They’re on a mission from God

How is this any different than people in the dark ages ascribing every little thing to a supernatural diety? I mean, who would have thought that these people live in the 21st century?

Steve Lefemine, an antiabortion activist in Columbia, S.C., was looking at a full-color satellite map of Hurricane Katrina when something in the swirls jumped out at him: the image of an 8-week-old fetus.

“In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion,” said Lefemine, who e-mailed the flesh-toned weather map to fellow activists across the country and put a stark message on the answering machine of his organization, Columbia Christians for Life.

… In Israel, Christian journalist Stan Goodenough was struck by the juxtaposition in recent days of Jewish settlers being removed from their homes in the Gaza Strip and Americans being forced out of their homes in New Orleans.

“Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible . . .,” he wrote in a column for the Web site Jerusalem Newswire. “What America is about to experience is the lifting of God’s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel.”

In Philadelphia, Michael Marcavage saw no coincidence, either, in the hurricane’s arrival just as gay men and lesbians from across the country were set to participate in a New Orleans street festival called “Southern Decadence.”

… “But we believe that God is in control of the weather,” he said in a telephone interview. “The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. . . . We’re calling it an act of God.”

… Ted Steinberg, a professor of history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, argues in his 2000 book, “Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America,” that Americans have often seen divine will in earthquakes, floods and droughts whose consequences have been worsened by improper planning.

In his opinion “as an atheist,” he said, Katrina “was an unnatural disaster if ever there was one.” By building levees along the Mississippi and draining marshland, he said, the Army Corps of Engineers and local officials hastened the sinking of New Orleans below sea level and destroyed the barrier islands that protected the Gulf Coast.

… McFarland of Focus on the Family said “it’s sad that people would take the opportunity to spin this into some kind of political sound bite” and blame the government.

“Are we taking the opportunity to make this into a religious sound bite? I suppose so,” he said. “But that is only at the prompting of people’s questions. Human suffering, and the longing for answers, and the desire to process this spiritually and emotionally — that’s a defensible reality. Whereas George W. Bush creating global warming, and consequently Katrina, is speculative at best.”

Wow — some people are just f**ked up and backwards beyond belief. To claim that Bush’s policies that increase global warming are speculative but then say that Katrina was retribution from God is fact… wow. The delusional nutcases have just gotten too much attention and power in this country.