Did God Put Ancient Earthquakes On Faults?

[David Sklansky]

Since an omnipotent God can disobey any law of physics at a drop of a hat ,and since some believe he does in fact "intervene" if he sees something he dislikes, I have this question about earthquakes. It is sparked by a poster on the SMP forum named Not Ready who tries mightily to remain theistic without contradicting science. He claims that nowadays God does few if any of the big miracles like he did in biblical days. But he thinks earthquakes could be an exception. Especially given the fact that most earthquakes seem to be striking non Christian countries. (The fact that even in these cases there are undoubtedly a lot of Christian innocent victims is off this subject.)

Meanwhile Not Ready and many others claim that miracles of this sort are done by God within the laws of science. Not because he is forced to do them that way, but rather because he needs people to have faith in his existence even without irrefutable evidence. Like a major earthquake far away from a fault. (I'm assuming that never happens. If I'm wrong, please don't quibble. The general point I'm getting at still applies.)

So my question is were old time earthquakes that human science will never be able to investigate always on faults? And there is another question. Suppose there are some miscreants who deserve an earthquake now but don't live on a fault. Are we to assume thyat God used his omnipotence to forsee their sins and planned out the appropriate faults billions of years ago to punish them appropriately while still fooling the geologists?

[seano34]

Not sure I follow the quaestion. But logic and religion aren't the best of bedfellows.

But for those that are interested -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intraplate_earthquake

[KingOtter]

Maybe he just implanted some sort of urge in sinners to congregate on or around faults. That way he can get away with the punishment but not have the scrutiny of the scientists by having to perform a miracle quake.

Maybe that's where Satan's power is more influential... near the gates of Hell. Which is convenient for God.

What a strange coincidence that the more we know about how things work the fewer 'miracles' occur... and when we were a largely ignorant bunch miracles were more frequent.

[Peter McDermott]

[ QUOTE ]

Meanwhile Not Ready and many others claim that miracles of this sort are done by God within the laws of science. Not because he is forced to do them that way, but rather because he needs people to have faith in his existence even without irrefutable evidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

I love this idea of a vain, self-centred God who devotes all of his time to setting up tests of faith that us flawed, weak sinners will inevitably fail.

[ QUOTE ]
So my question is were old time earthquakes that human science will never be able to investigate always on faults?

[/ QUOTE ]

These earthquakes are simultaneously both on-faults and not-on-faults, until such time as we have tools that allow us to observe them.

[ QUOTE ]

And there is another question. Suppose there are some miscreants who deserve an earthquake now but don't live on a fault. Are we to assume thyat God used his omnipotence to forsee their sins and planned out the appropriate faults billions of years ago to punish them appropriately while still fooling the geologists?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. God uses lightning to deal with the sinners who don't live near fault lines.

[NotReady]

Wow, you misrepresented my positions twice in one post.

[StregaChess]

This is an absurd concept at several levels. I’ll come out of the closet a bit, about 200 or 300 years ago I was a theology major, in my current life I’m a commodity manager, what a contradiction, right? OK first….. I see no evidence that God typically turns his back on the laws of physics. Yes there are miracles that Jesus preformed and yes some of these violate the laws of physics as we know them. However the purpose of the Bible is to tell the story of the salvation via Christ, it’s not a scientific text book and it’s not intended to be so. Even stories like the flood and Noah should not be interrupted out of context. The goal of keeping a blood line pure or ensuring that some fault in society was eliminated, or fulfilling a prophecy does not have a damn thing to do with Native Americans living 8,000 miles way. Hence the “flood” by logic and by the specific language in the earliest manuscripts does not rule out a localized flood.
This is just one example of how “lunatic religious zealots” run the other way and build belief systems that are carried into the public mainstream as “what most Christians believe” that have nothing to do with the facts.

[ QUOTE ]
old time earthquakes that human science will never be able to investigate always on faults?

[/ QUOTE ]
It’s possible in a theoretical sense as I would not box God in but I see no reason logically that it would not be a on a fault.

