WW JUNE 5

The natural disasters enumerated in WW of June 5 generally cause great hardships because people, unknowingly, accepted the risks of these natural events occurring. Japan is located on a number of highly active earth surface fault lines and the people accept frequent earthquakes as a way of life. The people generally cannot economically afford to fully protect themselves against the largest possible earthquakes, so they accept the risks. It is true that many of those persons who do not want to accept the risks cannot do otherwise because of economic or social costs.

The Mississippi River floods almost every year. The Army Corp of Engineers tries to prepare for containing the river for most flood stages, but it cannot economically afford to contain the river for all flood stages. Consequently, the Corp built water escape routes in order to protect the most people and their assets. The people who lived on land in the escape route knew of the potential danger of elective flooding and chose to live on that land for reasons mentioned above. The flood gates were tangible evidence that one day the water may be diverted such as to cause the least harm.

The tornadoes are somewhat another story because these are occurring where some have never occurred before. Massachusetts is an example of that. Joplin Missouri is not.

The greatest tragedies are those that occur to people who, due to no conceivable action /lack of action or belief on their or anyone else's part, are struck down or loaded with burdens or handicaps that they must cope with. To me, this is almost a fatal weakness of Christian faith. We talk about prayer, faith, hope on our part, but in many cases none of these approaches provide aide or support. Christian advocates speak with great fervor, certainty and authority until some tragedy occurs that seems to have no human understanding, then we are left with the nebulous concept of hope.

Examples of this type of tragedy to mention a few: 1) inherited traits, IQs (intelligence quotients) range from about 50 to 150. Who decides who is to get the 50 or the 150. 2) People are born with a comparable range of physical traits, particularly in the area of autoimmunity of the body where the body attacks itself. Examples are rheumatoid arthritis, Lou Gehrig disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, etc.

I have heard that a satisfactory explanation of these situations is "That God has imposed these burdens in order to give the rest of us the opportunity to be help those afflicted.

I am sorry to be so negative, but I am telling it as I see it.

Henry