Is Haiti the result of a capricious God who intervenes in time and space or of a humanity who doesn't?

It is the result of tectonic shift. Pressure builds up in the earth’s crust and needs an outlet for escape. And that’s how earthquakes happen. God has more important things to do.

no. Seriously? no.

If you know a little bit about what we learned in school as kids, you would know why. It has nothing to do with gods or devils or people. The variation in death toll could be geograpical specifications, I don’t know.

You might also want to look at the difference in Infrastructure between both places. Disaster response capabilities, building codes and safety, geography also plays a role, city planning, a bunch of things are polar opposites in these two places and can have an effect on the outcome as far as the death toll is concerned.

It’s the population at the epicentre and the construction. You’re trolling, aren’t you?

You should go down there and ask them.

@liminal Not to be a jerk by correcting you, but the death toll is reaching 100,000, not 10,000. Huge difference.

My guess is that you are reacting to the comments of Pat Robertson or some other evangelical. If so, you are preaching to the choir.

I think the short answer to your question is the latter. Building codes also play a role.

If you dig deeper, you will find a profound failure of “humanity” on many levels.

Why yes, @liminal. You see, The problem with Haiti, and really just Port au Prince, is that it is sitting on top of a very large beezlebub nest. Those beezlebubs were getting ready to hatch, and God couldn’t allow that. Would have wreaked havoc in the world. So, He had no choice. The quake caused the nest to implode, killing almost all the vermin. It seems that one beezlebub got loose. That could be a problem, but not for a few centuries.

If anyone asks, I didn’t tell you!

God didn’t do anything. The Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault slipped, causing a m7.0 earthquake with an epicentre just 4KM below the surface less than 20KM from Port-au-Prince.

OK, so the Haitians didn’t build earthquake-hardened buildings. I guess that’s someone’s fault (this could also refer to groups of people or even just ‘people’), although it’s not immediately clear whose it is.

@chyna typo… thank you for the catch…

Whew @wundayatta GA and you can bet prayers are going up for you!!

No, it’s the result of physics, just like everything else.

The U.S. has very stringent building codes that require designers to take earthquakes into account, where applicable. Developing countries often do not have these codes.

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I see the pictures, and I have to wonder why anyone would ever say such a thing. It is so freaking typical. I wish that certain “evangelical” men would go into hiding and never speak in public again. These poor people are in crisis.

Retrofitting buildings and infastructure are the difference.

It was just a combination of a fault shifting, no money to make things earthquake proof, and no money for disaster response or even a second airport. We are talking about the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the largest earthquake to hit the Caribbean nation of Haiti in more than two centuries.

When you barely have money for food, you really can’t plan for every possible disaster.

You need two quick courses. One on Plate Tectonics, and one on building codes. Neither has to do with God.

It is because here in the US we build proper homes with the proper % mix of concrete to sand… in other countries it is cheaper to use higher sand percentages which causes buildings to liquefy in an earthquake.

There are specifications for a reason.

What do you think? I can only marvel at the question.

P.S. God wants you to stop involving him in your questions and using him as an excuse for things you don’t understand… he told me so

The reason why more people are killed in an earthquake like the one in Haiti are 1) there are a lot of people in Haiti (it’s densely populated) and the earthquake occurred in the most popular part of the country. 2) Haiti is a poor country, so buildings are not as strong, infrastructure in general is poorer, people are less healthy, this all combines and results in a high death toll.

Even if you believe in God, God doesn’t cause natural disasters. Nature does. Hence the term.

Blaming God or the devil is just scapegoating for people who don’t want to face the reality of nature.

Haiti has a long history of political corruption, going back to “Papa Doc” Duvalier.
The poverty and inadequacy of the housing, the inadequate infrastructure throughout the country and the lack of planning (such as building codes) made the people more vulnerable to natural disasters and made the country ill equipped to respond effectively to such a disaster.

The predisposition of the country to severe earthquakes is not anyone’s fault. There is no reason to believe that some supernatural force such as G_D selected these people for suffering.

@liminal I’m curious to learn exactly who you mean by “people”. People did or didn’t do something. Do you mean people who live in Haiti? People who live in other countries? Do you have something specific in mind when you say they “did or didn’t do something”?
It seems to me that when someone says “Somebody should DO something” there really is no specific action in mind, they just feel that “somebody” should be seen to be taking action, even if it is futile. I’m not accusing you of that hollow and blame shifting attitude. Just curious.

am I the only one who thought that @liminal was being deliberately ironic and provocative when asking this question?

@Adagio I agree with you completely.

@Rarebear well, that makes two of us anyway, I don’t feel so alone now :)

Apparently not, @Adagio, but I certainly didn’t see it that way. I thought it was an appalling question that essentially deserved the response that @Austinlad gave it.

