This is the twenty-seventh in an occasional series highlighting valid
issues that undermine invariably unsupported claims that there's a god.

Parts 1-5 of this series is at: http://tinyurl.com/6uhnl
Part 6 at: http://tinyurl.com/3ms66
Parts 7-11 at: http://tinyurl.com/5yhjn
Part 12 at: http://tinyurl.com/5ndow
Parts 13-15 at: http://tinyurl.com/65x6g
Parts 16-25 at: http://tinyurl.com/3jmrq
Parts 26-42 at: http://tinyurl.com/4569y
Parts 43-50 at: http://tinyurl.com/6hkax
Parts 51-55 at: http://tinyurl.com/48abq
Parts 56-65 at: http://tinyurl.com/4a95v
Parts 66-70 at: http://tinyurl.com/3jyxg
Parts 70-78 at: http://tinyurl.com/3jyxg
Parts 79-90 at: http://tinyurl.com/6aa8l
Parts 91-99 at: http://tinyurl.com/6xnhh
Parts 100-119 at: http://tinyurl.com/9fcsw
Parts 120-139 at: http://tinyurl.com/bp8za
Parts 140-155 at: http://tinyurl.com/72vlr
Parts 156-170 at: http://tinyurl.com/d3ubb
Parts 171-174 at: http://tinyurl.com/8jcja
Parts 175-189 at: http://tinyurl.com/cuvxb
Parts 190-199 at: http://tinyurl.com/9uo6f
Parts 200-219 at: http://tinyurl.com/8tsrg
Parts 220-235 at: http://tinyurl.com/a9rc2
Parts 236-245 at: http://tinyurl.com/b9of7
Parts 246-254 at: http://tinyurl.com/cz9yq
Parts 255-280 at: http://tinyurl.com/aze8x
Parts 281-299 at: http://tinyurl.com/7dn3s

Well here we are! Item #300, the equalling stage of the 300
creationist lies I wrote several years ago. And they said it couldn't
be done! They thought I no longer had it in me! Ha! Fie on them.

300.
And what better place to start than with fundies demonstrating that
their god doesn't exist by dint of the fact that they desperately need
to rush to his aid at every opportunity?

All evidence demonstrates that there is no god, of course, but the
belief in this myth causes endless evil. The latest evidence of it is
here:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/08/25/fetal.pain.ap/index.html
"The editor of a medical journal that published an article this week
saying fetuses likely don't feel pain until late in pregnancy said
Thursday she has received dozens of angry e-mails from abortion
opponents."

The article was reported here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4180592.stm

So the fundie morons read about this and immediately jump to their
non-existent god's aid by harassing the messenger! What a pathetic god
they worship! A god who is so helpless that they have to do everything
for him is surely not worthy of worship?

Or maybe there is no god?

301.
Here's another one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4201372.stm
"A new UK organisation hopes to combat climate change through
harnessing the political power of the church."

Why?????

If these people believe there is a god, the most powerful being ever,
who can do anything with nothing, why aren't they **PRAYING**?

Their behavior is a direct and unequivocal admission that their god
doesn't care, or that their god isn't listening, or there is no god.
Which is it?

302.
Here's an easy one. Why would a god create beautiful amphibians, and
then create a fungus that destroys them?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4249136.stm

Evolutionists, of course, have no problem understanding something like
this, but creationists cannot explain it. However, anyone who thinks
they can is hereby cordially invited to try.

Or are you ready to admit there can be no such god?

303.
While we're on the topic of animals, how about this one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4245852.stm

Now answer me this: If god is so family oriented, and so morally
benign, why didn't he create a natural world that would teach this
lesson instead of relying on scripture that most of the world wouldn't
see, and many wouldn't accept? I could do a whole thread in this
series on the absence of the Christian god's morality (hey, now there's
an idea!). But can believers offer any sort of explanation for it?

Or are they ready to throw up their hands and admit the evidence shows
there is no such god?

304.
And while we're *still* on this topic, how about this one:
"Fathers can only have daughters, and mothers produce sons without the
contribution of a male. Males don't have fathers, literally."
Is that a god's idea of family values?

