Religious Quest Discussion Question
Graverobber50
Week3lectureNaturalDisastersandtheroleofGod.docxNatural Disasters and the role of God
Rev. Paul Hudec, PhD
Week 3 – Natural Disasters
As we explore the physical world on this religious quest of ours and when we examine the characteristics of the divine or the personhood of God, we must also examine natural disasters and how the physical world works. One approach is to examine what church officials claim and describe how sinful human activity caused not only great guilt relative to the believing community, (Roman Catholic Church, Judaism as examples) but to the point of blaming the whole congregation for natural events that caused massive suffering and death. There are many examples of church officials blaming earthquakes or plagues on the sinfulness of the population, e.g. the 1 Nov 1755 massive earthquake that destroyed the capital of the Portuguese Empire.
“November 1, 1755 was to be a sunny autumn day in the city of Lisbon , one of the most important and richest seaports of Europe at the time. The locals were profoundly religious and the city was preparing to celebrate the day of All Saints, with the obligatory criminal proceedings of heretics in the afternoon.
At 9:30 in the morning the inhabitants were alarmed by weak tremors. Christian Staqueler, consul of the German city of Hamburg, remembers in a later report: "First we heard a rumble, like the noise of a carriage, it became louder and louder, until it was as loud as the loudest noise of a gun, immediately after that we felt the first tremble."
At 9:40 all the bells of the city began to ring simultaneously and only seconds later the first buildings collapsed. Three major shakes followed in the next 10 minutes, most people were killed by the collapse of the churches, full of believers attending the second mass of the day,
People fled in the direction of the seaport where the large squares of the royal palace promised shelter from the debris of the collapsing buildings. It was there that they witnessed a strange phenomenon: The sea had vanished and the riverbed of the Tejo was dry. At 10:10 a 12 meter high tsunami-wave reached the city and destroyed the entire harbour, thousands of people standing along the shores were swept away and killed.
After the earthquake and the tsunami a terrible fire broke out; raging for five days it destroyed what earth and water had left over. In the end three quarters of the city lay in ruins, estimated 30.000 - 60.000 people killed, the earthquake further damaged cities on the coast of Morocco, the tsunami caused havoc in Ireland and the African coast and waves of 4 meters reached the Caribbean islands.”
This triple whammy of destruction (earthquake damaging buildings, tsunami, fire) wasn’t explained as a natural event (underwater earthquake) but as punishment from God. See map below at the Portuguese Empire at that time and how history records the declining stature after the destruction of Lisbon.
For us this example helps us think through and analyze deeply the socially accepted practices and understandings along with those of the religion we may be a member of or groups of religions and their beliefs and practices regarding myths and error.
Fine point and this promulgation of ideas that either are wrong or are wrongly interpreted for that reason you’ve noted (control of membership) through fear and ignorance is still alive and doing well in today’s society. As I noted in the previous discussion note that I posted, it was so easy for church officials and the institution as a whole then and even now to issue a statement that elicits fear for the sake of obedience, usually blind or nearly blind obedience, when there is contradicting explanations from science. Consider the following:
“Before the Black Death hit Europe, almost all things, especially elements of daily life, were under the influence of the church. In medieval times, even boiling an egg took “the time to say a prayer”. But the most important thing was that the church had always told people right from wrong. Since the afterlife was judged more important than the actual lifetime, it was considered essential to be given the last rites and to confess sins before dieing to be sure of salvation.
When the plague arrived, people believed it to be a punishment of God. Therefore, they often turned to the Church for help. But since the priests and bishops could not actually offer a cure or even an explanation, the Catholic Church lost a lot of its influence and for many people, their view of the world changed drastically.”
https://deathblack.wordpress.com/category/church/
http://thesis.honors.olemiss.edu/338/
http://www.medievalists.net/2015/02/priests-black-death/
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-30/black-death.html
What does this say to us as we carefully analyze contemporary issues and the beliefs that we hold?
Thoughts and sources, class?
