Whenever you hear of a disaster, the most common question asked is, “how could God let something like this happen?”  The same is asked whenever a troubled kid walks into a school and unloads his AK-47.  When and earthquake, tornado or hurricane strikes, we call it an “act of God,” as if assigning blame to some faceless entity could provide us with some measure of comfort.

Does assigning blame to God really provide comfort?  How much comfort does one attain when they pass responsibility to the One whom they publicly claim to love and cherish?  All this blame directed at God leaves the impression that God is some malevolent deity who is merely using us as pawns in some cruel game of chess.

When we do something that we know is wrong, we are quick to say that the devil made us do it.  When we do something right, we never say “God made me do it.”  Instead, we take credit for our good acts and blame our faults and shortcomings on the most convenient.

I blame it on two thousand years of twisted theology.  When mankind gave birth to the concept of some semi-divine evil being, we did it as a scare tactic to keep the majority in line.  We fashioned the concept of hell to instill fear in the hearts and minds of the masses.  It was our way of creating control of our world, as if by controlling mankind, we could control our existence.

But the precept got distorted.  No longer is it a way to control our fellow man to do our will.  It is now a place to focus blame and to shirk our responsibilities.  Sure, we still use the concepts of hell and the devil in a vain attempt to control our children, but gone are the days when we can use them to control society at large.

Yet Christianity does not hold a monopoly on blaming God for things beyond our ability to control.  The bible is full of examples.  Even as far back as the stories of creation, we have been blaming God.  When Adam was confronted about having eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree, his defense was, “The woman, who you created for me, gave me of the tree and I did eat.”  In other words, it was God’s fault for having created woman.  This too led to thousands of years of persecuting women as inherently evil.

It was somewhat heartening after the collapse of the 35W bridge to not hear anyone blaming God.  I fully expected it, which is why I wrote the previous entries in my blog.  So far, everyone and everything has been blamed but God: from bad construction to bad maintenance to overloading to vibrations of the train beneath.

But that respite was short-lived.  Just a few short days later during the Utah mine collapse, the owner of the mine, Bob Murray, spent the next several days after the collapse shirking his responsibility by trying to claim the disaster was caused by an earthquake.  No proof of any such earthquake exists.  If the victims are alive or dead, he says, it is God’s choice.

To back his claims up, Mr. Murray says that this is one of the safest mines in the country.  He has gone further to say that it is “perfectly safe.”  According to published reports, this one mine in particular has been fined for thirty-two safety violations this year alone.  And, by the way, according to the United States Geological Survey, there was no earthquake.

We are not remembered for the good we do throughout our lives, but for what we do last.  General George Custer, Benedict Arnold and President Richard Nixon are three such examples that come to mind.  To maintain our positive reflection in history, therefore, isn’t it incumbent upon us to try to avoid those actions that would reflect upon us negatively?  When we do make tragic decisions – especially those that adversely affect others – shouldn’t we find it in our best interest to take measures to immediately repair the situation and take personal responsibility for the results of our actions and inactions?  Society and history should remember us better for it.

Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)