Or is there really no god at all and nature just does what it can with
what it has to hand?

Read about it here:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/clone_war_of_the_sexes/

305.
Recently an alert went out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4248356.stm
over a drug that is legitimately used to counter rejection in organ
transplants. This raises two reasons why there is no god:

A.
Why didn't this creator god make it easy on us and make us all
internally compatible, so blood transfusions and organ transplants
would be (relatively) easy?

There are only two things theists would seem to be able to say to this:
a. God doesn't want us to transplant and transfuse - he'd rather we
died.
b. God likes to spur on scientific endeavor by killing us off in a
variety of horrible ways.

Which is it? Or is it that there is no god and we simply have to deal
with what nature doles out?

B.
The article referenced mentions that the drug (Azathioprine) alters
DNA, which in turn heightens risk of skin cancer when a patient is also
exposed to ultraviolet light.

Why would a supposedly intelligent designer create humans and put them
on a planet where the rays of the life-sustaining sun contain
ultra-violet light which in turn can screw up the very DNA this same
god created?

Or is it that this god simply doesn't exist and all we have is what
physics gives us?

306.
Newsweek and Time trade off on who gets to put religion on their front
cover. Labor day weekend, it was Newsweek's turn. In the USA edition,
the cover read "Spirituality in America" and inside was an interesting
if sadly stylised article, where they even seem to claim that atheism
is a religion. But the stats do put paid to the lie that Catholicism
is the fastest growing religion.

According to the stats, when comparison is made between self-identified
affiliation in 1990 and in 2001, the fastest growing group was
non-denominational Christian, increasing by over 1100%. Behind came
Hinduism (237%), Quakerism (224%), Buddhism (170%), Islam (109%) and
**GET THIS** No religion (106%).

Catholicism was wa-ay down the scale at only 11%. The biggest losers
were Protestantism (-270%), Rastafarianism (-27%) and Judaism (-11%).

The most racially inclusive religions were Islam and Buddhism. Go
figure!

29.5 million Americans practice no religion, whereas only 7.7 million
practice non-Christian religion.

The article has some clueless perspectives on what's important. The
tale they seem to want to tell is that of how eclectic Americans are
becoming in their pointless search for a god. They don't seem to be
able to make the simple connection between this fact and the fact that
if there really were a god people wouldn't need to search so hard to
find it!

307.
According to Scientific American in August 2003 in an article called
"Censors of the Genome ", Biologists discovered that cells (in animals
and in plants) have a system that shreds RNA produced by genes, thereby
effectively silencing them.

What a waste to allow a gene to use energy to produce something only to
immediately shred it as soon as it's complete. Hardly a sign of
intelligent design.

The article says, "Some genes, however, are so subversive that they
should never be given freedom of expression. If the genes from mobile
genetic elements were to successfully broadcast their RNA messages,
they could jump from spot to spot on the DNA, causing cancer or other
diseases. Similarly, viruses, if allowed to express their messages
unchecked, will hijack the cell's protein production facilities to
crank out viral proteins."

So yes, the system is required given the architecture of the cell, but
why is the cell "built" that way?

Evolutionists have no problem understanding this kind of thing, but
creationists are screwed because what they have to contend here is that
their intelligent designer created a chaotic mess inside every cell,
which then had to be controlled by adding another layer of complexity.

This is hardly the hallmark of intelligent design. And it's a
perfectly valid reason to assert that there's no designer.

308.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/innews/testtube2005.html
reveals that "The endangered grey nurse shark is its own worst enemy,
its young eat each other in the womb..."

Now why would an intelligent designer create something like that?

Or is it that there is no intelligence, no design, just nature?

309.
Billy Goldberg asks "Why Do Men Have Nipples?":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9043794/site/newsweek/

This seems a frivolous question, but when you look at what the
creationists claim - that one man was created first, and then a woman
was created from his rib...

(Please do excuse me while I take a minute or two to **LAUGH MY *****
OFF**. I mean, here we have these pseudo-scientists claiming that
intelligent design is science and should be taught in schools, and at
the basis of all of their beliefs - beliefs that have not a shred of
evidence to support them - is that a big bearded giant in the sky
magicked a man into existence **OUT OF DIRT** and then was too stupid
to understand that he needed a human companion, and as a belated
afterthought created a woman - **OUT OF THE GUY'S RIB**! And these
morons want to be taken seriously?)

