Pastor Danny Nalliah, of the aptly named “Catch the Fire Ministries” has blamed the Australian bushfires on abortion:
He had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with “a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb”.
Why would his God punish innocent people instead of the perpetrators?
Asked if he believed in a God who would take vengeance by killing so many people indiscriminately — even those who opposed abortion, Mr Nalliah referred to 2 Chronicles 7:14 to vouch for his assertion that God could withdraw his protection from a nation.
“The Bible is very clear,” he said. “If you walk out of God’s protection and turn your back on Him, you are an open target for the devil to destroy.”
He’s actually right about that. The God of the Bible enjoys punishing people who had nothing to do with the reason he’s smiting them. To give one example, when Pharaoh didn’t let the Israelites go, the Bible says God killed all the firstborns in Egypt — including the animals. If you look to the God of the Bible for lessons in morality, you’re going to be pretty screwed up.
And if you ask me, a person who blames fires on abortion is pretty screwed up.
(via McBloggenstein)
I think it’d be just as logical to blame it on Satan trying to punish us for allowing abortion. (As in, it’s not at all logical to invoke non-existent beings, but Satan is at the very least associated with fire?).
Plus, bushfires happen pretty much every year, and from what I understand we’ve had worse over the last ten years (and abortion wasn’t legalised back then).
Also, I was unaware abortion was legal in Victoria, despite living there. Maybe if they decriminalised drugs next and atheism became more widespread I’d be able to be proud of my country. Of course, there is the internet filtering proposals in the interests of protecting children from pornography (pushed for primarily by pro-family groups) that could ruin that.
Presumably, then, the people who set some of these fires were doing God’s work, and should be celebrated rather than punished?
God is a terrorist. Or just not very accurate. Or both.
Oh, please. The fires are clearly Divine retribution for our society’s unholy, persistent toleration of the sins committed by homosexual deviants. Abortions causing fires? That’s just crazy talk.
Oh.. now i get it..
so that’s the reason why there are so many hurricanes in the biblebelt aye?
to punish godless americans.
Hmmm, we certainly practice abortion much more in the States, why isn’t God hitting us with any brush fires?
God has been really pissed about abortions in recent years. First Katrina and now fires in Australia.
Just ask Catholic Reverend Gerhard Wagner. He was quoted in 2005 as saying the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina was “divine retribution” from god for abortion and other evils of New Orleans.
The Pope recently promoted Wagner to be the auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria. There has been an angry outcry from Catholics threatening to leave the church because of the promotion of Wagner. How dare they have to audacity to question god’s wrath.
God really needs to work on his aim. It’s like throwing a grenade into a crowd of innocent people to kill one person.
Sometimes academic language – at which I am pretty skilled – doesn’t work too well. The playing field isn’t level if you are pitting sane and reasoned against insane. It doesn’t work.
(Example: People using logic on Alex the hate-filled vicious flamer in an earlier forum.)
Someone got money for getting his story printed in Readers’ Digest: His cab driver told him he understood people a lot better since he was working on his degree in psychology. The writer said, “I asked him why the drivers were so bad and rude”. The cab driver answered, “Because they’re jerks!”
These people are full of hatred. (Do YOU see any xian love there?) They are vicious.
And I already know from personal experience that they don’t respond to reasoning, because in other forums I asked them, “Have you ever given your preaching and debate and demonstrations a rest, and gotten off your ass, and done something useful, compassionate and helpful, and helped provide vasectomies and safe, effective, inexpensive contraception to people?”
Other than two hate-filled, name-calling replies, which provided no specific answers, I have gotten no real answers. (John C is among the silent ignorers of the question.)
When pressed, some will say the choice is not having sex.
They are not providing any sane responses to reasoned, pointed questions about prevention versus their true motive. Therefore I conclude that they are not sane.
Then I bring the accusation that they are being punitive. I say they want to be punitive to women, and that they ignore the issue of the men impregnating men.
And all I can see and hear is them continuing to flame, hate, and be punitive, because they clearly do not want to get out there and prevent the abortions they claim they don’t want.
So as an ally in their punitive fight to make abortion illegal – instead of preventing it! – they call in God to be punitive as well, in the way only God can be punitive: fires and other natural disasters.
@ VJ- excellent point! Anyone who wants to claim to be wholeheartedly against abortion for any reason had better be prepared to start either handing out a massive amount of free condoms or adopting a massive amount of babies. If The Church were to prioritize its agenda a little bit, it would be my guess that abortion as an issue would be “worth” more than premarital sex as an issue…. so shouldn’t The Church be the greatest source of free birth control and adoption?
