Today in my religion and science class we discussed some readings from Richard Dawkins and Fritjof Capra, but mostly spent time talking about the more fundamental question of what God does, and how science has changed or could change the ideas of God that people have.
One small group discussion moved onto the topic of miracles and ‘acts of God’. Apparently two students disagreed about whether to see God’s involvement in things like hurricanes.
Not restraining my silly side, I had to ask whether God’s aim was getting better or worse. Certainly it is clear that, if New Orleans is the object of his wrath, his attempts to destroy it with hurricanes have been, for the most part, unsuccessful, and even Hurricane Katrina didn’t do as good a job as he is supposed to have done in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Are there other options to religious believers besides either rethinking God’s involvement in such natural meteorological processes, or concluding that God’s ability to wipe out cities that offend him is getting worse? Is there a theological reason why he is supposed to now be using hurricanes when fire and brimstone from heaven were apparently much easier to target and accomplished their goal with much greater precision and efficiency?
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