The best and worst of 2004

[Kitsune]

"Allah signed His name," Faizeen said. "He sent it as punishment. This comes from ignoring His laws."

"This is a terrible tragedy in Florida. And you know, as I've been reading and praying, we had a quite a flap the other day when we were talking about that gay pride day in Orlando and everybody laughed, but nevertheless, here's what I saw in the Bible. There are two things that I think are very significant. And what happens to these fires in Florida could be a prelude to some things that are going on all around the world." (Pat Robertson suggesting Florida wildfires were caused by gay day at Disney)

Christian and Islamic leaders should sit down and have a talk, someday. I bet they'd get along real well.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

"Allah signed His name," Faizeen said. "He sent it as punishment. This comes from ignoring His laws."

...snip...

Christian and Islamic leaders should sit down and have a talk, someday. I bet they'd get along real well.

Funny you should mention that...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/...nami_1-07.html

MARGARET WARNER: Natural disasters often affect people and societies in ways that transcend the physical devastation. To explore that, we turn to British writer Simon Winchester author of "Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883." This 2003 bestseller was about a catastrophic volcanic eruption close to the scene of the current disaster.

And, Mr. Winchester, welcome. Thanks, for joining us.

...blah, blah, blah...

Non-physical effects

MARGARET WARNER: And then what other effects did it have-- you outline some of these in your book-- beyond the physical devastation, beyond the deaths?

SIMON WINCHESTER: Well, the extraordinary thing that happened, specifically in Java and Sumatra, is that this event was immediately picked up by the religious leaders, who in those days were Muslims. The area was rapidly being converted from Hinduism to Islam. There were a lot of Arabs there who were priests or mullahs, and they said within a matter of days of the devastation, that this was clearly a sign from Allah-- Allah, who was annoyed, specifically angered by the fact that the Javanese and the Sumatrans were allowing themselves to be ruled by white, western, infidel Dutch imperialists.

"Rise up and kill them: is essentially what the mullahs said, and sure enough, within a matter of days, there was a degree of killing of Dutch soldiers and bureaucrats. Then the mullahs said, "No, no, no, don't do this in a piecemeal fashion, do it in an organized fashion." And sure enough over the next few years, careful planning went underway, triggered by Krakatoa, and five years later there was a massive rebellion, which was the beginning, one might say, of the end of Dutch rule in Java and Sumatra and the beginning of the creation of what is now the most populous Islamic state on Earth, Indonesia.

A similar U.S. natural disaster

MARGARET WARNER: Now, in a piece you wrote recently, you say this is not an isolated incident and in terms of having this sort of kind of profound social and psychological change from a natural disaster, and you point to one in the United States. Tell us about that.

SIMON WINCHESTER: Well, indeed, San Francisco. I've just finished researching and indeed writing a book which is coming out in October on the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, April 18. And oddly enough-- I mean, I didn't anticipate this when I started work-- this also had a religious impact. The big difference I think between San Francisco and Krakatoa on the one hand and what happened at Banda Aceh on the other, is that all these events were transmitted around the world very rapidly because the news of them was by electricity and the undersea cable and Morse Code and the Reuters news agency, these events were known about very, very rapidly indeed. So people around the world had the information, but they didn't have the understanding.

And so there was a worldwide sense of bewilderment, that terrible things had happened, but there was no rational explanation for them. And so people turned in large numbers to God as an explanation. They did so in Krakatoa, and equally they did so also in San Francisco. And specifically what happened in San Francisco is that there was a very, very small movement beginning in southern California of Pentecostalist Christians, people who spoke in tongues, who believed in revelations by way of signs from heaven. The first meeting of this little Pentecostalist church took place on the Sunday just before the San Francisco earthquake. Wednesday came the earthquake. The pastors in the church said this is evidently a sign from heaven, from God, that He is angered by the licentiousness, the wanton behavior of San Franciscans. The result of this was that the next Sunday, the church, which had only attracted a few hundred disciples before, was swamped with thousands upon thousands of people. And the American Pentecostalist movement was in a sense born out of the San Francisco earthquake and remains today one of the largest and most politically relevant Christian movements in America.