Friday, November 26, 2010

Why does god hate Haiti?

Religious believers tend to assume that all atheists are alike.  I suppose only atheists know that we are all very different in our socioeconomic and political outlooks.  For instance, the most visible face among atheists, Christopher Hitchens, might not have a whole army of atheists ready to take up the arms along his side, whether in Iraq or in Iran.  Equally interesting an intellectual is Heather Mac Donald who is at an interesting intersection of atheist outlook and libertarian-Republican politics.  She writes, in the context of Haiti and the latest of its problems, cholera:
Haitian-Americans in a Catholic parish in Queens, NY, have been ecstatically praying since an earthquake wiped out an estimated quarter-million of their island countrymen 10 months ago, following which Hurricane Tomas unleashed cholera in the survivors’ tent camps:
Certain women in [the] parish say so many Hail Mary’s on their own that [the pastor] no longer assigns them the prayers as penance for sins . . . In October, people packed into SS. Joachim and Anne, chanting and dancing and holding sick relatives’ pictures heavenward for healing.
Good luck with that.
(The New York Times displays the usual nauseating agnosticism towards the religious delusions of the left’s favored victim groups:
On a Saturday night in the basement of [the] mostly Haitian church in Queens, in a bare white room vibrating with hymns and exclamations, a young woman may find herself channeling the Holy Spirit to reveal news from Haiti.
Oh, really?  Yet let a Tea Partyer question the efficacy of deficit spending, and the Times will be certain at the very least to offer a contrary view.)
On this Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful for the human ingenuity that tries to foil such tragic Acts of God as the Haitian earthquake through heroic feats of engineering, and when such preventive efforts fail, that tries to save as many surviving victims through medical science.   I am grateful that human reason has conquered so much of the squalor and suffering that nature unleashes upon the world.  I hope that Haiti’s suffering comes to an end through tolerance, honesty, enterprise, and discipline.   
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
 Yes, here is to hoping that Haiti's sufferings will soon end

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