Daily Archives: January 8, 2005

Tsunami Tales

For some reason, this headline didn’t warm my heart: Pop stars unite for quake victims. I’m sure they have good intentions, but it reminds me of, in the vaguest of ways, when I was railing against Campell’s Chunky: Tackling Hunger. Okay, these two things aren’t even in the same league, but charity events (emphasis on events) don’t give me the warm fuzzies and make me feel like the world is a wonderful place.

Don’t worry, folks. If you didn’t like that paragraph, things get progressively worse. And it starts with this headline: Public warned of fake aid appeals. Exploiting a tragedy to swindle people out of their money? AGH! How can people in this world be so horrible?! HOW?! Somewhere around 150,000 people dead last time I looked. That’s a gargantuan number, and people just don’t care. I don’t get it.

Finally, we have Quake disaster ‘could test faith’. Times like these reminds me of how being an atheist can make so much more sense. It makes the universe simpler, however, that doesn’t make it any more comforting. Personally, I don’t get how an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God makes this happen. Sure, you can look at the good in the situation, but this reminds me of when I was musing about an Emotional Broken Window Fallacy. Think of all the families — mothers, fathers, children — who loved each other, and how all this love was just wiped from the face of the Earth. Gone! If there is any type of god or gods, I cannot believe they can be both omnibenevolent and omnipotent.