[ QUOTE ]
Suppose there are some miscreants who deserve an earthquake now but don't live on a fault

[/ QUOTE ]
This whole concept that this “not ready” is putting forth is very disturbing. Basically as I alluded to earlier the whole “stuff that happen time” was in order to bring forth this path of a Christ and salvation, it’s done case closed. God does not go about punishing miscreants as you call them. The laws of nature and mankind do that well enough, that’s why we have aids, bombs and natural earthquakes. Another misconception of the zealots is that nature is good and pure and always justice and that where we see deviation from that God is in play. Nothing could be further from the truth, if man has a fallen nature so does the world we live in. Life happens and it’s not always good…..

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

This whole concept that this “not ready” is putting forth is very disturbing.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure you mean the whole misrepresentation DS is putting forth.

[Buccaneer]

I can understand that OP at every opportunity tries to deny the existance of any God that he has himself not created.

I can not understand why DS would single out one poster like this. [ QUOTE ]
Meanwhile Not Ready and many others claim that miracles of this sort are done by God within the laws of science. Not because he is forced to do them that way, but rather because he needs people to have faith in his existence even without irrefutable evidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I am not mistaken fault lines do not always run on the surface of the earth. In fact because the earth is a dynamic body the faults miles below us are more dangerous that the ones on the surface because they have never been relieved of thier energy like surface faults have.

As for non christian countrys getting the brunt of modern earthquakes maybe they are just very very very selective. Like San Fran and the rest of California. Not my belief but just something to think about.

[ QUOTE ]
So my question is were old time earthquakes that human science will never be able to investigate always on faults?

[/ QUOTE ] Well we don't know that we will never be able to study 'old time' quakes. I am sure there are fault lines burried much like the old caravan road to Ur was hidden and burried. We looked for that even though it was a myth and there it was.
[ QUOTE ]
Suppose there are some miscreants who deserve an earthquake now but don't live on a fault.

[/ QUOTE ] I think other problems like a plague, or flood or famine or war could do. You see why don't you?
[ QUOTE ]
Are we to assume thyat God used his omnipotence to forsee their sins and planned out the appropriate faults billions of years ago to punish them appropriately while still fooling the geologists?

[/ QUOTE ]
I really dont think that geologist would be harder than weather scientist to fool do you? I mean half the southeast coast was susposed to be blown away by multiple and massive hurricanes the likes we have never seen this year. We had only one and it was not much more than a big blow.

[bema03]

[ QUOTE ]
So my question is were old time earthquakes that human science will never be able to investigate always on faults?

[/ QUOTE ]

If this is a scientific question, my answer is I don't know. If this is a spiritual question (meaning, do I believe...?) then I also don't know.

[ QUOTE ]
And there is another question. Suppose there are some miscreants who deserve an earthquake now but don't live on a fault. Are we to assume thyat God used his omnipotence to forsee their sins and planned out the appropriate faults billions of years ago to punish them appropriately while still fooling the geologists?

[/ QUOTE ]

This assumes that God only punishes those who deserve to be punished, which is something that I don't believe. Who says God is fair, or that we even understand His definition of "fair," or if we did, whether we would agree with it?

[Vex]

[ QUOTE ]
Are we to assume thyat God used his omnipotence to forsee their sins and planned out the appropriate faults billions of years ago to punish them appropriately while still fooling the geologists?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know, but I think I might dig up my old copy of Populous and see if it's at all playable on modern hardware. Gimme dat mana, babe, I'm saving up for Armageddon!

Ok, seriously, I question the basic assumption that God would intervene on Earth when bad people do bad things. Where is His +EV? If a sinner's gonna be swimmin' in brimstone for eternity, why does it matter if the punishment starts early? 50 years is literally nothing, when compared to forever. If God kills a youthful sinner, He denies that person a chance to repent and become Heaven-worthy later in life. If He is doing it to scare people into shaping up, then why commit the injustice of arbitrary punishment and invariably killing off some of his own innocent faithful?

That, ladies and gentlement of this supposed jury, does not make sense. If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit.