Science is the study of nature. The power of science can be just as (if not more) awesome, powerful and destructive as nature. Read anything by Oppenheimer.
The force and power of natural disasters can no longer be used as a proof of god any more. Thankfully, those days are gone now. It must choke the church leaders that these common natural disasters cannot be used as warnings, threats and - I told you so’s – by the Pastors and the Priests to further their own ideologies or religion sand bank balance. And neither can disaster be used to con widows out of their houses with promises of tickets to heaven and an everlasting life.
Indeed it was much more simpler then in past times of ignorance and fear,when priests faced less doubt and opposition to totally control a persons daily life.
Thankfully Science has has shown us that these devastating occurrences are uncontrollable natural disasters that couldn’t be managed and coped with anywhere near as they can be today.
An earthquake would happen and the people would shake with fear. Many would run for their lives if they were able to. Thousands would be crushed to death or buried alive and finally suffocate to death. The thousands of dead bodies would begin to rot causing plagues and rampant infestation followed by even more diseases which in turn would kill thousand more. This is not counting those that may survive but with life time crippling injuries and deformities causing them to be outcasts. And the Pastors and the Priests would blame the population for committing one sin or another against god and would be told they would have to pay more for said sin with more lambs and doves bought from the temple traders at extortionate prices and handover any other hard earned worldly goods that they may have accumulated through their sheer backbreaking hard work done by the sweat of their brows.
There wouldn't be any rescue crews with heavy machinery, no ambulances or doctors to treat the injured or nurses on hand to receive the injured into high tech emergency units and no after care that science has provided for those of us lucky enough to be alive today and they would not have had the early warning systems in place either that we have today.
Indeed those Pastors and Priest of old were raking it in. The temple mount and the temple compound was a hive of commerce, with money changers making a killing on the exchange rate as pilgrims could only buy with money acceptable to the temple authorities and traders taking advantage of a bad situation (and good one’s) by selling only“perfect doves” and other live stock to the gullible for offerings to god.
There was also the “ransom” straight to the temple priests of the sanctuary, as god told Moses “all of them shall give a ransom for their lives to the Lord so that no plague may come upon them” Exodus30:11-16.
Is it any wonder those puppet priests didn’t want to give over this lucrative business to Jesus the interloper.
“The money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the temple of the lord; it belonged to the priests”. 2Kings 12:16
Nope,no doves and pigeons for the Pastors and the Priests, they only took cool cold cash, thank you very much.
Today thanks to our brilliant scientist we can look on in awesome wonder at the power of nature but without fear and guilt that we mere humans had caused god to be angry with us and that we had caused all those deaths and all of that destruction.
How the Pastors and the Priests must yearn for the good old days.