It's Not God, It's Schadenfreude

This happens all too easily. First, a big natural disaster comes along and kills dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people. Then some far-removed knucklehead says into a microphone that, essentially, this is punishment from God.

The latest person to step on this pile of warm, stinking self-delusion is Sharon Stone. While being interviewed on that never-ending red carpet our culture marches her across, she said this about the devastating earthquake that hit China last week:

"I'm not happy with the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans. I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else...and I'm wondering how should we deal with the Olympics because of they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who's a good friend of mine. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?'"

You don't have to look far back to see other examples of this kind of stupidity. Rev. John Hagge, for example, blamed Hurricane Katrina on a gay parade. Go further back and you'll find someone warping God's motives to suit their own political agenda.

I can't say for certain that there is a God in control of the weather or the movement of tectonic plates. I can say for certain, however, that no God would punish innocent people for what others have done or are doing.

The purpose of punishment is correction. God is not going to wipe out a whole city because some of its residents wanted to parade and God is not going to wipe out whole cities and villages because of what a country's leaders decide hundreds of miles away. That kind of action would be too vague and inconsistent to correct any behavior.

It's not punishment. It's physics.

If Sharon Stone was reduced to playing in made-for-cable movies and John Hagee's congregation all woke up and found a more suitable place to nurture their spirit, that would be punishment.

May it be so.