Fetus/Katrina satellite image CRAP leads WaPo story on "Act of God?"

[gauguin57]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301408.html?sub=AR

An Act of God?
Where Most See a Weather System, Some See Divine Retribution

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A27

Steve Lefemine, an antiabortion activist in Columbia, S.C., was looking at a full-color satellite map of Hurricane Katrina when something in the swirls jumped out at him: the image of an 8-week-old fetus.

"In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion," said Lefemine, who e-mailed the flesh-toned weather map to fellow activists across the country and put a stark message on the answering machine of his organization, Columbia Christians for Life.

"Providence punishes national sins by national calamities," it said. "Greater divine judgment is coming upon America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion."

Lefemine is far from the only person to see the wrath of God in the awesome damage that Katrina has wreaked on the Gulf Coast. As with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and last year's South Asian tsunami, the hurricane has spawned many competing explanations and apocalyptic visions from across the religious and ideological spectrum

[whistle]

1. My God, what absolute wackos, it looks like a shrimp to me

[MADem]

11. The shrimpboats are a comin'....

Why does WAPO cover this shit? This is absolute CRAP!

[Solly Mack]

2. He can take his wrath of god bullshit and shove it up his ass

fuck him and fuck anyone and everyone who believes this kind of shit

[progressivebydesign]

3. I have to keep reminding myself that we dont' live in Afghanistan.

Cuz with allt he religious fanatics running around I get confused sometimes.

[Dudley_DUright]

4. They're not called the "American Taliban" for nothing

Exactly the same hateful world view.

[Cocoa]

5. it's a good story, imo

those people are out there saying what they're saying, it's good to get a little perspective on it.

<snip>

Ted Steinberg, a professor of history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, argues in his 2000 book, "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America," that Americans have often seen divine will in earthquakes, floods and droughts whose consequences have been worsened by improper planning.

In his opinion "as an atheist," he said, Katrina "was an unnatural disaster if ever there was one." By building levees along the Mississippi and draining marshland, he said, the Army Corps of Engineers and local officials hastened the sinking of New Orleans below sea level and destroyed the barrier islands that protected the Gulf Coast.

"Blaming God," he said, "is moral hand-washing."

That view was echoed this week by environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, which said the Bush administration bore some responsibility because it had "worked tirelessly to derail international agreement on climate change and sought to put narrow U.S. economic interests above global climatic stability."

McFarland of Focus on the Family said "it's sad that people would take the opportunity to spin this into some kind of political sound bite" and blame the government.

[gulliver]

6. Should some Republicans be dealt with like savages?

You know, bring them glass beads and trinkets like the early explorers did with the cannibals. Play on their superstitions. That's how Bush pockets a bunch of them with this idea that he could be chosen by God and other such travesties. Bush appeals to their savage superstitions and taboos.

These folks dress like you and me, but they are Aztecs inside. So maybe the Dem party needs a department of savage relations. We can stir up a couple of self-styled shamen to declare Bush is bad medicine for the earth people. He bring bad time. Gods not happy...

This isn't for the thinking people. It's just for the Pat Robertson follower demographic. We need outreach to the backward. Maybe a sort of anthropological study... I dunno. Dems have a bone-in-the-nose gap.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. These wrath of God types should take themselves out of OUR

misery and hurry themselves along to the afterlife...then our society's collective IQ and recover and we can get down to the practical matters of progress. What keeps these people around?

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I wonder if Fred Phelps need more folks on his picket line?

This asshole would fit right in.

[AlCzervik]

9. i'm glad they had this article, it shines the bright light on the nuts.

[Lorien]

10. Where's the photo?

I only saw one of a burning building with the story.


These people are just sick; they'll twist EVERY situation to fit their agenda!

[chalky]

12. That Focus on the Family jackass is one deluded MoFo

"Are we taking the opportunity to make this into a religious sound bite? I suppose so," he said. "But that is only at the prompting of people's questions. Human suffering, and the longing for answers, and the desire to process this spiritually and emotionally -- that's a defensible reality. Whereas George W. Bush creating global warming, and consequently Katrina, is speculative at best."

So let me understand this:

The deaths from Katrina is God's retribution = reality.

Katrina is the product of Global Warming and the destruction of NO is due to the eradication of the wetlands = speculative.


McFarland = insane.

[gauguin57]

15. Focus on the Family can FOCUS ON MY FANNY

Eeejits

[Blue-Jay]

13. Religious extremism = Insanity

Doesn't matter which religion, either.

[Applan]

14. Looks like a image of Bush with little horns growing out of his head to me

These people are just nut cases