Another shocker from the Times

Looking for a culprit after a catastrophe strikes

Rite and Reason: Sometimes before answers can be found, the right questions must be asked and there are certainly questions well worth asking following the tsunami tragedy in Asia, writes Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

"What sort of God would have let this happen?" is an example of the wrong question.

Firstly, it is a perfect example of narcissism. The questioners convert an international human tragedy of mind-staggering proportions into a maudlin expression of their own spiritual angst. This question escalates self-indulgence to new heights of obnoxiousness. Those who shape their lives according to the doctrines of secular fundamentalism take an evident delight in stating the usual "Where is God now?" questions after tragedies, especially those natural ones that can't be blamed on human actions.........

finishing with...

"God isn't to blame for the deaths in the Asian disaster. Many are attributable to slowness in adopting the western values that promote technical and economic development along with profound respect for each human life."

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/0110
/2898719219OPRITEJANUARY10.html


Rabbi Lapin is a member of "Toward Tradition" at http://www.towardtradition.org/mission.htm

Their stated mission is :

"..educational organization working to advance our nation toward the traditional Judeo-Christian values that defined America’s creation and became the blueprint for her greatness. We believe that only a new alliance of concerned citizens can re-identify and dramatically strengthen the core values necessary for America to maintain that greatness and moral leadership. These values are: faith-based American principles of constitutional and limited government; the rule of law; representative democracy; free markets; a strong military; and, a moral public culture."

Dear Editor,

In today's edition of The Irish Times Rabbi Daniel Lapin finishes his less than flawless opinion with the bold assertion "God isn't to blame for the deaths in the Asian disaster. Many are attributable to slowness in adopting the western values that promote technical and economic development along with profound respect for each human life."

While I agree with his sentiments concerning taking the blame off "God," as which God he is referring to is left undefined. The main problem with his statement is the summary of western values into the comical phrase "technical and economic development along with profound respect for each human life."

Western countries are for the majority more technically developed than most developing countries, but this belies thousands of other factors which make this one fact true. For instance, would he care to explain where most of technical products he refers to are made, who is making them and who is now disposing of them once they have become useless to us?

He also shys away from going into any depth in relation to western government's economic development. No mention of the merits of moving manufacturing to developing countries, thereby reducing labour costs, promoting worker insecurity at home and increasing profits for the already affluent. All "admirable" qualities, but I'm afraid, not the tsunami stoppers he attests to. Although we would all like to declare having a "profound respect for each human life" I'm afraid recent and not so recent ventures into large scale killing in, for example, Iraq have shown we do not have the profound respect for human life we might hope to have.

It is true that a warning system should have been in place and that this system would have saved countless lives, but as we watch endless footage of tourist resorts decimated by the tsunami, it is prudent to remember as we go on our summer holidays that these resorts are only a false backdrop to countries with a poverty stricken population, whose poverty is not unrelated to our praised "technical and economic development."