14 Reader Responses

1. Nancy Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 11:27 am

   On Coast to Coast one night a guy called in and said God was punishing the U.S. because Bush made the Israelis move out of those Palestinian territories. I think we look for causes, no matter how stupid, because it makes us feel like we have some kind of control, but we don’t. Like if we behave, God won’t send any bad weather. ya right.

2. Tim Boucher Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 11:32 am

   I understand the impulse, but I think for Christians, this is a really despicable way of thinking as it doesn’t remotely reflect Christ’s message of love.

3. J. Puma Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 12:05 pm

   this is a case study of demiurge worship. this person isn’t talking about god, s/he’s talking about some disturbing image of god s/he’s created out of nothing. when you get right down to it, it’s a totally contentless argument with absolutely no theological or ontological basis, and most certainly no experiental basis.

   i’d be embarrassed if my god went around blowing stuff up.

4. rev max Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 12:06 pm

   this is a case study of demiurge worship.

   yep

5. hebrides Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 12:08 pm

   I wouldn’t be so quick to say it has no theological basis. In the OT Yahweh was up to this kind of smiting and burning and tormenting and blowing shit up stuff all the time. Which is why the gnostics pointedly criticized this conception of deity as Demiurge.

   But maybe we’re just saying the same thing here. Semantics semantics-skidoo.

6. J. Puma Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 12:21 pm

   yeah, semantics for sure. what i should have said is that it has no individual theological basis. in my experience, 9 times out of 10 the folks who come up with tripe like this do so because they’ve been trained to, not because they’ve actually given this any thought. if they *really* pursued it from a theological standpoint, they’d be more like st. francis and less like pol pot.

   notice, too, that in most of the ot, the wrath of god was something to be bemoaned or lamented, not celebrated (esp. in the prophets, jeremiah, etc.). it wasn’t so gleefully ‘hah, they got what was coming,’ it was more ‘those poor people, how utterly terrible.’

7. Tim Boucher Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 12:57 pm

   In any case, the New Testament conception of God put forward by Jesus is pretty much alien to this view, which was my original comment.

8. alistair Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 3:07 pm

   the new testament god that jesus talks about doesn`t sell newspapers and get eyeballs to cnn. people are looking for an old testament meat grinder god that will go kill the other guy. call that a demiurge if you want to. it`s all about behaviour. jesus`s quiet words set up a dialog with the heart. the demiurge sets up a dialog with the gonads. crush, kill, destroy. you can feel the glee in the spittle-flecked rantings of the wrath types when they characterise new orleans as sin city, deserving of the clensing of the waters of the gulf of mexico washing up bourbon street.

9. alistair Says:
   September 21st, 2005 at 3:18 pm

   the core of my work is in how people use words to create thier reality. the person who posted that message about the people of new orleans feels what they are saying is correct and is using the wrath of god as a mechanism for telling the truth about thier feelings. probable some minor sociopath.
   bed-wetter, fire starter, cruel to small animals as a child. any two out of the three is indicative of a propensity for old testament belief. if you get a hat trick join the foriegn legion now or be chased by the villagers with torches to a showdown in the bell tower.

10. Anonymous Says:
    September 21st, 2005 at 5:38 pm

    From an insurance POV, don’t these hurricanes qualify as “acts of God”?

    If it was God making a statement, I know what it would be: “Impeach your President NOW, because he doesn’t speak for me…”

11. Dan Says:
    September 21st, 2005 at 7:46 pm

    I think it’s more likely Nature attacking the Bush axis of evil, Texas and Florida.

12. scott rassbach Says:
    September 22nd, 2005 at 10:14 am

    An excerpt from an awesome novel entitled “Mother of Demons”, available in it’s entirety at http://www.baen.com/library/067187800X/067187800X.htm

    “You don’t even believe in God!” Indira had once protested.

    Julius chewed his lip. “No, I don’t. But you never know. And if He does exist, He has two outstanding characteristics. Judging, at least, from the Old Testament.”

    “Which are?”

    “He’s the most hot-tempered, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, intolerant, anal-compulsive, bigoted redneck who ever lived. And, what’s more to the point, he’s a lousy shot.”

    “It’s true!” he insisted, in the face of Indira’s laughter. “Read the Book yourself. Somebody pisses Him off, does He nail ‘em right between the eyes like Buffalo Bill? Hell, no! He drowns everything. Or He blasts whole cities, or drops seven lean years on entire nations. Indiscriminate, that’s what He is. The Sawed-off Shotgun In The Sky. So I ain’t getting anywhere near that den of iniquity.”

13. james Says:
    September 22nd, 2005 at 5:27 pm

    I was the anonymous poster from yesterday. I guess my info wasn’t saved in the reply form as it usually is, and I wanted to make sure you knew it was me– I wasn’t trying to hide from that statement, in case you were wondering…

14. Anonymous Says:
    September 23rd, 2005 at 5:30 pm

    if there was any truth to this the world would of ended long before the bush family was spit out of th depths of hell