The first article illustrates that it's possible to have access to modern technology with the ignorance of a dark-ages mind. In the past, in the Pacific, people have died in Japan due to tsunamis generated off Chile. Two people in Crescent City, Calif. died due to the tsunami generated by the Alaska earthquake in '64. Almost every deadly tsunami that's hit Hawaii (especially Hilo) was generated far away. (It really is the cross-roads of the Pacific)

The problem is that most transoceanic seismic sea waves like this one have to be generated along a subduction zone, to get a big enough quake. Most of the Pacific coast consists of such zones, with more in the middle (like east of the Phillipines and south of Japan). Major quakes only happen on these zones every few centuries. (Which is why here in the Northwest they talk of us being "due" because there hasn't been one in a couple of centuries on the zones off the coast.) The only subduction zone in the Indian Ocean is the one that moved last week (although there are other unmoved segments of it farther east). That's why there are so few tsunamis in the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean.

(One thing I haven't found is when was the last tsunami generated by the subduction zone east of the Caribbean Antilles. Another area (including the Atlantic coasts of Europe and the US) where tsunamis are unknown, but are still at risk.)

As for the movement, while 30 meters seems high, I seem to remember that the movement in Alaska in '64 was around 10 meters in some areas. Again, no big deal, and not enough data to say what is "normal".

Now if I, an interested amateur can find or know this information, why can't a graduate of a Journalism School do the same? And pass it along instead of this tripe?

You shouldn't be so dismissive of religion.

The question, silly as it is, has indeed occupied the profoundest religious thinkers through the ages.

I cited the example of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

It was the first big quake within the orbit of western thought after the period of rational inquiry began.

The old-fashioned views, as voiced by, among others, Wesley, were so ridiculous, on inspection, (as Voltaire obeserved, if God was smiting sinners, why didn't he level Paris?) that it freed men's minds from the tyranny of religion to think about things.

You may think the results of that were, on balance, bad; but it was an undoubted effect.

I am reading an excellent new book by Mohr, 'Plague and Fire,' about another frightening event that happened just as rational inquiry was on the verge of new understanding, but not quite there yet.

Although I doubt people formulate the issue explicitly, these are the events that put religion to the test. It is almost always found wanting, or, at least, rather than praying, people decide to look after their own knitting.

The refuges the Bangladeshis built in the '70s against Bay of Bengal cyclones are a case in point.

Harry:

In fact, I was just exactly as dismissive of the religious version of the question.

I'd be interested to know what religion is practiced by the lady quoted in the second story. Hindu gods can be quite malevolent.

What the nuns taught me about this about a jillion years ago still makes sense, just because it doesn't make sense the way we humans ususally think about things.

It may be that the Deity places more importance on a single act of acceptance, or heroism, of self-sacrifice, or some way of responding to a tsunami that we wouldn't even recognize as significant. After all His ways are not our ways.

This is haunting reminescent of what Seneca says in the De Providentia about God enjoying a good show, along the lines of Cato the Younger and Regulus. Regulus? Why in the world would God want to see someone crucified?

Ummm, perhaps because, when man sinned, he LOST the ability to STOP things like this from happening???

Ummm. Perhaps the Deists have it right.

Things happen, and there are no imaginary friends.

Of course the Deists are right.

You're right Jeff, things happen and there are no imaginary friends. God, however, is not imaginary (inspite of what you've concluded), and he is my friend.

Dave:

Either God is imaginary, or He is not your friend.

As the panoply of completely meaningless random suffering, ranging from ectopic pregnancy to headline-making and mass grave filling tsunamis, demonstrate quite vividly.

Jeff's point of view only makes sense if one values his immediate personal comfort above all else.

My personal experience with the views of suffering enunciated by Seneca and and by the nuns is that acceptance of hidden and unknowable providence has helped me face pain, bereavement, sickness and loss, as well as some situations encountered in the Marine Corps.

Now turn to the real questions: is there value in this kind of acceptance and resolution? Are we better or worse off if we and our fellow-citizens possess these virtues? Finally, is there a more efficent way to instill them than that provided by the consolations of religion?

Jeff:

Your friend? Buy a dog if you want a friend.

OJ:

You misdirected your comment, you clearly meant Dave W.

Lou:

Perhaps you should read How can religious people explain something like this?

Jeff:

He is Dave's friend.

Well I certainly wasn't talking about such an entity being my friend, so you left me mystified.

You offered a choice: "Either God is imaginary, or He is not your friend."

It's false.

Lou, Mohr's book quotes the then-Catholic bishop of Honolulu as objecting, during the plague, that people were putting their trust in science rather than in the mercy of God.

That was pretty rich, considering how much good throwing themselves on the mercy of God had done them in the 14th (and all other) centuries.

However, answer me this.

If what appears to be evil is really good, from another perspective, how to do you distinguish between the two? Maybe Stalin was meant as a cautionary tale; God, after all, works in mysterious ways, and Stalin sure scared the devil out of Tom C.

If Tom C. is God's overwhelming concern -- certainly a possibility -- then who cares about a few Russkie peasants, more or less?

Harry:

We do.

Does (or did) God?

It's the tapeworm question all over again.

How do you know tapeworms aren't god's overriding concern, the way some people collect incunabula, and humans are just a sort of binding?

If it turns out God did not care about the peasants, and you would have impertinently interfered with his more important lesson to Tom, it is like to go hard with you in the afterlife.

Because He told us.