When A Hurricane Strikes In Florida

One Disaster — Three Belief Systems

by Roland Kriewaldt

Florida, USA, has been known to take a beating come hurricane season. 2004-2005 were exceptional for weather-borne destruction. In honor of my favourite state (so far) I'm making the best of a bad situation by using these natural disasters as a platform for some good ol' reality checking.

What's the definition of a religious or a spiritual person? Is there a difference between the two? This short essay may shed some light on the meanings of both words, for I believe they are different and not always related.

If I was tempted to stereotype some of the following, it's certainly not to insult anyone. Yet a broad sweeping brush stroke can often paint the greater truth, just not the finer details. And, to round things out, I've included the atheist or "agnostic" since we evidently can't have a "real" world without them.

When A Hurricane Strikes In Florida:

• THE RELIGIOUS PERSON might say that it's an act of God meant to punish sinners. It's also meant as a sign to scare non-believers and those of competing faiths to stop deluding themselves and join the right religion — theirs! He/She prays that this will finally be the beginning of the End Times and a long overdue promise of salvation for the faithful.

• THE SPIRITUAL PERSON might say that it's an act of nature meant as a cosmic lesson. It shows us that ultimately we cannot control the world. It also helps us to reframe our priorities, giving us a chance to work together to reassess, reinform and rebuild our commmunities for our mutual benefit. He/She prays that all are safe and that no one is suffering needlessly.

• THE ATHEIST might say that it's an act of physics without purpose or meaning. It makes no difference who lives or who dies since he believes that life is an accident; an aimless collection of carbon-based organisms caught up in some randomly-orchestrated cosmic joke (not to infer that the Cosmos makes jokes, for that would suggest it has an active intelligence!). The atheist prays for his truckload of generators and bottled water to arrive in time for him to reap the rewards of chaos and desperation, thereby strengthening his own temporary foothold on the aimless ladder of human survival for the sake of evolution.