UofA study: how cultural beliefs shape natural disaster recovery and

[sinkingfeeling]

preparedness. Interesting study of how religion and culture play apart in the willingness of people to prepare for natural disasters, such as earthquakes.

http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/9003.htm

<snip> FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A University of Arkansas researcher and his colleagues have found that fatalistic religious beliefs can affect how people perceive risk and recover from natural disasters and how these attitudes shape the way cities are rebuilt.

"If you were devout you were saved," Paradise said. Survivors suggested that others may have died because they were munafiq, hypocrites, and said they believed the Muslim tenets but did not follow these teachings. The survivors cited not following the pillars of Islam, eating pork and drinking liquor as examples. These beliefs were linked to educational level, but even a third of well-educated Muslims with a baccalaureate or higher said they believed that God determined who lived and who died in the Agadir earthquake.

[Lindacooks]

1. Not much makes me angrier than some idiot simpering "God saved me

from the flood" when they were just plain LUCKY. Believing that and saying that is a slap in the face to those who were UNLUCKY enough to die in a disaster.