Earthquake and pandemic not related

“The great earthquake shall be in the month of May; Saturn, Capricorn, Jupiter, Mercury in Taurus; Venus, also Cancer, Mars in zero.”

—Nostradamus

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IT’S only a coincidence that a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Cataingan town in Masbate, including Iloilo, as cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reached 2,981 in Western Visayas with 42 deaths as of August 18.

There’s no truth to the fears of some soothsayers that “God must be angry at the people because of the double whammy—pandemic and earthquake.”

Coincidences occur even in the most normal and abnormal circumstances.

God, religion, superstition have nothing to do with pandemic and catastrophes happening one after the other or at the same time.

A pandemic could spread while there’s a tsunami, hurricane, super typhoon, tornado, flash flood, political chaos, a revolution, an armed conflict, or even a world war vice versa.

A pandemic like COVID-19 is a health issue that should be dealt with by medical science, while the recent earthquake, which was felt in parts of Luzon and the Visayas at past 8 o’clock in the morning according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Philvolcs), was a natural disaster and had nothing to do with a disease associated with infection.  

Intensity 7 shaking, described by Phivolcs as “destructive,” was reportedly felt in Cataingan, the earthquake’s epicenter seven kilometers southeast and caused by the movement of tectonic plates.

 

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Superstition and ignorance almost always take centerstage in the Philippines each time natural disasters strike, especially when people are in a state of shock and bedeviled by poverty.

Which will always remind us, lovers of history, philosophy, and religion, of the Lisbon, Portugal catastrophe on November 1, 1755, the most significant and highly publicized earthquake that had shaken this earth.

Bible scholars were not the only ones to be impressed by it, even as it has a particular meaning for the student of Bible prophecy.

A tidal wave followed and wrecked the shipping in the river Tagus on which Lisbon is built besides the earthquake and the greater part of Lisbon was destroyed.

Fire also broke out and completed the work of destruction. Sixty thousand were said to have lost their lives, and the property damage, although it cannot be estimated accurately, was reportedly enormous.

The tragedy’s immediate repercussions were registered in religious as well as antireligious circles. 

That was particularly true in France, where the Encyclopedists tried to vulgarize the achievements of the human mind, and where Reason had its most eloquent spokesmen. 

France was, at the time of the occurrence of the earthquake, the focal point of rationalism. 

Everything was examined by the philosophers: the origin of the world, the creation of man, the church, education, et cetera. 

Among the most influential writers, none were more read and followed than Voltaire and Rousseau, who both saw in the Lisbon catastrophe a significance that brilliantly, although tragically, proved and illustrated their systems.

 

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The Ministry explained that Voltaire was always clear, but never well coordinated. 

“He is considered an infidel, a man without a Christian's faith, rejecting divine rev­elation; holding that the Holy Scriptures are not God's Word, nor is the church the visible body of those ‘called out.’ Christ was, to Vol­taire, neither the Redeemer nor God Incarnate,” explained the Ministry.

On the other hand, our late friend, lawyer-philosopher Ernesto Dayot, used to insist that Voltaire, his favorite French writer and philosopher, was not an atheist but a deist, as it was intellectually fashionable to be in the eighteenth century. 

While almost all philosophers were deists, there were shades of difference in their individual beliefs.

Voltaire reportedly believed that “God is the Source of all life and substance.” 

According to the brilliant Ilonggo writer from Dingle, Iloilo, Voltaire was convinced of the existence of God as he thought that the world could not be explained without God, that is, without a "First Cause." 

Voltaire thought that God the Creator cannot be reached by man, nor can God be conceived by our knowledge. But by our very reasoning we are forced to admit God's existence, and only ignorance could attempt to define Him.

“Ignorance is the only evil,” Dayot would quote Socrates.  

Without God there is no foundation of morality, and thus God is the basis of human society, he added. 

It was Voltaire who coined the cynical phrase, "If God did not exist, we would have to invent Him."

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)