It's never a bad time to take a swipe at the blue states

My god, David Brooks is a turd. Who else would have the balls to take this tsunami as an opportunity to trumpet how people who prefer the myths of the Bible to actual reality are so morally superior to the rest of us?

In those old flood myths, things happened because human beings behaved in certain ways; their morality was tied to their destiny. Stories of a wrathful God implied that at least there was an active God, who had some plan for the human race. At the end of the tribulations there would be salvation.

Alas, those of us who don't think there's a good reason for so much misery are moral degenerates.

If you listen to the discussion of the tsunami this past week, you receive the clear impression that the meaning of this event is that there is no meaning. Humans are not the universe's main concern. We're just gnats on the crust of the earth. The earth shrugs and 140,000 gnats die, victims of forces far larger and more permanent than themselves.

He then goes on to take swipes at enviromentalists, by demonstrating that since nature doesn't care and just kills people like this, we should fight back or something like that. Thank god we have someplace else to live once we show nature what's for. Brad DeLong has more.

If Brooks is going to take a swipe, it's my turn to swipe right back. Here's some of that stupid yet refreshingly uplifting belief that things like this tsunami are all part of God's greater plan, collected by South Knox Bubba.

Liberals say this [the tsunami] can't be God's judgment because kids were the victims. They need to be reminded from the scriptures that God judged Eqypt by killing all the first born children. Liberals hate the concept of devine [sic] judgment. Unfortunately, without judgment, there is no end to sin.

The cockles of my heart are warming directly up. I'm completely convinced now that it's better to see this tsunami as a judgment against the people it killed rather than a happenstance of nature. I mean, it sucks for the people that died, but at least I can feel more important and stuff, like God is up there giving a shit enough to hand out random punishments for things that are beyond my understanding. No wonder atheists like me have no moral compass--if we can't see God's judgment in things, we have no way of figuring out who to hate.

This is not intended, by the way, to swipe at people who have religion in general. Just those who are so damned sure that God is up there hating on the people that they just happen to find scarily different.

Via The Sideshow.