Deity Death Match

As published on Parcbench on 15 January 2009

When I was a kid, there was a term used to describe a natural disaster. It was called an “Act of God”. As the good parochial school boy I was, the terminology didn’t coincide with my religious teachings. After all, God was one angry guy in the Old Testament.

Floods. Fires. Locusts. Lot’s wife.

Truly, when there was a natural disaster, God was not pleased.

Then, in the years since I left Catholic school, the term “Act of God” was replaced by “Act of Nature”. God was no longer the cause for disasters – perhaps thanks to His Son letting us Christians off the hook for being imperfect.

Earlier this week, Haiti was rocked with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake; the tragic toll in human and economic terms is unimaginable. Instead of blaming it on Mother Nature, Rev. Pat Robertson decided to take it upon himself to re-engage God. You see, when you have an entire half an island practicing voodoo and worshiping the Devil, something bad is bound to happen.

Funny, but in my religion, God left all His tantrums in the Old Testament. Mother Nature was the new patsy.

I’d like to give Pat Robertson the benefit of the doubt because there is no evangelist worth his salt who is happy to lose church membership (or TV ratings) to demonic forces.

The classic historical battle is Good vs. Evil, but in the case of Haiti, there emerges a new battle: enter the Deity Death Match.

Yesterday, a proponent of the challenger, Mother Nature, made his case. Danny Glover said that the Haitian earthquake was a result of global warming. “When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?”

Actually Mr. Glover. I don’t know what you’re sayin’.

Glover went on to praise the environmental efforts of Venezuela and Cuba. Glover’s proclivity for socialism trumps racial issues -  despite Socialism being the New Racism since the rise of the Great Society. To give Glover a modicum of legitimacy is mind-boggling.

According to the late Michael Crichton, environmentalism has been elevated by some to the status of a religion. And that leads us to today’s clash.

Robertson believes that the behavior of heathens (who practiced voodoo) enraged the God of the Old Testament and He invoked His wrath in punishment for their godless ways.

Glover asserts that the lack of action by heathens (who are global warming skeptics) enraged the god of Nature and she invoked her wrath in punishment for their climate change denying ways.

Fortunately, there is no winner here. Neither Robertson’s and Glover’s deities were ever engaged in this death match.

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Parochial School graduate and Man-made global warming denier Michael Fidanza is the host of The Armchair Energist Show on RFC Radio and can be heard at 11am-noon ET. His website is www.ArmchairEnergist.com