Seriously… morans!
If God’s “protection has been removed from the nation of Australia,” this implies that protection was promised in the first place. When did that happen? Did I miss something?
I may be wrong, but I don’t remember the Bible actually saying this. Instead, it states frequently that God himself will gladly destroy you if you don’t worship him adequately.
God has so much more experience than the devil in the smiting business.
This is another example of the contradiction of saying “god is infinitely merciful” and “god is infinitely just.” Did god punish the innocent along with the guilty? Where was his mercy then? If god doesn’t punish all who are guilty, then how is he just?
God only sets you on fire because he loves you so much. Why do you make god hurt you?
Now get your ass into the kitchen and fetch god a beer before he smacks you again.
God’s watching his game, and has no time for your lip.
These are not the biggest fires ever in terms of area burnt, but they are the worst in terms of people killed and property destroyed. Unfortunately they are not finished yet, and are still threatening both rural towns and the outskirts of Melbourne. When you think about it, in terms of proportion of population killed these fires are nearly as bad for Australia as the 9/11 attacks were for the US.
Abortion was decriminalised in Victoria and had been for many years, but was still technically illegal until the change of law. Legally you needed two doctor’s opinions stating that your health was at risk by continuing the pregnancy, which was easy enough to get. The change of law makes it far harder for fundie nutjobs like Danny Niallah – who stood for Senate at the last federal election – to push for prosecution of either doctors or patients.
Oh, and don’t forget “Our God is a consuming fire.” Which still doesn’t explain why random people, rather than, say, a gynaecology convention, or the surgical theatres of a couple of major hospitals, got burnt.
He is punishing them for our sins!
As pointed by dr.R god’s aim ain’t that good he may have been trying to go for the US and hit Australia by accident. We should all come together buy him a GPS and teach him to find things on google maps.
Maybe god is rewarding us for legalizing it, because there are now less abortions per capita than before Roe v. Wade.
“Damn, there wasn’t a continent there last time I looked. Where the hell did that come from? Oh well, looks like they’re a bunch of godless heathens, too. They had it coming. Hey Jesus, get me a beer, son. Mary, shut up, they’re only people.”
It’s a sacrifice (albeit unwillingly)!
lulzhaahalol
Maybe he hasn’t gotten over Pangaea?
The shrimping capital of America gets destroyed in a fit of divine pique, and no-one thinks to blame in on our no longer keeping kosher? How did they all miss that one?
I thought that stigmatizing sex was part of the deal? Don’t you understand — they do have priorities.
LOL!
Literally out loud. Ha!
Stigmatizing sex – for WOMEN! – IS the entire deal.
I mean, otherwise they’d be out there preventing the need for abortion.
I was about to comment on the signage about “Morans” myself.
If I were undecided on an issue, I would look at which side was using the most hate-filled, vague, name-calling, evasive – and illiterate! – arguments. Then I would go with the other side.
That has actually been a factor in researching how to vote, and it is an in-your-face factor in Christians versus agnostics, atheists, and former evangelicals who don’t buy it anymore.
This kind rationalization always baffles me.
If my son turned his back on me, I would never allow an evil person to destroy him. He’s my son, I love him and would protect him from harm no matter what. I would not allow him to be destroyed to teach him a lesson. But what do I know; god is a better Dad than me.
I’ve heard several Christians try to explain how a God who historically (at least according to OT) has killed people left and right, can be regarded as all-loving and just.
They usually justify it through analogy, where God is the strict but just father of the family, who punishes us, his children, for our own sake (like when you punish your kid so it can learn to behave sensibly).
I’ve always found this to be an incredibly weak analogy. There’s a difference between punishing and outright killing your children to teach them a lesson. That is not love. And neither is it justice when God goes on a killing spree, leveling entire cities full of children or drowning a world full of unborn or infants.
A better analogy would be that OT God is the psychotic, abusive family father who unbuckles his belt whenever something displeases him and beats his kids senseless for no good reason other than the satisfaction of his own tiny ego.
“This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you…”
“But you’re not being hurt — you’re hurting ME.”
“Yes, but I don’t want to, it’s because I love you… and that’s why it hurts me so bad to hurt you.”
Since god hasn’t been around for the past few thousand years, does that mean he got fed up with us and left our mom, like my real daddy?
God has some issues to work out. He’s in a complicated place, emotionally, right now.