Faith Divides the Survivors and It Unites Them, Too

[Rhiannon12866]

By AMY WALDMAN

Published: January 12, 2005

AMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka - Next door to four houses flattened by the tsunami, three rooms of Poorima Jayaratne's home still stood intact. She had a ready explanation for that anomaly, and her entire family's survival: she was a Buddhist, and her neighbors were not.

"Most of the people who lost relatives were Muslim," said Ms. Jayaratne, 30, adding for good measure that two Christians were also missing. As proof, she pointed to the poster of Lord Buddha that still clung to the standing portion of her house.

The earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 150,000 people reached from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim majority nation, to India, the world's largest Hindu one. It hit Thailand's Buddhist majority and Muslim minority, and this tiny island country, which is mostly Buddhist but has sizable Hindu, Muslim and Christian populations.

Across nations and religions there has been a search for explanations of not only why the tsunami came but why it killed some and not others - and a vibrant, sometimes virulent cottage industry is supplying them.

Some discern a lesson that humanity should unite, citing the bodies of people of all religions tumbling together into mass graves, while others see affirmations of the rightness of their own path. Amid sympathy, there is judgment; beneath public compassion, a private moralizing.

The tsunami may also deepen religious and ethnic divisions, perhaps dangerously. In Sri Lanka in recent years, dozens of churches have been attacked by militant Buddhists. It is the Christians, some Buddhists say, who are to blame for the tsunami.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/international/worldspecial4/12religion.html?oref=login

[Solly Mack]

1. Reading and shaking my head at the same time

damn

why can't people just accept that (sometimes) bad things happen without condemning others in the process?

why must people place themselves above others simply because they survived a disaster and their neighbor didn't?

why must my god is better than your god play into this?

I grow so tried of the ignorance.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Me, too. It just widens the divide between people

And this story particularly disturbs me because of the current prejudice against Christians, and particularly Muslims, in today's world. We don't need anymore violence, no matter what the reason, but especially not over religion, which has already become a flashpoint. No matter how little sense this makes, this is one way that those who are so profoundly affected will try to make sense of it.
:scared:

[Solly Mack]

3. I understand they are just trying to make sense of it and, like you, I

fear the violence this could spark between the various religions.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Thank you. I understand, as well.

These people are just trying to make some sort of sense out of a terrible, unbelievable tragedy. That they would turn to religion is not surprising, but that they would turn this into a religious blame-game is not so much surprising as very scary. I welcome any sort of help that comes to these people, from every corner, but they have to be sensitive to the religious differences. The resentment of the Muslim world was awakened by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and Indonesia, who was the hardest hit, but is also the largest Muslim nation, is already suspicious of U.S. help and wants us out very soon. We have to be so very careful of proselytizing, which the religious right is known for. We need to provide help and support, without religious overtones, difficult, I know, for those who are seeking to convert people, but will just make enemies among those who we seek to help. To me, this makes sense, but I'm not concerned about anyone's religion, just that I'm grateful that they survived, against all odds, and aware that they need help.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. God causes it to rain on the just and unjust

Some things just happen. Instead of attributing their survival to one faith or another, I hope most survivors, once they get over the shock, do some self-examination. Not why people of my faith were spared, but why they were spared. What good can they do with the time given to them? After all, they can view life from now on as a gift....

Of course, if we all looked at life that way, and looked only to how we could personally be better people, I think the world would be a better place.

[Solly Mack]

5. But I don't think they were "spared", that suggest something was

in control of who got "spared" and who didn't, and I don't buy that.

I know some people do and I respect that people hold such beliefs, I just don't agree with it.

Of course, you may mean the word "spared" in a different way from how I am taking it but, please, allow me to explain what I'm hearing.

I don't buy people are spared bad things just so they can rethink their life and dedicate it to something "good." The babies that survived surely won't be wondering what they did wrong. They'll just know, one day in the future, that they lived through a tsunami, but without all the conflicts of guilt and other emotional baggage. Unless some adult forces the concept of guilt upon them that is...and tells them they must somehow be better than others or that they must now be all good since they were "spared"...they survived, nothing more, nothing less.. and they don't owe anyone anywhere for having survived.

I don't believe I was spared for any great purpose when I fell off a mountain..a fall that had killed every single person to date...until me. I survived...nothing more, nothing less. I don't owe anyone anything for survivng either.

I do good because I want to do good. Not because I was "spared". I did good things before I fell and I continue to do good things. I'm glad I survived but I don't feel as if I were given a second chance to correct any wrongs or make the world a better place. I just survived.

I hold neither guilt nor obligation for surviving.

Yes, it would be a better world if all people dedicated themselves to being the best possible people they could be... but surviving a tsumani or a killer fall from a mountain doesn't put people in a special category for obligation.

I had people tell me how it did after I fell and it's just not true. I wasn't spared. I survived. I wasn't obligated to examine my life because I did survive. I didn't have some special knowledge on just how precious life is because I survived. You don't have some great awakening just because you don't die.

I lived. I'll not have anyone place a burden on me because of it. And I'll not place that burden on anyone else either.

I hope the survivors can get on with their life, because that's all any of us can do.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. but they have a choice on how to live their life

and by sparing, all I meant was they were alive while others were dead. That has got to make most people think about their lives, and how they have lived them. I think that most people who have been involved in a trauma like this wind up taking stock of their lives and changing it in some way-some good, some bad. But I seriously doubt that anyone just 'goes on living' like they did before.