Haiti and When Religion Goes Bad
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Fantaticism is dangerous. It doesn’t matter whether you’re thumping the Bible, the Qur’an, or the Holy Pasta Bowl. At its best, religion can be a wonderful thing, a support system, an impetus to inspire the best in people. Unfortunately, it can also inspire the worst things. Of those bad things, the worst, and most common, is hate, and the people who use their religion to excuse their hate and their lack of good will and their bigotry.
Already the vultures and hate-mongers are starting the same thing with the natural disaster in Haiti that they yelled from the rooftops about Katrina (when they claimed the hurricane came because New Orleans was a sinful city). Pat Robertson says that Haiti deserved what they got and brought the earthquake down upon themselves because they made a deal with the devil to defeat the French.
Now . . . that’s a merciful and very Christian thing to say, isn’t it? Oh, that’s really following the example of Jesus, who taught forgiveness and serving and your fellow man. Yes, that’s a wonderful example of good Christianity . . . preaching hate and blame instead of love and peace. Way to go, Pat.
You know, Jesus really was a great guy. It’s the people who use religion to pull things like this that I can’t stand.
What the good Christians (and Muslims, and Jews, and Pagans, and Athiests, and Pastafarians, and whatever else) will be doing is actually going down there to help instead of trying to place blame where it is not due.
I’d like to encourage everyone to try to give some real and tangible help if you’re able. If you’ve got the means and know-how to go down there and do something to help, by whatever diety you choose, go down there and do it. If all you have is a bit of spare change to donate to one of the many charities down there, you can do that. Just saying “Oh, those poor people” and then going on with your day doesn’t help them one little bit.
If you want to send some help, here are some wonderful charities that could use your assistance.
- Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts. Learn more: http://bit.ly/6KiRtE
- UNICEF’s Earthquake Relief Fund information can be found here: https://secure.unicefusa.org/site/Donation2?df_id=6680&6680.donation=form1
- Partners In Health was already down there and were immediately hard at work. Donate to them here: http://www.pih.org/home.html
- The Doctors Without Borders Haiti donation link is here: http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
These people are innocents killed in a natural disaster that they had no control over, and they need mercy and help, not blame for something that is not their fault.
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