Natural Disasters do not have Supernatural Causes

As I write this, Texas is still recovering from hurricane Harvey and hurricane Irma is cutting a path across the Caribbean heading for Florida. The toll on human life will be immense both in terms of the financial cost and the emotional impact.  Communities will have to work hard to rebuild after wind and water wreak their havoc.

For many, as detailed in an article on NPR about natural disasters and faith in god, religion also comes into question. Why would a loving god allow such devastation? For some religious people, god is punishing us for specific sins, pretty much always sexual in nature: "allowing" homosexuality and abortion, usually, but maybe even general promiscuity.

The question I have for those people is why is god so indiscriminate in these disasters? These hurricanes impact everyone, god-fearing and god-disbelieving alike, pro-choice and anti-choice, pro-LGBTQ rights and anti, the chaste and the promiscuous. Animals and plants were also harmed or outright killed.

I also wonder why god needs to punish people on earth since he (at least the Christian version) has reserved an afterlife for that. I guess this "all-loving" being just can't get enough suffering?

Other people don't buy into god as enacting punishment. Instead, they prefer to see god as a response by people offering their assistance in the aftermath. So I guess their god is not powerful enough to keep disasters from happening. He can only inspire generosity. This explanation leaves me more than perplexed. I am actually angry by the notion that a god would allow such a level of harm in order to allow some people to be moved to empathy and helping.

The scenarios that interject a deity into their explanations of "why" a disaster happened present a god that flat-out contradicts the omniscient, omni-benevolent god that Christians like pretend they have a relationship with.

Of course, as an atheist, I don't need to struggle with any of these explanations and attributes. Natural disasters happen based on purely natural circumstances. In the case of hurricanes and tornados, we have become very adept at predicting when and where they will strike based on the science we have learned and the instruments we've developed to monitor variables. Earthquakes are not as easy to foresee, but we have ideas about where they are likely to happen and we know what causes them.

And to be clear, the problem of suffering was not the main reason I stopped believing in god. He just plain doesn't seem to exist. I can see no tangible, consistent evidence for him. Explanations of why we suffer, though, don't lend any credence to theism. They pose more problems than they solve.

What bothers me in all the explanations about god's punishment or inspiration is it diverts attention away from where it should go. It causes some sincere people to worry and perhaps act in a harmful way toward others. Citizens waste time on issues that actually do not impact them personally but they think they are doing god's work.

As for the notion that god inspires charity, what a low opinion you have of your fellow humans! I find it a little insulting to think humans would stand idly by if there weren't a god. I don't think god is necessary for people to donate money or help others. They only need to feel some empathy and want to create a positive world so that people can lead their best lives.

This is the one life we know we have. There will likely be suffering along the way. We might find ourselves living through a disaster of some kind. None of it is caused by the fact that individuals can determine what their sexuality is or terminate a pregnancy if they feel they need to. But Christians don't think this is the only life and they don't care about making it better here. They are more concerned with appeasing a deity to get to the next life. Talk about a disaster.