Don't blame God for 'Yolanda'

Don't blame God for 'Yolanda' -- Bugoy

"Religions are many and diverse, but reason and goodness are one." ELBERT HUBBARD

By Alex P. Vidal

God has perfected everything in this world. It was man who destroyed His creation. Man, therefore, should not blame God for natural calamities like super typhoon "Yolanda" because He is not a sadistic God.
Thus was the assertion recently made by retired Population Commission (Popcom) Regional Director Vicente "Bugoy" Molejona, a theologian and former professor of philosophy and logic.
"He is not the God who allowed the house of (the late) Cardinal Sin in New Washington, Aklan to be destroyed by typhoon. He is not the God who allowed the people in Tacloban, Cebu, Masbate, Iloilo to suffer and die," explained the 63-year-old Molejona.
When God made the world after seven days, He gave us the responsibility to take care of His creations. God turned over the physical world to the people for them to live and take care of it. But we abused and destroyed our environment, Molejona lamented.

UNIVERSAL

"The God we worship is the same universal God being worshiped by Muslims, Israelite, and Christians. God is just and does not play favorites. It is our faith that brings us closer to Him, not our religion." 
Molejona's view about God and faith brings us to the fundamental misunderstandings about the "differences" between religions where it becomes easier to grasp when one awakens to the fact all religions essentially preach the same core tenet.
In Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, for instance, Jesus declared: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even to them."

DEVOTEES

The Buddha gently counseled his devotees: "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."
Confucius impressed upon the minds of his followers: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
The Qur'an of the Muslims admonishes, "No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself."
In Judaism the Torah instructs, "And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
The Hitoppadesa of the Hindus proclaims, "Good people proceed while considering that what is best for others is best for themselves."

GENESIS

Quoting Genesis 2:2 "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." Molejona said the term "rested" means "completed."
"God completed His creation after seven days," he mused. "The word 'rest' did not mean literally He stopped so He could proceed again with His creation. He is not a government employee who will rest on Saturday and Sunday."