After writing about the Lord of Miracle of Christ that happen in Peru 350 years ago, I recalled those email that I received about the miracles that happen in 2004 Dec 26 Tsunami in Sri Langka. It is true that many Buddha statues was escaped from the destruction by the wave of Tsunami. The point I wish to bring up is not about the Miracle of Buddha. The interesting story begin with this…
When the Tsunami hit Sri Lanka, there was a statue of the Buddha in the town of Galle, which didn’t topple when the waves rushed over it near the bus terminal. A Buddhist monk considered it as a sign. He said, ‘The people are not living according to religious virtues. Nature has given them some punishment because they’re not following the path of the Lord Buddha. The people have to learn their lesson.’
And a Roman Catholic priest cast the blame even wider. ‘This is a punishment from God, because everybody’s leading a wretched life’, he said. ‘All of us are to be blamed for the tsunami, there’s no sense of modesty or religiosity any more. People have gone so far away from God, it’s the message to say “.
A fishman from the fishing village said, ‘The mother has butchered her own children’, ’Either there is no God, or God must be cruel to do this.’
Many of the victims are asking, “Why us? Why me? Why my childrens ? Why my parents ? Other interesting features was the Christians and Hindus in India started co-operating with each other when a year ago they were fighting each other. And when Buddhists and Tamils in Sri Lanka started doing the same.
Is it true that altruism only trumps selfishness when we have to face a common adversity and drastic tragedy like this ?
Is it true that ’Pain and suffering are ‘God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ a quote from C.S.Lewis. Can’t we human work on the same goal on our climate change issues rather than fighting each others concept and argue about data ? Do we need a God’s Megaphone ?
Ref :
1. http://in.news.yahoo.com/050110/137/2ix3h.html
narziss said,
August 18, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I firmly believe that this is not true. C.S. Lewis’s quote, as with the perceptions of most other people around the globe, arise out of the necessity of explaining the seemingly inexplicable, and attaching irrational hypothesized arguments with everything, and hence making everything on earth as a symbol.
Firstly, I am not a fatalist, and secondly I am a pantheist. But that was just to make my disposition clear.
If you read “The Plague” by Albert Camus (he won the nobel prize for literature), which is one of the best pieces of literature that I have ever read; it conveys a very profound message. In the book, upon the onset of the plague, the catholic priest makes very similar remarks as to how the plague is a message from God that people have completely stopped living righteous lives; but later on when young, innocent, naive, infants, babies and kids start dying of the epidemic, the priest is fumbling for words in trying to reason out why God will do something like that to completely innocent souls.