WHAT GOD HAS TO DO WITH THE TSUNAMI IN SOUTH EAST ASIA?

The 9.0 earthquake that followed with a terrible Tsunami on 03/11/2011 on East coast of Japan, which so far killed at least 5,000 lives and may be 3 or times number of missing are still unaccounted for. It reminded me the similar "nature disaster" happened just over 5 years ago in Thailand that prompted me to wrote a blog which I am now wanted to share it again. I hope you will find peace and love from reading it.

I wrote down these thought after discussed with friends & relatives, while we were in Orange County, California - watching the news about the Tsunami event occurred in South East Asia during New Year 2005. Many had lamented for those suffering people and some even expressed that why God allowed such thing to happen.

This is the same question when we often complained "Why me?" when bad thing happened to us, as if why bad things happened only not just to us but should be everybody too

Being born and raise in the war torn country, I've seen many tragedies that touch my heart and beyond of what I've seen here in the USA. People all over the world and through out generations, often complained about why God allowed calamities like earthquake, hurricane, tornado, drought, diseases, tsunami, etc... happened to people & living things on earth. Little they know that if the earth was closer to the Sun only a couple hundred miles (out of billion miles far away), ice from both poles will melt, plants will die because of the heat, oceans soon will be dry and that's the end of the earth. Or one of the poles was tilt to the Sun just few degrees, half of the earth will be like desert and the other half won't last long either because of the extreme cold weather. Or the Moon was only closer to the earth a hundred miles, then each cycle of tide, a wave could be as high as tsunami’s wave, will devastate the coast land, destroyed many boats & ships - as well as lives, hindered transportation & civilization. We all know that 4/5th of the earth is covered by water, if it’s less than that, there won’t be enough vaporization to form the atmosphere to protect the earth & all living things, or if there is not enough salt in the ocean’s water, then the water will vaporized too much, which build up a much thicker layers of clouds – which in turn blocking the Sun and of course, create many problem for all living thing on earth. In other word, the earth was perfectly designed and put in a perfect motion & place within universe.

We also all know that the river & ocean’s tide, beside God’s designed it to clean the beach, the shore, it also carry the soil, sediments and nutrition from one place to another, to nourish the area has been damaged and also to replace the soil, land has been lost.

We concentrated & built many tall, heaviest building on one area, we dig giant holes (like the Hoover dam, the current Yangtze River dam project, which it will be the world largest dam and can be seen from the Space station with an naked eyes, as it finished in 2009, not counting after we empty the oil fields beneath the ocean floor, which created plenty of gigantic air pockets that could be collapsed in the distant future), we removed billion tons of rock & dirt from one place to another, we diverted many rivers to concentrate million cubic ton of water into one place. Of course, God's law for nature using by either using rain & water, or sometime earthquake, volcano, land slide, etc... to move land/dirt to another place to balance the earth's axis. From the first nuclear bomb exploded during the 1940s, there were hundred or even thousand nuclear explosions under the ground ever since, which changed the geo-structure of it, and perhaps because during the last 15 years, hundred more of explosion like these were created by India & Pakistan, event like Tsunami happened last week was perhaps, the end result.

In other word, if an ignorance neighbor, who dig a giant hole very next to your house, to build his swimming pool, without any plan to prevent the corrosion of your house’s foundation, which in turn makes your house collapsed.  Would you going to condemn & sue your neighbor or just simply blame it was God’s work?

So the question is not whether God is fair, but were we fair to treat all of His creation, including our body?

Someone asked me whether does past sins has anything to do with the Tsunami in South East Asia on Dec 29, 2004? This is a very interesting question for many Christian and Muslim, as well as non-Christian, like Hindu and Buddhism, whom believe any current event/action is always related to our past karma.

If you’re believe or at least somewhat agree to the previous argument about “God is fair” (or God

has nothing to do with the Tsunami event), then you’re indeed subscribed to the “we reaped of 
what we sowed” philosophy.  However, let push a little bit further: If all of the Tsunami 
victims’ collectible past sins were so great that such enormous disaster should happened to 
them, then what did all the innocent victims & children had done to be deserved a same 
punishment like that? It’s the same, when a nuclear bomb was dropped on a city, where both 
the guilty or innocent victim, will share the same fate. 