...so the man was created first. The man had no means to create a baby
on his own, and therefore had no need of any reproductive equipment or
of related anatomy - such as breasts for feeding a child he could not
generate. All of that came as an afterthought. This indicates that
either:
A. the so-called intelligent designer gave human males nipples for no
reason at all - rather like the costume designer in a couple of the
Batman movies gave Batman's suit nipples - for no reason at all.
B. The designer gave man no nipples to begin with, but belatedly added
them after he had created the woman, to make them"match"!

Why didn't this god give both of them the capacity to carry babies?
Can you imagine how improved a world it would be if that had been the
design?

So once again the choice appears to be a really dumb god or no god.

310.
And while we're asking, why are mice and humans so genetically close?
http://tinyurl.com/c9doc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4135096.stm

It's not like we lead similar lifestyles. I personally don't know of
any mice that need to brachiate, operate heavy machinery, drive a
vehicle, rescue people from floods, negotiate multi-million dollar
business deals, run a day care center, nurse people back to health, go
to movies, or study biology, yet we're very close to being identical
genetically

Why is that? Is it design, or is it rather that no god had anything to
do with it and we're not as removed from mice as creationists like to
lie?

311.
Why would an intelligent and benevolent creator design something that
causes harm? This article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4131232.stm
reveals "The Icelandic researchers found commercial pilots were three
times more likely than normal to develop cataracts - clouding of the
lens of the eye. Cosmic rays - very energetic particles and radiation
which bombard the Earth from outer space - have already been linked to
cataracts among astronauts."

Now this creator certainly didn't design us to fly or go into space
(which begs the question, "Why not?", but I'll get to that in another
edition in this series); however, that isn't the issue. The issue is
that this creator (granting for the sake of argument the creationist
position) created cosmic rays which are harmful.

We don't get exposed to the full brunt of them down on the surface, but
that isn't the issue. The issue is that this creator (granting for the
sake of argument the creationist position) created cosmic rays which
are harmful and we do get exposed to some of them. This exposure is
undoubtedly the cause of some genetic mutation.

Why would an intelligent and benevolent creator design something like
that?

Or is it that there's no creator and we just get what nature serves up?

312.
Why would an intelligent and benevolent creator deliberately design a
virus that attacks innocent people in out of the way locales where the
infrastructure is primitive and help has a hard time finding its way to
them?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4174074.stm

People who fervently believe that assinine religious crap is an
essential part of their daily diet will claim that there was no disease
originally. They insist (without a shred of support) that it came
about as a result of Eve's disobedience. Unfortunately, that doesn't
alter the fact that according to their own professed belief, an
intelligent and benevolent creator deliberately designed a virus that
attacks innocent people in out of the way locales where the
infrastructure is primitive and help has a hard time finding its way to
them.

Since there's no creation described after Eve's purported sin (more on
this elsewhere), this god of theirs deliberately created these viruses,
already knowing they were going to be let loose upon people who are
unable to defend themselves.

Theists need to come clean about why their god is so evil. Or they
need to admit that there is no such god.

313.
There are so many possibilities of nailing god with this story that I
scarcely knew where to begin when I first read it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/4749127.stm
(check out the cute spelling for "tire", but at least it visually
differentiates between someone who is sleepy and someone whose vehicle
is fitted with rubber treads on the wheels!)

So where to start? How about why do we have only one heart? I read
one idiot's "five evidences" for god a while ago and refuted all of
them (I even parodied them at: http://tinyurl.com/avvqk), but one
mentioned the heart and circulatory system as being evidence for
"design with purpose". Unfortunately for him, this is nonsense.

