It's been well documented that Fox News' Pat Robertson has blamed a pact the Haitians made with the Devil (Fact!) for the recent horrific earthquake they have suffered. From an atheist point of view the earthquake is a terrible, tragic, heartbreaking natural event which has caused suffering to Haitians because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. These things are going to happen and a reasonable response is to work on future prevention by working to eliminate the poverty of people who are living in high risk areas without any warning systems, without anywhere to go if there was a warning anyway and living in structures which have absolutely no chance in the event of an earthquake. Before that of course, the people need food, shelter, medical treatment, clothes, the means to find their loved ones, then new homes, the means to make a living etc. I can't really see how blaming a pact made by their ancestors or Robertson's remedy of bringing the word of Jesus to the people are incredibly helpful things to do in the circumstances. It's fairly ironic that after watching Robertson express his relief that there were lots of Christians on the ground to help Haitians turn to Jesus, the next news story I saw was from the BBC. The report started 'Those who can get out are getting out', cue video of smiling christian missionaries boarding a plane to get out as quickly as possible. A few gave comments to the camera as they passed about how scary it had been when the floor shook.
I'm not quite sure from Pat Robertson's report whether it is god who sent the earthquake or the devil. It's all very confusing to me. Is god failing to protect the Haitian's from the devil because they made him angry by asking for help elsewhere when he would not help them escape from slavery? Why did the devil send the earthquake then? For fun, just because he's the devil? Or did god send the earthquake to kill and maim and orphan and traumatise modern day Haitians because their ancestors made a pact with the devil out of desperation when god failed to protect them from the trauma of slavery and abuse? And so now that god has either done this horrendous thing or failed to protect them from it out of jealous spite, the only way forward is to begin to worship and adore him? Couldn't god just take the moral high ground, be good anyway and show the devil up for the bastard he is?
Anyway, maybe I've got it all wrong and Pat Robertson is wrong and god's role in all this is now to comfort and console and welcome those who believed in him in life to the kingdom of heaven and send the rest for eternal torture (or somewhere not quite so bad, or into heaven if they managed to repent just before being crushed to death in their beds). Which ever way I think about this scenario, with a god being involved I can't help but think that shaking a fist at him would be an entirely reasonable and utterly decent response for anyone who believes in him.
On a more practical level, we could just give as much as we can to this or any other campaign which we trust and try to work towards a fairer world with better and more widespread technology that can help prevent such terrible disasters in the future. Imagine if all the wealth, all the time and all the energy that is spent on religions around the world could instead be channelled into making the world a better, safer, fairer place to live for everyone. What a fantastic daydream.
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