A Humanist Response to the Tsunami Disaster

(published in The Irish News, 13 January 2005)

The thousands of deaths and the terrible destruction caused by the tsunami have provoked two responses. One is a tremendous upsurge of sympathy and solidarity with the victims and survivors of this natural disaster, manifesting itself in the millions of pounds of charity donated, the tons of food delivered and the arrival of aid workers from many parts of the world. That response has been inspiring and reassuring, giving us evidence of the great bonds of sympathy which join us all in one common humanity.

The other response has been more troubled, as religious believers have struggled to make sense of God’s role in those scenes of death, destruction and suffering. "Where was God in the tsunami?" It is a natural question to ask. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving and kind, then one would expect Him to do something to avert the disaster. God, we are told, is Our Father, yet any parent who knowingly allowed preventable injury to befall his/her children and made no effort to save them, would be guilty of criminal neglect. So believers are tortured by doubt and feel that their God has failed them.

Confronted with this theological challenge, religious leaders have tried to pacify their followers in different ways. ‘It is a punishment for sin’. ‘God moves in mysterious ways’. ‘We must follow Jesus and show compassion’. ‘Doubt should not be allowed to undermine faith’. And so on. Different brands of religion have adopted different strategies, but they all end up struggling to square the circle of God’s power and love failing the victims of the tsunami.

Why struggle to untie a tangled theological knot when you can cut right through it with the sword of reason? As a Humanist, my answer to the question, "Where was God in the tsunami?" is short and simple: He was nowhere. He did not act to save thousands of lives because he does not exist. You might as well ask why Jupiter did not intervene to save the inhabitants of Pompeii when Etna erupted in 75 AD. There is no spirit in charge of the universe. The traditional stories told by various religions of spirits in the sky, life after death, miracles and divine interventions, etc., are merely fictions: wish-fulfilling stories which helped people to live with the things they could not explain. Such fictions held the tribe together and gave it a sense of common purpose and identity.

The facts of our place in the universe are much less cosy than the religious stories, but they assert our common humanity, instead of dividing us into competing, and sometimes even warring, religious tribes. Yes, we have no life after death, which is a hard, unpitying fact, but it is true for all of us. That fact provides each of us with the bedrock on which our sympathy for others is founded. Likewise, all our ideas of morality and social organisation should be based on the facts of our common humanity. Just as we have devised the Highway Code to enable us all to use the roads easily and fairly, so our moral and legal codes should ensure that we can all benefit from living together in society. Of course, we do not always agree what the rules should be, but that is why we must have open discussion and free and democratic political structures, so we can establish rules and revise them later, if need be.

The challenge facing our society now is to make the transition from a culture based on religion to a culture based on rational beliefs. The minority of the population who do not hold religious beliefs is increasing every year, but most of them have never heard of Humanism. Social inertia ensures that education and the media continue to promote religion, even as its intellectual foundations are collapsing under it. It is a tragedy of our time that our schools, broadcasters and newspapers do so little to help people who have abandoned their religion to find Humanism. Humanism is a coherent philosophy which asserts that people can live happy, moral and productive lives without religion. Instead of the dubious comforts of heavens, hells, ghosts and goblins, it offers the plain, wholesome fare of One Life, One Earth, One Humanity. In face of the disaster of the tsunami, human solidarity is all we have, but it is enough.

Les Reid (www.humanists.net/belfast)