Here it comes ...

In recent times our part of the world has had tsunamis, earthquakes and fires. All of these natural tragedies caused loss of life and property.

We are pattern seeking creatures. In our evolutionary past, finding connections and meaning allowed us to predict outcomes and survive where lesser brains would not. We draw inferences and extrapolate and a lot of the time we're right. But we can also be wrong. We can also make connections where there are none. 'Magical' thinking is like this. An athlete succeeds while wearing a particular pair of underpants and suddenly, in his mind, he succeeds BECAUSE of his underpants.

Religion is another area where this kind of faulty connection making happens a lot. Ever since the time of Jesus, fervent believers have been expecting the end of the world. From several things Jesus is reported to have said, even He expected the end of the world SOON. Letter writers in the New Testament expected the end SOON. Every generation thereafter expected the end SOON. There is a particular kind of believer who makes a big deal about signs of the end. Natural disasters always figure highly in this. Hence, lately, we've heard that same talk again (not that it ever goes away) claiming this or that disaster is a sign of the end.

Frankly, this is sloppy thinking. These same people will try to 'prove' God's existence, by using cause and effect. The universe is orderly, therefore, they claim, there had to be a first cause, God. Now I'm not going to show why that argument is false. I think I've already done so elsewhere. What I will say is this: Suddenly, when it suits them, God will provoke 'uncaused' events, like earthquakes to make a theological point. Setting aside the idea that this makes God seem to use a terribly nasty blunt instrument, it also stops the universe being orderly and brings 'magic', action by divine fiat, back on the agenda. You can't have it both ways (although this kind of believer likes to have it all kinds of ways).

A few more things to consider:

1. Is earthquake frequency increasing? Who knows? Records have only been kept for barely a century and certainly not over the whole world with any degree of accuracy. Don't say it if you can't demonstrate it. A century is a piddling little amount in geologic time.

2. Do you REALLY want your God to be responsible for thousands of deaths and injuries just to make an announcement? What would this say about His character?

3. In terms of mathematics, given the number of people who have lived and died on the earth, isn't it statistically unlikely that it just happens to be while YOU'RE alive that the cosmos wraps up?

Give up the lucky underpants.