It looks like one of the stronger hurricanes ever is making landfall in Jamaica. Little may be left standing in many areas. They need our prayers, and our help getting through this.
While strong hurricanes have been around, it seems obvious that man made climate change has contributed to more frequent and stronger storms. God held Israel corporately accountable for their transgressions. Why should we not be held accountable as well?
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Definitely. I had several coworkers this summer who were from Jamaica… hoping they all stay safe.
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Phil, I join in prayer for Jamaica and all those in the path of this storm. May protection, mercy, and healing surround them.
Since you mentioned climate change, I’d like to share a reflection I’ve been working on for some time. Beyond carbon levels or atmospheric models, I believe creation itself reflects the moral and emotional currents of humanity. When wars erupt, when hatred swells unchecked, when collective anger becomes the dominant vibration, it does not simply stay confined to politics or borders. It ripples. Like waves in the quantum field, what we release — whether peace or fury — reverberates through creation. Fix this and you will also solve the over consumption problem leading to adverse effects
In that light, natural disasters can sometimes be seen as pressure relief — the earth bearing the weight of our unrest. Just as anger is “caught” and amplified in human interaction (one person’s fury sparking another’s), the same kind of imbalance seems to echo at a larger scale: tempests, quakes, floods, fire. The cosmos has its own way of rebalancing.
Of course, we still need responsible stewardship of the planet. But I also believe that what we sow spiritually and emotionally matters as much as what we emit physically. Creation listens. When humanity rages, creation groans. When humanity prays, creation breathes easier. That’s why prayer is not only comfort — it’s participation in recalibrating the balance between us and the world entrusted to us.
So yes, I pray for Jamaica, but I also pray that our world awakens to the truth that both climate and conscience are entangled. If we sow mercy, peace, and reverence, perhaps creation itself will reflect more of that back to us.
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We’ve seen nothing yet.
Does your unbelief itself give you a sense of purpose here? Or are you simply acting as the resident contrarian — maybe even a paid contributor? I ask because you seem ever-present, always quick with darts and arrows, but rarely offering substance or real depth behind them. So what’s your real aim in engaging here?
And since this thread began with prayer, let me press you on that. No, I wasn’t expecting you to join in offering prayers — but then, what do you offer when disaster strikes and lives are lost? Do you reach for a mathematical equation to console the victims? Do you point them toward your “infinite universe” as if that grants peace of mind? Or do you perhaps say, tongue in cheek, “May Darwin bless and protect you”?
I ask sincerely: what does hope look like for an atheist in the face of tragedy? How do you express solidarity, comfort, or blessing when there’s no higher hand to appeal to? This is the first time I’ve posed this question directly, and I’d honestly like to hear your side.
Paid?! Nobody can afford me. My sense of purpose emerges in absolute purposelessness, because it’s evolved to. It’s as shallow as my neurons four billion years in the making. What greater substance do you hope for that is coherent, warranted, justified, true? When disaster strikes I weep with the weeping. I’m numb with the numb. I wouldn’t dare try and console the inconsolable. And when asked for prayer I always do immediately, out loud. I would do so unbidden if I thought it would in any way console, in any way express fellow feeling, hope. Common humanity. Solidarity. Gratitude.
And every time thoughts and prayers are invoked after a mass killing, it makes me want to puke.
The two are reconcilable.
This feels like more than just contrarian-speak… so let me ask plainly: what set you off against the Designer? For most, it’s something raw, injustice, a disaster that takes lives without warning, abuse, betrayal, or the death of someone they loved before their time. Which one is yours, if you’ll even admit it?
(Pardon the Jungian psychoanalysis here, but I’d wager you’ve leaned more on Nietzsche or Freud than on any true reckoning with God Himself.)
Thank you for posting this. I stand with you in this, and also now for the recovery. I saw firsthand in my community the wrath of Hurricane Ian. It changes lives forever, takes others. My community is not the same, but we have moved on together.
Melissa landed with I think 30mph winds higher than Ian, and the topography of Jamaica is much more dangerous than here.
They will need help and prayer for a long time. We must pray for the preservation of life, even now as it leaves. We must pray people step in to help, even ourselves if we can.
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If?! Design? What design? There is no design. Order does not require purpose. And the meaningless suffering of existence is only explicable by there being no explanation.
Why would I pray any of those things? Unless I was there, suffering with the suffering. When I believed without knowledge, I very rarely and exponentially diminishingly believed that my prayers could change God.
definitely an inward Nietzschien… Maybe you’ve been given over to “Strong Delusions” 