When natural disasters occur, do you blame God? Many people do!

Whatever your religion (or lack thereof), it's very tempting to attribute all major disasters to an Almighty Being, casting its rage down upon mankind. To do so gives comfort, even in the face of death, carnage and despair, because if God is responsible then at least someone is in charge, and hopefully they have a master plan which will culminate sometime in the future as something good and perhaps wonderful.

However, to NOT blame God presents us with a frightening proposition - if God isn't causing these disasters then NOBODY is in control of this Earth and all the bad things that occur. If there is no god involved, then mankind is truly at the mercy of a rather nasty Mother Nature, who has no master plan except to beat us into submission. Even in the unlikely event that we survive the hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts and ultra-violet rays, not to mention asteroid and comet impacts, eventually our sun is absolutely guaranteed to blow up and scorch everything in the solar system to death.

Until civilisation casts aside its fragility, and until humanity as a whole becomes advanced enough to sidestep any disasters thrown our way, having someone up in the sky to blame is going to be part of conventional thinking for some time yet.