Natural Disasters As Part Of The Problem Of Evil

(Resolved! God Caused The Problem of Evil/Needless Suffering.) This article briefly discusses Natural Disasters as Part Of The Problem Of Evil. I argue that the problem of Evil was caused by God and his process of Creation. While I suspect that almost no one will dispute that natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcano's, tsunami's, hurricanes, tornado's and such are caused by natural seismological and meteorological processes, I claim that if there is a God, the way he made the earth guarantees that they will happen.

Some argue that Natural Disasters are not Disasters unless they affect people. I think Bambi and Peter Singer would disagree with this definition, but it works for this article. The intersection in this to the problem of Evil is that mankind is supposed to have brought the PoE on himself by disobeying god in the early days of its interaction with him. I avoid saying Adam and Eve because I think most people accept that there were people on the earth before 6000 - 10000 years ago. If natural disasters affect people and cause suffering and is used by clergy as an example of Gods Judgment and punishment on humanity, then it doesn't seem to follow from the fact that it happened before humans were humans, Adam and Eve or not. And if one argues that Natural Disasters happen anyway but sometimes are directed by God, then I call into the question the moral principles of group punishment especially when some of the punished are undergoing treatments to keep them alive in hospitals, toddlers and babies. Maybe some of you don't know this but a group of doctors in a hospital are under suspicion of 'hastening nature' because a disproportionate number of their terminally ill patients died within a couple of hours during hurricane Katrina.

I suppose one could say that God knew that mankind would disobey God so he made the earth this way as a result of foreknowledge, but then I have to wonder why make man in a way that would guarantee that he would 'malfunction' and need to be kicked around by the environment. If god was omniscient, and he knew everything ahead of time, including what choices we would make throughout our life and who the saved would be, then we only have the appearance of free will. But that debate is not the point of this article or necessary as a premise.

So if God created the world he created in such a way that it is constantly changing, and these changes seem to be necessary for it to work properly. These changes affect one another sometimes to a frightening degree causing the events that HUMANS PERCEIVE as disasters and "Gods Judgment". These events are a result of and necessary for the ecology of the earth. They have nothing to do with Mankind. Mankind just happens to live in its path. They happened before mankind showed up, and will happen after he is gone, and in fact may cause mankind's extinction.