The Sunday Times January 9, 2005
Lifestyle section
Reflect page
Page L12

EVIL? NO WAY, COME HELL OR HIGH WATER
Tan Tarn How

THE death of so many in the wake of the terrible tsunami exactly two weeks ago is a difficult thing to comprehend.

The sheer scale of the tragedy is partly behind the inability to fully grasp the nature of the beast.

Another reason is that this is a natural disaster, not the bitter fruit of human action or inaction, even if it is true that many would have been saved if given warning of the impending deluge.

Humankind is supposed to have mastered the elements, or known enough at least to prevent death and devastation of such magnitude.

The tidal waves show not.

The calamity has had some religious leaders striving to explain God’s role in the calamity.

We all know that the chain of events was unleashed by the sudden movement of the Burma Microplate above the adjoining India Plate. That is the what.

The why is the – much – harder part.

Some religious leaders even say that it is a payback for the accumulated sins of our race.

But it is hard to conceive why so many innocent people, including children, should be called to account for deeds they were not even aware of, much less committed. What manner of celestial justice can this possibly be?

This is hardly the first calamity that challenges religion to reconcile the notion of an all-powerful God with one that is merciful.

Before the tsunami, for instance, hurricanes swept through the Carribean, flattening 90 per cent of the buildings on the Grenada island and killing 2,000 in Haiti.

Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds.

Over 12 million children have been orphaned by Aids in sub-Saharan Africa.

An estimated 27 million women, children and men are forced into slavery around the world.

There are the genocides in Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia.

About 1.2 billiong people subsist on US$1 per day.

And then there are the lesser battles of those who, sometimes, amid plenty, go without electricity and running water, including, it must be added, some of our own citizens.

In other words, enormous as the current tragedy is, it is only one part of a global map of human desperation.

Each instance of pain, whether by human agency, nature or both, is a theological challenge.

Thankfully, the more thoughtful among those whose role it is to interpret life and death for their followers, have desisted from easy explanations.

One is the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, who hypothesized that it would be wrong for Christians not to question what God was up to.

Ultimately, though, the religions fall back on faith, admitting that cataclysms like these cannot be understood.

The secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Iqbal Sacranie, told the BBC: “This is the will of God almighty. It is this aspect that is beyond us. Allah knows best.”

Archbishop Williams himself concurred, noting that believers “have learnt that there is some reality to which they can only relate in amazement”.

Buddhist leaders pin it on karma.

Chief priest Ananth Subramania-Batter at the Shiva Murugan Temple, which is in the United States, said Hindus believe that everyone has a predestined date of death.

“It is a lesson for all of us,” the priest told a newspaper, “that no matter how secure we feel or how advanced we are, anything can happen at any time and anywhere. There are things that are out of our control.”

Misery is not a proof against God, the religious leaders asserted.

“God is to be found in the hands of those who are helping to bury the dead, to bring clean water to the living, to administer medicine to the ill and counsel to those in darkness,” was how one of them put it.

If that is how the more fortunate can be galvanized to help the less, then we can only be thankful for it.

I prefer to see the problem of evil as evidence of the non-existence of a supreme spiritual entity. [Ed: Emphasis mine]

It is much simpler that way.

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I never expected to see this in the ST!