Look at this:
" The number one killer in America is cardiovascular disease. In 1991,
heart and blood vessel diseases killed more than 923,000 Americans.
More than two of every five Americans die of cardiovascular disease.
Today, more than one in five Americans suffer from some form of
cardiovascular disease, with more than 2,500 Americans dying from it
each day. Of those with heart disease, 52.2 percent are male and 47.8
percent are female; 88.2 percent are white, 9.5 percent are black, and
2.4 percent are of other races...At least 250,000 people die of heart
attacks each year before they reach a hospital...As many as 50 million
Americans have high blood pressure, the leading contributor to heart
disease...Of thirty-five countries surveyed in 1991, the United States
cardiovascular death rate ranked 17th for both males and females. The
highest death rates were in the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland,
Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The lowest were in Japan,
France, Spain, Switzerland, and Canada."
http://sln.fi.edu/biosci/healthy/stats.html

So the people next door (Canada) have hearts that are a lot healthier
than those in the US. I wonder why? (That was rhetorical).

But look at the stats. The heart is the single most critical organ in
the body. Without it, we're nothing but bacterium fodder, yet this
perfect intelligent designer, who had all eternity in which to work and
infinite resources to call upon never built a back-up for the heart.

Or is it that there is no god?

And what about this nail gun incident? Humans can build self-sealing
fuel tanks, but a god couldn't design an armored heart? Or a
self-sealing or a self-healing one? He couldn't have designed humans
with an aerated body so they wouldn't need an oxygen transfer system at
all? He couldn't have designed humans without a need for oxygen?

Or is it that there is no god?

314.
Why couldn't an intelligent and benevolent creator who had all eternity
to work in and infinite resources to call upon find a cure-all flu
vaccine? We lowly humans can, as this article reveals:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4747909.stm

Better yet, why design the influenza virus at all?

Here's more than you'd ever want to know about the flu:
http://www.synapses.co.uk/science/fluvirus.html

Here's an article about the 1918 pandemic:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/

Does your god really love the idea that "Globally, between 500,000 and
one million people die each year from influenza.", as the first
reference states, or is it just that there's no god?

315.
Why couldn't an intelligent and benevolent creator who had all eternity
to work in and infinite resources to call upon create a brain that
doesn't kill its owner?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4745341.stm

"Lead researcher Professor Jack Feldman said: "We speculate that our
brains can compensate for up to a 60% loss of preBötC cells, but the
cumulative deficit of these brain cells eventually disrupts our
breathing during sleep.
"There's no biological reason for the body to maintain these cells
beyond the average lifespan, and so they do not replenish as we age.
"As we lose them, we grow more prone to central sleep apnoea." The
UCLA team believes that central sleep apnoea may pose a particular risk
to elderly people, whose heart and lungs are already weaker due to
age."

Is it because there is no god to take care of us despite what theists
blindly believe?

316.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B639959.htm
reveals that "Scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting
blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic
for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune system kills
the HIV virus."

Now what does this tell us about god being (as Al Pacino put it in
"Devil's Advocate") an absentee landlord? Look at this: "Britton said
the crocodile immune system worked differently from the human system by
directly attacking bacteria immediately an infection occurred in the
body."

Evolutionists, of course, don't have a problem with this. The
crocodile, as such, has been around for a long, long long time. Humans
have not. It's not surprising that it's immune system is so advanced.
Our species, meanwhile, is still catching up, and we haven't even got
as far as the chimpanzees yet.

However, for those who pretend we were directly created just 6,000
years ago by an omnipotent god who saw that we were good, well, they
have some explaining to do.

Or they could just admit the truth: there is no god.

317.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/30/church.shooting.ap/index.html
"Cranshaw...shot Brown, 61, at close range, and then shot the pastor,
James Armstrong...Cranshaw then drove to an intersection, where he shot
at a truck towing a horse trailer and then killed the two women in the
truck after they tried to flee and hide. Witnesses told police they
could hear the women screaming, authorities said."

How did this get by your god? One of the victims was a pastor, a
direct servant of god, according to the church.

Did your god not care? Was he calling these people home? If so, why
did he call them home in such a cruel and violent fashion? Don't tell
me god never sets us a test we cannot bear. That's a lie. Don't tell
me any of this was necessary. God could have called each of the dead
home in an unforgettable display of rainbow light and warm sounds. Not
only would this have been a spectacular show of his power and glory, it
would have been painless for everyone and would have unavoidably called
people to god.

