Hurricane

In the old days there were no weather forecasts, no weathermen on TV (no TV either) and no daily breakdown of weather and other meteorological issues on every newspaper and web site. I’m sure it does not shock you to learn that in the year 1,400 there were no web sites, no TV and no daily papers. However in parts of Europe there was this thing called the inquisition, which is nothing like weather forecasts.

People who believed (and everyone was forced to believe) had a very strong conviction that it was god who controlled the sky and the seas, it was god who decided if it will rain and therefore if it will be a good harvest year, or there will be storms, floods and heavy snow in winter. That was all god, and it had a very close link to human behavior, simply meaning that if you were good the weather would have turned out nicely for you, and if you were bad you should have prepared for a rough time.

Of course monotheistic religions borrowed the idea of weather and god from the pagans before them, they only thought that the idea of different gods taking care of different elements was ridiculous and somehow it was clear to them that’s its just one god who does everything.

See, in ancient times humans were afraid most of the time, from almost anything, because it meant trouble, disease and death. They did not have any way of telling if and when the sun would rise the next day, if it will snow in August and if night would not fall unexpectedly in the middle of the day for a few minutes. So there was some sense in developing an idea of naughty gods playing around with the weather, but today? when any 12 year old can see what the weather would be like? (well, not exactly how it will be like, but most of the time).

And somehow this not only escapes the minds of believers everywhere, it is so natural for them that today, using science, we can easily predict the weather, that believers have just shifted from the god who controls rains to something a little more dramatic, the god who controls earthquakes and hurricanes, and if one day science will discover a way to predict those they will probably move to another thing.

weather forecast — Weather Forecast - in the 1,400s it would have been a capital crime

glennandirene — Glenn Beck - Jesus and Meteorological Forecasts

You might think that an atheist like myself would not like Glenn Beck, for all kinds of reasons, well, its not true, I do like the man and he does make some sense sometimes. But Mr. Beck has a taste for the over drama and those critical moment when all eyes are focused on one point, to make his statements and go way, way over the top.

So Glenn Beck used the coming hurricane to explain to people that it is a message and that we should all understand this message, or else. And that is exactly why I love the man, he reminds us, in one swift press conference, of time long gone. It has not been a good hundred years since anyone from the church had come out to warn the people that god is mighty upset with their actions and is sending messages before he starts making us pay.

Hurricane “Irene” ended up being downgraded into a mere tropical storm when hitting New York City, but this should not divert attention from Glenn Beck’s warning and he efforts to get some more members in the church of latter day saints, who believe in an almost unblieveable collection of freaky versions to the old and new testaments, including Jesus’s visit to the Americas. The system is the same as it was in history, fear and panic serve religions and they are used to pointing the finger and blaming us humans for being very, very bad.

But let us consider for a moment that in fact every day on this blue planet is a mini disaster (or an actual disaster if you compare to the actual damage of this last hurricane) with thousands of children dieing from disease, hunger and wars. Young adults are raped and killed by the hundreds, and millions of people suffer from extreme weather conditions around the world. If god is indeed trying to grab our attention it has been doing so, consistently, for a couple of decades now, only to see how many of us let go of this idea and turn to the reality of this life.

How’s the Weather? Godless Weather Forecasts

Glenn Beck Makes It So Easy to Be an Atheist