Notion that God punished sinners with hurricane deaths is 'amusing'

Editor:

I was amused by Lon Purvis's Oct. 5 letter in The News-Times, attributing the recent hurricanes to God's punishment of sinners. Didn't Osama Bin Laden say the same thing? (Funny how Pakistan just lost more lives to an earthquake than Louisiana did in the hurricane!)

I think rather that God punishes people who don't listen to scientists (see National Geographic, Oct. 2004 issue, which quite accurately predicted what happened). God punishes people who live in flood plains, people who live downhill from active volcanoes, and people who live in unsafe high-rise buildings in earthquake zones.

And if God is sending all these disasters, he apparently doesn't like poor people, regardless of how virtuous they might be. There are lots of wealthy sinners in Las Vegas, but they are unlikely to be smitten anytime soon.

Yes, Karma is a real thing: we do reap what we sow. Step up and help out our stricken fellow man, and when the chance permits, others will do the same for us. But, there is no compassion in nature. It does no good pointing to victims and saying, "Ha, you see? You got what you deserved."

Stuff happens. It is up to us as intelligent and caring humans to bring compassion into the world and to prevent avoidable disasters like these from happening again.

Joe Fausnight

Evans