As an agnostic, I certainly do not blame God. In this case, if we want to lay blame, it lies squarely with mankind. Because Haiti is so impoverished, even though it lies on an active fault area virtually none of the buildings were built to modern earthquake resistant architectural standards. Nobody in the world undertook to “transfer wealth” to them to let them build safe buildings. God help the poor fool who would even have suggested such a liberal thought.

The USA, by the way, has played a large role in creating the abject poverty and banana republic conditions Haiti is in today. We backed the murderous dictators Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier because they, however odious and evil, were willing to do Washington’s bidding in Central America.

Haiti finally got an effective, elected leader in Jean Bertrand Aristide. He was doing what he could to build Haiti’s economy in a way that benefited all Haitians and not just the tiny oligarchy who hold all the nation’s wealth. But our CIA helped back a coup to oust him because he wouldn’t play step-and-fetch-it for the USA as the dictators had done.

Until recently, other than knowing an area was earthquake prone, we had little warning of impending quakes. But earth sciences have made tremendous strides in recent years.This time, seismologists did issue a warning in 2008. But Haiti was too poor to do anything about the warning. And you think climatologists are taking heat for suggesting global warming requires a “transfer of wealth.” Imagine the heat if the seismologists had tried to convince the world that this was about to happen and we needed to spend money to mitigate the disaster.

We keep right on driving over cliffs, then spending 10,000 times what it would have cost to take a different route before we got to the precipice. Pay me now, or pay me later. The rule remains the same. It’s just sitting there waiting for enough of us to catch on.

@Adagio @Rarebear @Jeruba Soft smiles to you, realizing that provocative irony might not have been the way to go… yet i am not being flip… this question does stem out of my sense of sorrow, anger, and helplessness when it comes to the reality of poverty and hunger in our world. (Connecting those dots, I see this not as an earthquake problem but as a poverty problem starkly illuminated by a natural disaster.) I am also painfully aware of the percentage of the U.S. population that resonates with the Pat Robertson’s of the world.

@trillian While I don’t have a sense of “somebody should have done something” or “somebody did something” to prevent or make an earthquake happen I do have a sense of regret and sorrow over my own role in being part of a human community that tends to respond to poverty after the fact rather than before. (Here I am also clear on two things: 1. I think poverty is relative and will always be with us (but I don’t think hunger needs to be) 2. I am aware of the valiant and beautiful organizations and people who daily fight against poverty. Thank you to them all)

I didn’t speak about any of this in the description of my question because I am not looking for affirmations or rejection of my perceptions as much as I really want to hear how deeply people are thinking.

@ETpro you get a soft sad smile too

@Dr_C You have GOT to read a letter published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune ostensibly from Satan to Pat Robertson about the bad press Robertson’s comment was giving him. It’s a hoot.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: sometimes stuff just happens. We live in a cursed world, after all. End times prophecy talks about an increase in the number and average intensity of earthquakes in the last days, but doesn’t (afaik) correlate them with a specific actor.
My guess is that San Francisco’s earthquake caused fewer deaths because of more shock-resistant building techniques, faster response times, and better preparedness in general.

Let’s blame this one on God.

Most of Haiti is as old as your great great great great great great grandmother. Most of SanFran is as old as your great grandmother.
Also, last I checked Sanfran was not $1B in debt so most of the buildings have become quake proof or seismically upgraded.
God has nothing to do with science anymore than science has to do with God. Scientists have given proof as to why this happens.
Bringing religion in to it is about as wise as speculating the day my garage door broke off the hinges and almost killed me. Loose nuts, right? Haiti-Loose huts, right? As for the infrastructure surviving, when you build upon two plates that move things are bound to move with them.

@liminal – You say “I do have a sense of regret and sorrow over my own role in being part of a human community that tends to respond to poverty after the fact rather than before.”

None of us has the power to fix all the ills of the world. But each of us has the ability to help some small part of it. It doesn’t matter if poverty and natural disasters are decided upon by some sky god, or are simply the combination of chance, bad government, and bad luck. We can choose to help, or not.

I buy homemade bread every week (for a lot more than store-bought) from a group called “Fed by Bread.” The entire profit not used to buy supplies to make more bread goes to international organizations that specifically help to feed hungry children. Usually we have focused on Ethiopia, but right now we are sending money to help Haitian children.

I also send donations to Living Water International so that children in Africa can have clean water to drink, and I give my family members items from the Heifer International catalog, so that poor people in many places can be given farm animals so that they can become self-sustaining. I do other things as well, some local, some in places I have never been.

But there are only a few of us. Most of my friends that do this sort of thing are either in the military and hence not making big bucks, and some of us are retirees, on a fixed budget. Why not join us? It may make you feel better.

It has to do with infrastructure.

Shacks in Haiti are much more vulnerable than earthquake resistant buildings in the US.

@ETpro you have just blown my mind. Mad lurve for that link!

@liminal I have found on Fluther and other online groups such as this, that if you’re not known well that people don’t realize when you’re being ironic or sarcastic. It leads to posts like the one that was removed by the mods.