Instead they died horribly after being violently and unexpectedly
attacked. Society itself could have prevented this. People who lived
close by had "...called police a couple of times about Cranshaw's
disruptive behavior. He said Cranshaw would shout obscenities at them
and fire a gun, but authorities never arrested him because he stayed
within the bounds of his property."

He was abusive and firing a gun and he was never even arrested. The
guns were never taken away because the right of someone to bear arms
shall not be infringed in the USA and the hell with the value of life.
And the same hypocrites who support this amendment are the ones who
decry abortion! Go figure.

Nothing can excuse Cranshaw's behavior, but this incident was
apparently triggered by church intolerance! According to the article,
"...Cranshaw, who lived across the street from the Sash Assembly of
God, exchanged words in the church parking lot Sunday night with church
member Wes Brown, who asked Cranshaw to leave."

Why? Instead of welcoming this troubled man to god, he was *turned
away from a church*? I thought the church was supposed to be the house
of god? If that's the case, then why do they have signs up at churches
like "Private" and "No Parking"???

The truth is that the Christian church and the people in it are no
different from anyone else. Their attitudes and behavior are no
different and the results are no different. If there really were a god
we'd know it - we'd see it. But we don't. That's why there's no god.

318.
Now this one is mind-boggling:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4181030.stm
Babies delivered by Caesarian section were found to have more tooth
decay. "A study of 156 babies found those born vaginally were exposed
to more bacteria during birth and built up resistance."

This so-called intelligent so-called designer created bacteria, many of
which are harmful, to which we then have to *develop* resistance. This
so-called intelligent so-called designer couldn't create resistance?
He couldn't design us with it already in place, so that evils like
tooth decay don't exist?

Or is there simply no designer, intelligent or otherwise?

319.
Scientists find the secret of life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4186324.stm
Actually what they found was some sort of anti-aging gene. *It's just
one gene*, which is fascinating, and it can increase mice lifespans by
about 30%. Of course, there's always a price to pay: the gene may also
predispose people to diabetes. On the bright side, Methusaleh mice are
less fertile, so if expression of this gene were perfected, it wouldn't
lead to a huge population explosion.

In a slap in the face to god, this gene was named Klotho (spinner)
after one of the Greek fates who spins the thread of our life, managing
our destiny along with Atropos (or Aisa - the divider of lots) who
weaves this thread into the cloth of our behaviors, and Lakhesis (will
not be deflected) who cuts the thread when we die.

This begs the question as to what god was up to when he supposedly
designed humans. Here's a gene that can lengthen our lives, but it
apparently doesn't work very well. Believers will claim this shows the
Bible is true: that people did live longer in Biblical times and that
our lifespan has shortened because of our sinfulness; however, they
fail to acknowledge that the longest-lived man (according to the Bible)
lived long after the so-called fall of man and nothing is said about
his righteousness. Their explanation is nonsense even within their own
little world.

Why do we die? Science has no issue with this, but believers stumble
over it. Their god created us, according to scripture, to be nothing
more than gardeners. There's no suggestion in the Old Testament of
life after death - or any death at all. It's not part and parcel of
the creation story yet seamlessly, the Bible writers bring in the
concept of people dying of old age like it's perfectly normal - which
of course it is - without any explanation for their god introducing it.

I find this quite startling. Where did this transition get slipped in?
Why don't people live forever?

Of course, if we lived forever, we never go to hell, and since this
god's express purpose in creation was to deliver people to hell, he's
got to kill us off beforehand.

Do you seriously believe in this god - a god who is no better than the
bad guy in a comic book? Do you believe in god as Lex Luther, Dr.
Doom, the Joker, Magneto?

Or is there really no god at all?

320.
Is this the best a god can do?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/producer.death.ap/index.html
"A Hollywood producer who was found dead in a car with his young
daughter had apparently suffered a heart attack and fallen on top of
the girl, suffocating her..."

Judged by the rest of the article, the guy could well have deliberately
suffocated his daughter for all we know, and died himself as a result
of the strain, but this doesn't change the issue: What kind of twisted,
sick evil is that? Do you really want to believe in a god who can
allow *that* to happen? A god who causes that to happen? A god who
wills it, sanctions it, orchestrates it?

