TSUNAMI
By Peter Fredson
Today, December 29, 2004, I spent several hours reviewing the Google News listings about the enormous Tsunami that has caused havoc from in Asia. For the past 3 days the reported deaths began mounting: 3,000, 9,000, 18,000, 28, 000 and 38,000. The expected totals, due to the Tsunami, disease and associated ills, will probably reach 100,000 or even more. Whole islands have been wiped out. In some cases there are not enough living people to bury the dead. Mass graves dug by bull-dozers are no consolation for Asiatic peoples who regard death as highly individual and to be honored with appropriate ceremonies.
After reviewing several hundred sites, including many blogs, I was struck by one unusual circumstance. All of the large news syndicates and large newspapers reported the Tsunami events in great descriptive detail. the temperature of the water, the height it reached, the time it struck, and the smashing of the waterfront buildings. The portable cameras of tourists and local residents were invaluable for filing the shock and awe of the Tsunami as it approached the shores, and as it swiftly rose higher and higher. We saw railroad trains lifted off their beds, the very rails torn away, and hundreds of people swept off their feet into the waters and sucked out into the oceans, never to be seen again.
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We saw the immediate aftermath. the buildings, cars and nameless debris floating everywhere, smashing everything in the path of the swirling water. We saw innumerable acts of individual heroism as the living tried to save the drowning victims. We saw mothers weeping as their babies were torn from their arms by the tidal wave
What I had expected did not occur at the sites I reviewed. That is: the pop psychology and avid fundamentalist explanations. No Katie Couric to ask the living, "How do you feel about that?" No Jerry Falwell (at least not yet) lambasted sinners for bringing the Wrath of God down upon themselves for being infidels or gays. No televangelists (at least not yet) explained how God could not be blamed, was not responsible, and how prayer will make everything better. In other words, unlike many other disasters the living rarely thanked God for the Miracle of their Survival.
The point is that the disaster was explained naturalistically, not supernaturalistically. If I may be forgiven for personifying the process, Mother Nature with its tectonic plates, was named as the proximate cause, not some vengeful, sadistic, punitive supernatural deity. whether Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist or any other. Undoubtedly supernaturalistic explanations will soon come flooding over us like another Tsunami, with countless suggestions for prayer. We know that the religious professionals will sharpen their rhetoric on this event, and we know that they will relentlessly request money.
We also know that reports of the coming Rapture, Apocalypse, and Arrival of Christ will inundate us, endlessly in days to come. We know that fortune tellers and diviners will tell us in great detail how they forecast the events, and some will point to Bible passages to show how some religious fanatic, 2,000 years ago, prophesied the exact events.
But meanwhile, it was refreshing to get semi-solid facts, although they referred to horrendous acts that must make the world weep.