Blaming God for Earthquake? Even Buddhists Do It

Here's a story I missed about the Japanese Earthquake. This happened back in March, right after the quake hit.

Although I don't share Shinto and Buddhist beliefs about karma and rebirth, I've always had a lot of respect for Eastern religions. They don't have a nasty penchant for proselytizing, and their ideas about sex and sexuality are quite reasonable. Best of all, they value learning.

But apparently they share at least one bit of craziness with evangelical nuts like Pat Roberson: a belief that human failings anger the deities that run this place, and that said deities get pissed and send earthquakes and hurricanes as punishment.

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara was the latest celebrity to make the awful assertion that the Japanese 9.0 earthquake is our fault. He said,

"We need a tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has rusted onto the mentality of Japanese over a long period of time. I think the disaster is a kind of divine punishment, although I feel sorry for disaster victims."

According to the story on ABC News, Governor Shintaro later apologized.

I hope Governor Shintaro realizes the company he is now keeping. He is in league with

Missionaries are like Looters: Using the Japan Earthquake

What's the difference between a looter and anyone else that uses a disaster for his own gain? In my ethics playbook, a disaster calls for one thing only: help the victims. Everything else should be put aside while we pick up the pieces and try to put the victims' lives back together.

Apparently Christian minister Neal Hicks, who has spent thirty years proselytizing in Japan, doesn't see it that way. To him, the Japanese earthquake is an opportunity. The Japanese victims are vulnerable, and it's up to Mr. Hicks to take advantage of their vulnerability.

According to Hicks, there has not been anything like this since WWII that's prompted the Japanese to turn from their 'no-god' god to the living God. "The Japanese are once again shaken. They're asking eternal questions again. We have another window of opportunity, and there are missionaries in Japan who are prepared to communicate the Gospel."

"I think it is probably one of the most opportune moments--at least in the last 50 to 60 years since the war--that we've ever had," says Hicks.

If you believe as I do that a person's mental, ethical and spiritual needs are

Armageddon? Or Just an Earthquake?

Here we go again. God screws things up for no apparent reason, kills ten thousand, leaves hundreds of thousands homeless, and we have to clean up after him. He's angry! He's warning us!

Or ... maybe it was just another earthquake.

We need to set a new scientific standard: it's the smallest possible measurable increment of time known to science. It's defined as the almost-infinitesimal interval between when an earthquake ends and some religious ass declares it part of God's divine prophecies in the Holy Bible. Since the Japan earthquake, millions of blogs linking Japan and Biblical prophecy have popped up. It's disgusting.

Here's one of the worst, brought to you by the professional jerk known as Glenn Beck:

You can't see the connections here. I'm not saying God is causing earthquakes. I'm not not saying that either. What God does is God's business. ... But I'll tell you this. Whether you call it Gaia, or whether you call it Jesus, there's a message being sent! And that is, "Hey, you know that stuff we're doing? It's not really working out. Maybe we should stop doing some of it. *laughs* I'm just saying. ... Buckel up! Buckel up 'cause it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Beck ought to be ashamed of himself for capitalizing on the plight of the Japanese.

And so should everyone else who thinks this is Biblical prophecy. It's utter

Japanese Whaling - Cruelty beyond belief

Every time I read another story of Japanese whaling, it makes my blood boil. For such an advanced, seemingly civilized culture, it is shocking and astonishing that they still allow this cruel, barbaric practice.

Warning: the descriptions that follow are disturbing.

Most of us don't want to know what goes on in animal-processing plants, but at least there is an attempt at humane slaughter techniques in most countries. But with whaling, it's torture, pure and simple. There is no humane way to kill a whale. Instead, the animals, which are known to be highly intelligent and social, are harpooned with an explosive device, which crushes their lungs. Then they suffocate in their own blood. Sometimes, the whales are hoisted onto the ship's butchering platform and cut apart before they are even dead.

The Japanese like to think of themselves as culturally and technologically advanced, but their whaling practices are a blight on their civilization. Whaling is something from centuries past, and should have died out long ago.

As humanity loses its childish religions, the ones that assert that the Earth was put here for our pleasure, and the animals for our unfettered use, we need to replace them with the rational ethics that thoughtful men and women have been refining for over two millenia, both in Europe and in the Far East. Japanese whaling might have seemed OK when there were emperors, kings, shoguns, knights, and peasants, and human life was cheap. But most of the civilized world has move on to a more ethical philosophy, one that recognizes that cruelty to any living creature is unacceptable.

Every Japanese citizen should hang his or her head in shame. Or better yet, speak up, and tell your lawmakers to end this horrifying torture of innocent animals.