Andrew Copson on BBC Asian Network
DJ Nihal
In response to the Haitian earthquake, which has caused fatalities of perhaps tens of thousands of people and left many with no shelter or clean water and the capital city in ruins, Presenter Nihal asks “Does God exist?” Andrew Copson was invited to take part on the daily radio show for the BBC Asian Network.
You can listen to the programme for 7 days on BBC iPlayer. The BHA’s new Chief Executive, Andrew Copson, is on at 12:50 and again at 20:50.
Andrew says it is obviously true that people are comforted by thinking that things happen for a reason, but that terrible disasters like this fatally undermine belief in a good and just god. In response to the assertion by one caller to the programme that god was demonstrating his superiority as a lesson to us to live better, he said that was as if a parent whose child was misbehaving beat his other child to death to teach his naughty child a lesson and that this was hardly behaviour one would call ‘good’.
He also says that it was not gods that would help the victims of the Haiti earthquake but good men and women who will give their time, money and compassion to helping them.
Listen to the Nihal show (available for 7 days on BBC iPlayer).
Andrew Copson on BBC Asian Network,
And lots of those helpers will be Atheist.
As an Atheist, I don’t ever assume God exists, nevermind intervenes. Yet, if God (or gods) did exist, one would not need to blame such an entity for the deaths in Haiti: quake-proof buildings are cheap and easy to construct if timber is available or steel affordable. Human greed, in the form of the deforestation of the Carribean Antilles by international capital and the control of substandard building by a small band of absentee landlords has combined well with undue profit taking by the concrete companies: the result is the wholesale murder of thousands in the name of capitalism. Look to religious societies and one often finds the very, very wealthy at the top of the religious tree – while the poor are denied the basic things they need to survive: comfort from this situation? You must me joking.
Best wishes
Nick Nakorn
I quote these words which have been used many times before:
Epicurus 341 – 371 BCE
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
It always amazes me how ‘believers’ who survive a disaster give the credit to ‘the Lord’.
‘Thank the Lord – he saved me.’ Does that mean he also killed those who died?
Strange logic.
Did anyone notice that amongst the first people out of Haiti after the earthquake, relating their tales of terror on the steps of their plane, were a group of young, able-bodied missionaries escaping back to their comfortable lives in the United States? Perhaps one could be forgiven for thinking that they, of all people, might have stayed behind to help.
Never mind about whether God or perhaps the Devil or, more probably, a slip of the subterranean strata, was responsible for the Haiti earthquake. It’s irrelevant. Just send them some money to help the victims.