----- Original Message ----- From: To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: 8/31/2005 12:43:07 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: FW: Re: New Orleans I think you may have missed what I was getting at. Let me be a bit clearer. The earth and its surrounding phenomena (weather, space, seas, etc.) are all part of the environment which was designed for human life or which, if you prefer, human life adapted to. The tides, the moon, the air currents, the sea swells and rotation of the planet, the warmth of the sun, the oxygen in the air, all are a habitable place for the animal called human. This stuff -- tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes -- are all just part of the earth's functioning. The "primitives" on the remote island knew their home and how to cooperate with it and work with it. Industrialized society has lost that knowledge and has erected artificial environments that do not cooperate with the natural course of the planet's functioning and pose enormous threat to human life when some of earth's natural functioning occurs. To blame a Creator for the devastation of the hurricane is a little like blaming the pharmaceutical company when someone overdoses on a prescription drug, resulting in thei r death. They misused something that was designed to be constructive and positive, and it became something damaging. A.A. That's the old didn't the Creator know ahead of time that Adam was going to eat the apple thing. The Creator seems to get a kick out of the inability to resist temptation that he programmed into humans. By this argument, humans need to be able to detect seismic shifts to know what to stay away from. Also, your scenario isn't possible with 6 billion or so inhabitants. All the poor saps did was go forth and multiply, as instructed ... At the very least you'd think the old man would give his sheep a break, but no such luck, even in war against the infidel. Andy Amago Julie Krueger striving for clarity ========Original Message======== Subj:[lit-ideas] FW: Re: New Orleans Date:8/31/05 9:17:02 A.M. Central Daylight Time From:aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent on: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: 8/31/2005 9:21:58 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: New Orleans but nonetheless.....I don't know if you recall, Andy, but in the tsunami there was a village on a remote island which we westerners would call "primitive" -- thoroughly non-industrialized. No phones, computers, radios, tv..... The knowledge of the ways of the sea had been taught generation after generation, wisdom about their earth-home passed down for centuries. When the sea gasped and the tide went out for miles, the elder of the village knew from the passed-down wisdoms what the sea would do next, and he called for all the villagers to run for high ground. When the walls of water came in, the villagers were safe. No one was lost. A.A. Isn't this the same sort of thinking that drives religion. God (here, village elders) saved the villagers (us). Reality: elders are clueless, villagers drown. God farted and never noticed the dead ants.