Read Job. That book in the Bible discusses this exact topic through the story of Job.

BTW, I am not ignoring the pain in Asia. My best friend moved to Thailand last summer (one of the tsunamis' targets), so this event hits me close to home. My friend, fortunatly, is safe, and I thank God for that.

First, let me say I am glad that you wrote this essay because it is such an important subject to ponder. But...The story of the world is an enormous one. You have to look at the big picture. This tsunami, horrible, unspeakable as it was, is not big enough to use it to decide that God has turned against man. You have to look at the bigger picture. God has not violated Christmas day, man has violated that day. Christmas has become disgustingly commercialized. Peace and goodwill have been overriden by material desire and stress. This tsunami occurring on Christmas day could be used metaphorically in a novel. It mirrors how we have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas is not only about love, peace, goodwill, charity. It's about Christ's birth first and foremost which results in those things. If we didn't celebrate Christ's birth on this day we wouldn't celebrate the other things. This world is foresaking Christ and thus it has forsaken the other things celebrated on Christmas day. It is as if God is warning us, saying "The end is near (and if you read end-time prophesy, it is), repent and come to Me or experience the power of My wrath in which this tsunami will pale." God IS loving and He IS mercifull. Anyone who has truly experienced His love and mercy can never truly doubt its existence. God lets the earth run as it must according to his physical design and the results of the Fall, and the introduction of evil into creation. (For your essay to be completely comprehensive in its examination of Christianity you need to include the role of evil). God gives man free will but gives him plenty of opportunities to see the truth. (People will dismiss the eagerness of a child to believe in God as an illustration of the naive, innocent, untaught mind. But look at where the developed, complex, tutored mind gets grown people. I'm not saying that we should all remain on the mental level of children, but I do believe we should remember the phrase "from the mouths of babes" more often. After all, they're chronologically closer to heaven.) If, after a lifetime we refuse to see the truths God reveals time and again, who has forsaken who? God IS trying to reveal himself to you. Look at the beauty of a sunset, look at the beauty of the smallest act of kindness, at the beauty of the love between man and woman, parents and child, at the beauty of a congregation, arms lifted in worship to God. If God has forsaken man how can this beauty still exist. It can't come from man himself for how can a creature capable of killing thousands in a single swoop have originated beauty, love, etc. as well? Remember, if you are studying the tsunami in relation to Christianity it is not God who did it but Satan. Remember, God is willing to forgive all sins if we only repent to Him. Since I have choosen to take this step whenever I decide I don't have time to pray or be with God during my day, whenever I have forsaken Him, my life falls apart in comparison to how it is when I spen time with Him every day. When I do, even when the worst stuff happens I am at peace because someone larger than me who loves me is taking care of everything in the larger scheme of things. Yes, Christmas will now be a day of mourning as well as rejoicing. It is a sign of the condition of the world we live in where everything is turning backwards and upside down. However it is true that the Christian does not mourn as the heathen does. By that I do not mean that the Christian does not feel for the victims of this disaster, for I assure you we do, but that the Christian always has hope. God Bless you.

"Now" that we fail to listen to him. That has gone on from day one. He told Adam and Eve not to eat off the tree of knowledge and they did anyway. Man has continued on that path until today. Nothing has changed, ever. We have been on this sinful path, but god has still loved us regardless through it all. He led the Israelites out of slavery even after they sinned aginst him. He's helped endlsess ppl even after sin: Jona, Paul, me, etc. Also, about the events on Sunday with the giant wave, you're looking in the wrong book. Leave Genesis and go to the end in Revelation. He says in the end times there will be giant earthquakes, war, all the events in Israel and Palestine that are occuring now. That is what is happening. What he promised in Revelation is happening. He's not breaking a promises, he's fullfilling one.God Bless

What I think you're ignoring is the fact that there are two forces that play into the faith in God. There is Good and there is Evil. All any critics focus on is the shortcomings of God when it comes to protecting people. The fact of the matter is that, according to true Christian belief, Satan's (Evil) current reign of the earth is what causes events like this to happen.

Before you condemn the Bible, I suggest you take a look at what it really says. God does not forsake the human race, but He can't help non-believers, He can only help the ones who come to Him and ask for it, even the innocents. So Good can only protect those who refuse Evil. Not only that, but God's not supposed to interfere in catastrophe in the final days of the race, which many believe these days to be. Thus, there will be an increase in disease and death and natural disastors.

I think it's ridiculous of you to use such a terrible event as this one for your own selfish and destructive benefit in the criticism of what many right now are depending on to help them deal with their losses. It's not God's indifference and hate to the world that's causing problems, it's the indifference hate of the world to God. At least, according to Christian belief. Don't think that I'm preaching to you to be a Christian, or a better one at least, I'm only correcting you about what a true Christian thinks of events like these, so you can make better informed opinions (whether they be against me or with me) in the future.

I don't see how people can lose faith based on world occurrences. A bomb goes off in Israel, people ask, how could God exist? Does anyone realize that dis-believing in God because of the things he doesnt get involved in, is like dis-believing in Michael Moore because you don't like what he does.

I dont understand those of you who "challenge" your faith in God because of the tsunamis. God does not step in and keep every innocent person alive. God lets the world go on--both human and nature. He intervenes when neccessary, and the last time he seriously intervened was with Jesus. But He wants to allow the world to go on without his stepping in. Because the earthquakes happen doesn't mean there is no God. It means nature did what it chose to do, maybe as a reaction to something, maybe because continental plates under the water shifted causing a massing 9.0 seismic event which in turned caused waves of 30 feet to pound the surrounding area. That is not God's fault nor anyone else's by the reaction of the Earth.

-S