Supercell Tuesday

Having grown up in the Midwest, I have a well-justified fear of tornadoes. Whenever the news is full of them, I find myself cringing in memory of afternoons spent sitting in the basement with a flashlight and a radio, wondering if my home was unlucky enough to lie that day in their path of random but complete annihilation. So my heart really does go out to those who lost their homes and their loved ones in last night's storms.

I remember how awful it was waiting to hear about what was happening in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and how devastating it was to watch as the residents of that great city drowned in their attics and were chased through the streets by armed troops more interested in protecting the valuable property of the rich, than in feeding and sheltering those who were the actual victims of that perfect storm of nature's fury and governmental corruption and neglect.

Most of all, I remember when several religious leaders denounced the victims of Katrina as sinners deserving of God's wrath. Those religious leaders were not militant Muslims, trying to drum up hatred against the U.S. They were Christian ministers. Prominent, respected, Christian ministers, telling this country and the whole world that the residents of New Orleans deserved to die. New Orleans, where I think the vast majority of residents love only 3 things: their family, Mardi Gras, and the lord Jesus God.

It was a terrible shame on us as a country that they said those things. It was a blot on our name, and it was made even worse when ministers in congregations across this country started repeating the words that they had heard the big Christian ministers on television say. And it was made worse still when the congregations listened, and Christians across this nation walked out of those churches and repeated the words that their ministers had spoken. Repeated them to their friends and neighbors as if they were the truth. God's truth, is what they said it was. It was a terrible, terrible shame on all of us.

And so I ask that you, the people who have been affected by these tornadoes, to look within your hearts, and to question what it is you really believe about your God. I think if you do that, you must come to only one of two conclusions:

1. Your whole idea of Christianity is a fallacy. If there is a supreme being, that being would not sit in judgement over the failings of mankind. The very idea that any being capable of such a creation as this universe could possibly perceive of our humble ideas of good and evil as worthy of attention is ridiculous. Divine retribution is a primitive dogma, conceived by the men who wrote the Bible as a necessary tool to control and recruit the masses they needed to sustain their movement. The stories of the Bible are allegory, not historical truth. They are meant to teach us lessons about who those ancient people were, and what they thought was important. They are not a guide to living a life in an age when we must become a united people in order to survive and save our planet from the destruction we are collectively bringing upon it.

OR,

2. God is pissed that you voted for Huckabee.