Wages of sin
It never fails to annoy me when the self-righteous (religious) folk attribute misfortunes and disasters on people’s behaviour. It is something these folk do, without fail, each and every time that chance happens to wreak some trouble.
They were quick at it when the Asian tsunami in 2004 killed, injured, destroyed and disrupted the lives of thousands upon thousands of people. According to these enlightened folk who take it upon themselves to deliver this holy message, the tsunami was no accidental natural disaster – it was a divine punishment delivering a mighty blow to all those who sinned! Apparently, the Indonesians got it because they had gotten too barbaric, the Sri Lankans and Indians deserved what they got because they were polytheistic infidels and well, Maldives got it because people were shooting up heroin and being a tad bit too shag-friendly…
These claims fall under a type of logical fallacies known as a non sequitur. Humanity has subscribed to such crazy cause-effect relations since the dawn of time. Almost always, a deity sprung up to handle the task of managing and delivering some “punishment” when the people committed some random “sin”. The Aztecs, for example, believed in a god called Tlaloc who was responsible for floods and droughts. The Aztecs appeased Tlaloc by sacrificing children. Any modern person would see the utter lack of a relationship between child sacrifice and the occurrence of floods and droughts. Similarly, any sane person would (or rather should!) realize that there is absolutely no causal link between mundane human actions and droughts, floods or whatever the choice of natural disaster or misfortune one may imagine up. The physical universe isn’t dependant on human (im)moral behaviour anymore than it is dependent on the whims and wishes of individual humans.
What is sad, or rather disturbing, is that these claims still run amok whenever disaster strikes – like the wave-flooding in the islands that Maldives is facing right now. The self appointed messiahs have the arrogance and the audacity to tell the suffering that it is all directly because of their bad behaviour: divine retribution (especially?) for those who are wavering on their true path. I tell you, the sheer depravity of preying on people’s misfortunes is just downright appalling…
Note: This post was inspired by the article titled “Gudhrathee haadhisaathakaa kurimathilaan jeheynee eemantherikamaaeku“ (local copy here) found on Adhaalathu Party’s website.
They were quick at it when the Asian tsunami in 2004 killed, injured, destroyed and disrupted the lives of thousands upon thousands of people. According to these enlightened folk who take it upon themselves to deliver this holy message, the tsunami was no accidental natural disaster – it was a divine punishment delivering a mighty blow to all those who sinned! Apparently, the Indonesians got it because they had gotten too barbaric, the Sri Lankans and Indians deserved what they got because they were polytheistic infidels and well, Maldives got it because people were shooting up heroin and being a tad bit too shag-friendly…
These claims fall under a type of logical fallacies known as a non sequitur. Humanity has subscribed to such crazy cause-effect relations since the dawn of time. Almost always, a deity sprung up to handle the task of managing and delivering some “punishment” when the people committed some random “sin”. The Aztecs, for example, believed in a god called Tlaloc who was responsible for floods and droughts. The Aztecs appeased Tlaloc by sacrificing children. Any modern person would see the utter lack of a relationship between child sacrifice and the occurrence of floods and droughts. Similarly, any sane person would (or rather should!) realize that there is absolutely no causal link between mundane human actions and droughts, floods or whatever the choice of natural disaster or misfortune one may imagine up. The physical universe isn’t dependant on human (im)moral behaviour anymore than it is dependent on the whims and wishes of individual humans.
What is sad, or rather disturbing, is that these claims still run amok whenever disaster strikes – like the wave-flooding in the islands that Maldives is facing right now. The self appointed messiahs have the arrogance and the audacity to tell the suffering that it is all directly because of their bad behaviour: divine retribution (especially?) for those who are wavering on their true path. I tell you, the sheer depravity of preying on people’s misfortunes is just downright appalling…
Note: This post was inspired by the article titled “Gudhrathee haadhisaathakaa kurimathilaan jeheynee eemantherikamaaeku“ (local copy here) found on Adhaalathu Party’s website.
