable to early man’s limited knowledge. Myths are often passed on from generation to generation. For example, fire was explained in a myth that Prometheus, a god, stole fire from Zeus's fireplace and gives it to mankind as a gift. This gift provided warmth against the cold and protection from the animals. It's a good story to explain how man first received fire and why it is so important to safeguard it.

Volcanoes that throws rocks and spit lava was an angry god. Earthquakes are the result of giants walking about. Rains are the tears of angels. For every mysterious and unexplained phenomenon, there will always be an explanation or a myth to explain it. Some primitive cultures even rationalized various natural disasters by thinking that "their world" was on the top of a frog or turtle.

Fast-forward several millennia later, even with the dizzying pace in the advancement of science, and in an era of instant communication, many still see the invisible hand of God in the natural calamities, particularly in these parts where disasters occur ever so often --- which would probably explain why we have so many fiestas in the countryside, where offerings and prayers for good weather and harvest have become tradition, and where many still believe that the power of prayer can stop rampaging floods and tsunamis dead on their tracks.

But, is it really? I mean, does God actually have a hand in natural disasters? If your answer is a resounding yes then, you’re probably one of the 21 percent of the adult population in this country who believes it is so.

It is easy to understand why so many people will easily fall prey to the belief of a divine wrath. Many of the calamities that occurred here and abroad, in the last decade, were of such magnitude --- and some say, of biblical proportions --- that they were almost unreal or unnatural, like the Post-Christmas Day Tsunami of 2005 that devastated several countries and killed hundreds of thousands. Heck, even the non-believers were, at that time, starting to think that there another deluge was coming… and with no ark in sight. That thought certainly was in the minds of not a few during Ondoy’s rampage last year.

Hard to believe it’s almost been a year since Ondoy made its mark reshaping many parts of Metro Manila and forever changing the lives of a lot of people, not to mention frazzle the already jittery nerves of Metro Manilans.

So, who is to blame for God’s wrath? Well, if one takes the bible as the, err… gospel truth, then blame should probably go to Adam and Eve who, because of disobedience, started our roller coaster ride to eternal damnation. According to this site, When Adam and Eve sinned it brought a natural consequence to the earth. And unto Adam He [God] said, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, `Thou shalt not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life (Gen. 3:17).” The descendants of Adam became so violent and corrupt that God allowed the world to be destroyed by a global flood (Genesis 6:5,11). The fountains of the deep were broken up (Genesis 7:11). There was great volcanic activity. The layers of the earth's crust were formed and nature was turned out of its God-given course. The stage was set for earthquakes, and killer storms. The natural world is nearing the final consequence of the choice of our first parents, but God is in the business of rescuing, helping, healing. He holds out salvation and everlasting life to all who will receive Him.

It’s unfair to blame what’s happening to our climate on God’s wrath, or even on mankind’s first parents (that’s Adam and Eve). God is not in the business of making calamities, even if we all are such sinners and deserving of our fate. True, he did once flooded the entire world and bring rain of fire on the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to punish the sinners, but that’s about it. Besides, I don’t think we’ve reached the level of debauchery as that of the two cities, yet… or have we?

Actually, it is easier to pin the blame on God than on his creation (that’s us, by the way). For many years, since the start of the industrial revolution, man’s continuing need to expand and improve has inadvertently created havoc on his own environment. Pollution, from factories, power plants and that symbol of freedom of the open road: the automobile, had risen to such levels that had us literally choking, and our dependence on fossil fuel has only made it even worse. It eventually, opened up a sizable hole in our ozone layer that precipitated the current climate change that we’ve been experiencing.

And what about floods and landslides? No thanks to man’s willingness to do God’s will, that is to go forth and multiply, and as our consumption grows exponentially, our natural resources are now under increasing pressure. And as this site explains: Most developed economies currently consume resources much faster than they can regenerate. Most developing countries with rapid population growth face the urgent need to improve living standards. As we humans exploit nature to meet present needs, are we destroying resources needed for the future?

In our need to increase our food and water supply (and that’s not counting the greed that drives people to destroy) we have, knowingly or unknowingly, destroyed more than half of this planet’s natural resources. We’re not faring any better in these islands either, thanks to the unabated logging of our once pristine forests, floods and landslides have all but become commonplace. No wonder Mother Nature is angry, what took billions of years for her to create, man destroyed in less than a century --- that’s practically just a blink of an eye. Come to think of it, it shouldn’t be God we have to worry about, but an angry mother whose house we all turned into a pigsty.

Photo: “Mayon volcano at night” by denvie balidoy, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

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Forty-something and single, the author has long detached himself from the corporate world where, for nearly twenty years, he used to work as a sales and marketing executive for a well-known clothing manufacturer. Since 2002, he's been doing free-lance consultative work in the same capacity during his corporate years. Writing, on the other hand, was a hobby he indulged in five years ago when, out of boredom, he started writing down his thoughts in a blog, which continues to this day.

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