@liminal I have misjudged you and I’m sorry. Great response after a barrage of attacks from people in the same boat as I. Kudos.

@Rarebear – If you want to be more certain that folks will recognize your sarcasm, don’t forget to append the ~ (also known as a tilda).

@darwin I actually didn’t know that notation. Where do you append it? At the beginning or end?

@Rarebear – At the end.

tilde

@ETpro ROFL – LMAO (and I go to church sometimes).

@Rarebear Thanks for the advice… I just joined fluther, this is my first online group “thingy” and this was my first question! I think I have learned my lesson. Tilde is now my friend =D

@Dr_C thank you for words. It’s a quality person who is willing to say such things. I acknowledge that I could have been clearer.

I do have to admit that I was all jealous that you get to hear and understand God~ (I am hoping you’ve read the “tilde” exchange)

@liminal this is a great question – don’t let the flamies get ya down.

My duties in Haiti have been spread thin, so many parting, so little time.

@liminal lol… I have to admit when I’m wrong and in this case it was a HUGE mistake. The tilde however would have made things MUCH simpler. The problem with online Q&A sites is that tone is very hard to interpret from plain text.

@Darwin thank you for the invitation… I actively give of my time (locally) and money (locally and globally). I do my best to buy fair trade goods. I adore and support organizations like heifer international; http://www.kiva.org; http://doctorswithoutborders.org etc… I have not heard of fed by bread or living water international and will look into them… thank you for giving.

In this instance I am thinking of my role in systemic problems . I sit in my small comfortable town home, typing on my laptop, answering a question about window blinds with my family tucked in and safe. I think of the systemic problems that fuel the world’s slave labor, abject poverty, pandemic sickness and know, because of the essence of privilege and convenience, that I am unavoidably complicit. That, while I do my small part, it still isn’t enough to take me out of the problem. It is also the awareness that makes me want to be someone who invites others to dance away from the precipice @ETpro wrote about.

Tectonic shifts are the result of the natural laws. This can be both beneficial and detrimental.

Should human beings build large settlements near Earth’s most dangerous fault lines? If the answer is yes, humanity has to face the consequences.

@liminal Looks like you guys stayed up well into the night hashing this out. I tried So hard to frame my question carefully and without accusatory or other negative undertones. You didn’t really answer my question other than to say that “we” don’t address poverty until after the fact. Sigh….
I’m still not really clear on what you’re getting at, and I don’t understand how you were being sarcastic. I thought…. hell, I think I’m still not awake enough to think this through. Did you happen to read the other thread about bibles being sent to Haiti?
I don’t like poverty and starvation either, but I can only do so much, and that’s pretty much in my own areas. I give to Natures Conservancy, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and the ASPCA. I think everyone has things they like to donate to.
I great man was being hassled by one of his friends once for allowing a woman to use expensive oils on him. His friend pointed out that the stuff could have been sold and the money given to the poor. The man told him ‘We don’t have the resources to save everybody, look around you and be happy with the good things you have.’
That’s how I deal with things, because if you think about every injustice, every starving child, every little one crying because her mother hurts her, every suffering animal who doesn’t understand why it’s being hit, it can overwhelm you.
Even being part of an organization who does humanitarian things like the red cross or meals on wheels is not the final answer. Organizations are restricted every which way by red tape and bureaucracy. You do what you can. Period.

@Trillian i notice your sincere engagement. I appreciate your questioning. I heard you asking me if I was referring to a “something specific” or some sort of “should”, I wasn’t. My question was seeking to hear whether or not others did. I’m not sure what more to say beyond what I have in my previous posts. I will spend more time thinking about it.

But seriously, I am going to have to say this is mother earths doing, so none of the above, strictly tectonic plate movement. Also, what @fiddler said.

@liminal – You may not have heard of Fed by Bread because it is a new and small organization in my town. A friend of mine who attends the same church comes from a family of organic wheat farmers in the Midwest (Mennonite wheat farmers actually). They send her free organic flour, which gave her the idea. She started out about 6 months ago for something to do while she was awaiting the birth of her first child. After he was born she took a three-week break, but now she is at it again.

Living Water International was one I first heard of through our church again, but it has been around for a while.

It is illogical to think that G_d would punish the impoverished and weak as a punishment to the rich and powerful nations which continue to fail to help people in such situations. Those who suggest such things are promoting their own warped agendas.

short answer: humanity and plate techtonics combining to create tragedy, quite frankly.

There was nothing capricious about the earthquake. Forces we do not know enough about caused the earthquake (in an area known for its tremors). One day we may know why this particular quake occurred when and where it did. In the meanwhile, it is poor-spirited to blame God. It is the business of people to be prepared for disasters – Heaven help me, I am not prepared – and Haiti was especially unprepared, what with poverty and chronic misgovernment.

Alright. I’m coming clean.

It was me.

I did it.

I was into a deep meditation trance and accidentally began the incantation that can never be uttered.

Neither…the answer is much deeper than one question.