Another similar situation is the story of  the Titanic,  which not all of the approx. 1500 perished 
souls were sinful enough to end up in such tragedy,  and speaking of the Titanic’s tragedy, 
unless you can get far way from the sinking ship, otherwise you should know that, no matter 
how strong or how good a swimmer you’re, a huge sucking power from the vortex of water will 
drag you into and down to the bottom of ocean along with the ship and all the passengers.

The same analogy can also be applied to our karma. Sometime innocent people, such as 
children, may share the same fate with others, as the combined past deeds were created such 
a force that nothing could prevent it from happened to the bystanders. You’re now might ask the 
following question:  How the “unseen” of past sins of a mass can transformed & induced such 
terrible event that impact everyone, innocent or not ?

For this question, it reminded me the story of the lost city of Atlantic, the Vesuvius’s volcano 
eruption, which buried the city of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD, as well as many, many 
similar historical gigantic calamities. Were these people so wicked, so sinful to deserve the 
same fate?

Of course, not all should be perished in such tragic death, and even so, it’s not just because 
of their current or past “sins”, but because of their ignorance, and/or attached too much to the 
place that they think they can’t live without. For example, people in California, who live on top 
or near  the San Andreas fault line (or the Japanese who live on top of the earthquake ring 
on Pacific ocean), either that they don’t know or refuse to move else where, even though 
they’re aware that they are on top of it, and could be in serious situation when an earthquake 
occurred.

Even with an early warning, not all of the Tsunami’s victims can escape from the tragic death 
because either they don’t know how serious it was or just ignored it.

Same story with the Pompeii and Herculaneum’s disaster. Many were able to escape but came 
back few days later and die when the volcano erupted again few times after that.

Therefore, ignorance and/or attachment – not the “sins” - to a place that we know it’s dangerous 
to us often are the reasons for a tragedy such as events above. Finally, I hope this will conclude 
the subject of why calamities, like the recent Tsunami event happened in South East Asia, land 
slide at La Conchita of California (01/11/2005), as well as many other in the past, present and 
future, as tragedies will come to our life, so at least it may give us  inner peace and go on with 
our life, when we have to face one of these events again.

When you go to a jungle, you will encounter wild animals, because “it came with territory”.  If you 
move and live in California, chance are you’ll  experience with a major earthquake. Similarly, 
you might have to face the tornados in Kansas, or the hurricanes in Florida, because “it came 
with territory”. When you go to work, if you’re lucky to have a good & understanding manager, 
or a bad one that could make your life miserable, and soon or later you will have to deal with 
office politic, because “it came with territory”.  When we married, we have to face all the 
tribulation of being a married couple, then some more from having children if any, because 
“it came with territory”.

Thus, in this earth, all of the nature events (not disasters, because itself alone, there is no moral 
or judgment in it)  will happen, same true as a human being: we will grow up, go school, go to 
work, marry then may be divorce, getting old, get sick and we all eventually die, because “all of 
it came with territory” when we arrived into this world. 

Remembered, at least once in your life, you encountered a terrible situation and could not 
escape then suddenly you’re awaked, and were you feel so glad that it was just a nightmare?

This is why the Hindu, Buddha often tell us that this life is just like a dream, it’s a God’s drama 
where we volunteered to be an actor/actress and participated in it. All those gurus and saints 
also tell us that we should not be attached to anything in this earth, treat it as we’re on vacation 
on earth for a short while. 

Of course, while we’re on vacation or camping trip, the hotel or the tent won’t have all the warm 
and convenient like we get used to at home, and after a long trip like that, we all yearned for the 
“home sweet home” feeling. Christian’s bible preaches the same thing, as Jesus said: 
“Whatever belongs to Caesar return to Caesar, whatever belongs to God, return to God”, and 
the parable of the Prodigal son, where a son - after spending all of his inheritance and face a 
miserable life – he decided to go back home and was warmly & happily welcome by the father. 
God trying to tell all of us that we should live this life just like a camping trip. Have fun, make 
friend and enjoy with one another. When all has been said and done, we should go back to 
him and regret nothing of this life on earth. Otherwise, by  keep on going back (reincarnation), 
we should except all the facts of life, of this world, because “they all came with territory”. 
Otherwise, we’ll like those ghosts, who still wandering on the beaches, and didn’t want to 
come home yet.

Finally, if someone talking about God’s punishment for sin committed by people who died in the Tsunami, earthquake or any other disaster, I can only tell them this – even as a lowly and sinful as I am, if I could forgive all people’s sin and let them all into Heaven, I would in a heart beat, do they think that God has less compassion and love than I am?