Welfare religion

The outpouring of help for victims of Hurricane Katrina is great! Thanks also go to the many offers of help from other countries. The incompetence of our government is depressing.

One of my customers made a reference a few days ago to "the end times". This invoking of God in connection with the hurricane seems to me another example of human arrogance, narcissism, and laziness, and how people shift our own responsibilies onto God. There were natural disasters, including hurricanes, before there were humans, and certainly thoughout human history, and in areas that had no humans. Does anybody really think there were no tornados, hurricanes, or floods in the Americas before humans arrived here? We have made things worse by our own actions, and our refusal to inconvenience ourselves to deal with the results of our actions, esp. in the area of global warming, which President Bush (a human being) has finally acknowledged is real and is being caused by human actions, but for which he has refused to offer real solutions becuase he said it would hurt the economy. He greatly reduced funding for such things as strengthening the levees of New Orleans, and for emergency health services to deal with disasters, in order to provide tax relief fot those who were able to become super-rich with the previous tax structure, and to fund "homeland security" and the war in Iraq. Well, homeland security should surely include security during natural disasters! It was human beings that voted Bush into office, or at least enough of them did to allow the voting shenanigans of the Repulicans, esp. in Ohio, to tip the balance.

Some people are saying that God is punishing New Orleans for decadence. There have been several very damaging hurricanes that hit Pensacola in recent years. I lived there for more than a year in 1992-1993, and it is a very religious area. I believe it has a record number of churches per capita. A large percentage of the radio stations are Christian.

A young woman told me some years ago that if God wanted to, He would make a miracle to prevent the effects of global warming. What a welfare mentality! It is the same kind of thinking people use when they choose more immediately dangerous behavious, such as smoking and not wearing seat belts - they say that they believe they will die "when their time is up". Well, judging by average lifespans, God prefers people who take care of themselves. Thinking that God will protect you from youself makes as much sense as expecting him to save you if you choose to jump off a skyscraper. When Jesus was taunted by the devil to throw Himself off of a mountain, because God would save Him, He said not to tempt God.

This lack of reality-based thinking in favor of wishful thinking (aka positive thinking and faith) is also the reason so many poor children and youths don't take education seriously. The boys have faith that they will be rich entertainment stars (usually sports or music). The girls are sure they will marry a man who supports them, so they can be housewives, despite the fact that they don't know any grown woman who were able to do that! And who are the men who will be available to them? Those boys in their classes who are neglecting their own education, of course.

The last think we need is for leaders who make reality-based reasoning a negative term.