Just the other day I was remarking to James how sooner or later some evangelical moron was going to say that God sent Katrina to punish the wicked, and within 24 hours someone did, Senator Hank Erwin (R-Alabama)...

From Senator says storms are punishment from God (The Birmingham News):

..."New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast have always been known for gambling, sin and wickedness," Erwin wrote this week in a column he distributes to news outlets. "It is the kind of behavior that ultimately brings the judgment of God."...

..."Warnings year after year by godly evangelists and preachers went unheeded. So why were we surprised when finally the hand of judgment fell?" Erwin wrote. "Sadly, innocents suffered along with the guilty. Sin always brings suffering to good people as well as the bad."...

This is disgusting on so many levels it's hard to touch on them all, so instead I'll just touch on two and let you explore the rest on your own.  However I'll warn you that thinking about such ugly things feels like swimming in raw sewage.

Let's start with the ugliest message of all, Thou shalt not suffer a sinner to live. How'd I get that?  Bear with me. Apparently, according to Erwin, God is a petty and vengeful god that cannot single out individual sinners for punishment, but instead in his clumsy outbursts of rage smites the sinners and righteous alike.  According to Erwin, the wrath of God incurs collateral damage.  The message is clear, even if you live a righteous life, you are in danger if your next door neighbor is sinning, and therefore, you'd damned well better do something about it... before God destroys your whole block because the guy next door is a homosexual (for example).

This is not the sort of thing we want our elected officials saying, and any Christian worth a damn knows that it isn't true.  Yes, I just said Senator Hank Erwin isn't worth a damn.  For the record, I don't think he's much of a Christian either.  The Christian belief system rests heavily on the Bible, and the Bible established very early on how just and fair God is supposed to be.  In the book of Genesis (that's the first book of the bible), chapter 18, Abraham quizzes God on the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:

GENESIS 18:23-33 (BibleGateway.com):

    ²³ Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

    ²⁶ The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."

    ²⁷ Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, ²⁸ what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?"
      "If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."

    ²⁹ Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"
      He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."

    ³⁰ Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"
      He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."

    ³¹ Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"
      He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."

    ³² Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"
      He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."

    ³³ When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

Once again the message is clear.  According to God, he does not sweep away cities even when the number of righteous inhabitants are vanishingly small.  It disgusts me that I, as an atheist, am more informed about the religion which Senator Erwin supposedly practices than Senator Erwin himself is.

Secondly, those that believe in God believe that he is all-powerful, all-knowing, (not to mention all-loving and all-forgiving), and that his plans and designs are far beyond human understanding.  Therefore to say of any modern occurrence "God did this because..." is to commit blasphemy.  How so?  If you say "God sent Katrina because New Orleanders are wicked." you are basically saying that you know and understand God's mind, which puts you on equal footing with God.  What's next?  Will you give God pointers on where to send the next hurricane?  Sit down and shut up, stupid human.  The Bible is very clear that those who follow God follow, and if he has use for them in his plans he'll use them and on rare occasions he may even let them know.  To act as if you know the mind of an all-knowing being is an act of unparalleled hubris and arrogance.  Christians believe that God values humility.

I for one do not believe in an all-powerful being.  To me Katrina was the result of natural processes the behavior of which are changing as the globe warms.  I find mind-boggling the idea that someone who believes in an all-powerful, all-knowing being, would think that a being that great and sophisticated would actually care how many women flashed their boobies at Mardi Gras and whip up a category 4 hurricane in response.

If Senator Erwin wanted to encourage Christian morality among his readers, he might want to consider acting Christian, and encourage the donation of time, housing, food, and money to victims of hurricane Katrina.  Just a thought.

Alabamians should hang their heads in shame that the man they elected to represent their values to the nation speaks in this way of those who suffered this natural disaster.