U.S. citizens have donated less money to Japan so far than they did to either Haiti or Louisiana over the same time frame. While there are many possible explanations, it appears that these three disasters have at least one thing in common: many people seem to believe that they were caused by the Christian god.- The New Apostolic Reformation folks have decided that the earthquake in Japan is evidence of their god's war against demons;
- Christian extremist preacher Chuck Pierce claimed that he caused the quake through prayer;
- Fox "News" blow-hard Glenn Beck suggested that his god may have produced the quake because the Japanese people have been too lax with his Ten Commandments;
- Christian extremist author Tim LaHaye welcomed the earthquake and tsunami as evidence of the apocalypse he so desperately wants to see; and
- Some Japanese Christians have decided that the disaster was a message from their god that Japan has made a mistake by embracing atheism and materialism.
It is clear that people are going to come up with whatever supernatural explanations they prefer for natural disasters, ignoring the science and confirming what psychologists call the just world hypothesis. I suppose this is unavoidable. I do, however, still wish that those who seek to exploit crises like this would face stiffer penalties, even if only in the form of being disowned by the public.
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