Aftershocks and Afterthoughts

``... the earthquake has had the result of rehumanizing Pakistan in the eyes of the world. Before this happened, all that people believed they knew about us was that we were terrorists and camel riders and insane people...``
Gee, I wonder if the woman who lost here fve kids, buried in the rubble of their school, has entertained the idea, as you seem to, that this might be part of the Plan by the Most Merciful to rehumanize Pakistan, among other things.
``Then you look at the long term effects of the earthquake, the wiping out of a generation, the need to rebuild and reconstruct an entire nation within a nation, the need to get relief to people before the winter sets in, counseling people through the psychological trauma, adjusting as a nation to the new realities the earthquake has created. ``
``But as a Muslim I do have to believe in Allah`s plan for all of us, and I do have to accept that Allah`s plans are much wiser than anything we humans could think up.``
Or you could accept, instead, that what you`ve been taught, as Muslim/Christian/Whatever, about this entity called God really doesn`t add up. What more evidence could one ask for? If one is to deduce anything at all from this, it is that that if there is a god, he has Malignant Designs.
But what power has reason in the face of the faith drummed into our heads as kids, huh?
``A popular saying goes, ``If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans``. The reverse of that, really, could be, ``If God told us his plans, we would probably all cry``.``
ew. this has got to be the nadir of your literary contributions, Bina!
`` Not for nothing is Allah called both the Creator and the Destroyer – Al-Khaliq and Al-Mumit.``
Actually, if you consider that all `creation` (and don`t ask how it all began, coz a supposed God`s origin also fails that test) and all destruction can be explain well enough without the need to introduce a God into the explanations, the fact really is that it *is* for nothing that God is called all those meaningless names.

I would like to end with the idea that if such fantastic/fanciful ideas help you deal with the enormity of such catastrophes, then, hey, what`s the harm. But clearly, some harm is done when one indulges in such solipistic `searches` and apologetics for a benevolent, omnipotent divine, Being. (err, did someone change the meaning of benevolent, or of omnipotent, while i wasn`t looking??)
I mean, jsut look at the harm done to your thought processes, and writing style too-- not to mention that such religious goblydeegook probably encourages a certain fatalism that can lead to inaction (after all, Allah does know best!) where butt-moving is the need of the hour.
Oh well.. Bina, plz don;t take any of this criticism too personally. I`m railing against what I see as unreasonable religious convictions here, one of my pet peeves, as you know well.
Keep well, and leave the spritual ramblings (esp if they`re as contribed as those here) to the usual suspects.
And btw, yes, your education, if it does anything useful, should change you, which may well mean that you ``forget your beliefs and [change your] identity.`` You make these sounds like necessarily bad things, which makes one wonder as to the nature of the education imbibed...
By the way, as damage control goes, this was a good effort: ``Yes, the tectonic plates moved, but surely that had an effect that goes beyond the scientific?``
But really, you weren`t concerning yourself with the EFFECTS in the latter half of the article, but rather with CAUSES. Big difference there, coz, really, you really don`t need to know much beyond elementary seismology to understand the WHY`s of the earthquake -- except, of course, if you`re still trying to reconcile this apparently indifferent Nature with those ideas of a loving, just, omnipotent Being.