Or is it time to finally face facts and admit there is no god?

321.
Here's a "miracle" for you:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/08/25/peru.crash.ap/index.html
A baby was thrown clear and survived this plane crash, but many others,
including the baby's parents, apparently, died. I ask again, what kind
of twisted, sick evil is that? The plane was knocked down by wind
shear, it crashed into a swamp, half the passengers died, some perhaps
by drowning in the swamp, and we're supposed to believe John Elliot,
who called it a miracle?

No, the miracle would be if the plane burned down to the melted twisted
metal, crashed into a deep crocodile-infested river, and *everyone*
survived without a scratch. *That* would be a miracle. Fifty percent
of people dying is a massacre. It's not a miracle. A baby being
robbed of its parents is evil. It really is that simple. It's evil
and so is any god who permits such a thing to happen on his watch.

Or there isn't any god to begin with.

322.
It's easy to see a need for fingers, both in modern times and
historically, but why toes? Believers (those of them who think, that
is) will say, 'oh, they're needed for balance and grip!', but a
continuous flexible pad across the leading edge of each foot would
serve the same purpose without exposing weak, individual toes to being
stepped on, to breakage and to frostbite. People who have lost toes do
perfectly fine without them. They're only "necessary" if they are
remnants from evolution, not if they were designed from scratch by a
so-called intelligent so-called designer.

Look at this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4173838.stm
Erik Trinkaus thinks he can determine when humans first began wearing
shoes by studying the little toes of skeletons and fossils. He says
that, based on this, humans first got footwear between 40,000 and
26,000 years ago. I think more work needs to be done, but I don't see
huge problems with this.

Creationists do. Why didn't god provide us with shoes from the off (in
which case all little toes would show the same "weakness" that Trinkaus
discovered no matter what the age). If we had no shoes to begin with,
what protected our feet? There's no indication in the Bible that the
Earth was any softer or more benign to bare feet 6,000 years ago than
it is now, so how did we avoid getting cuts and scrapes from rocks, and
getting thorns and splinters in our feet? Clearly we didn't, so for
the Bible to claim we lived in a paradise back then is simply a lie.

Either that or there was no creation, no paradise and no god.

323.
Most of the world didn't really notice when Portugal burned this
summer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4179894.stm

It's not the only place that burns, of course. Anywhere there is
undergrowth and aridity can fall victim, and while poor environmental
management can exacerbate it, fires are going to burn regardless.

Is there really a god who allows, indeed causes, "natural" fires? You
cannot argue that the cause is evil human arsonists. Natural fires
were "designed" in from the beginning, if you believe in a designer.
And it's not only trees and grass that burn, but sentient organisms
with fully functional nervous systems.

Do you really believe in a god who can cause this amount of discomfort,
fear, pain and suffering for no reason at all?

Or is there no god?

324.
And now a brief word to those intelligent design idiots who blather
mindless ***** about junk DNA. yes, there really is junk DNA.
While some of that monumental wasteland that is not genes is indeed of
value, there's indisputable proof that massive tracts of it is junk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4166076.stm
"Humans have around 30,000 genes that determine everything from our eye
colour to our sex but Pelagibacter has just 1,354, US biologists report
in the journal Science. What is more, Pelagibacter has none of the
genetic clutter that most genomes have accumulated over time. There
are no duplicate gene copies, no viral genes, and no junk DNA."

The only explanation for Junk DNA is evolution. Or an idiot designer.

Which is it?

325.
I believe I mentioned flooding in a previous item, but it gets worse.
Flooding is only the first stage. Then comes disease:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4140756.stm

It was just a month ago, but it's been so easy to forget the residents
of Mumbai, hasn't it, assuming anyone heard of them or cared in the
first place? Their loss was far greater than anything that happened in
New Orleans, yet we never saw an issue of "Time" magazine with a black
cover and "An Indian Tragedy" emblazoned on it, like we saw on
September 2nd for New Orleans, did we? How insulated we are from real
tragedy. How blind we are to it if it isn't "An American Tragedy".

The Indian floods affected 20 million people. Over one thousand died.
Some 2,000 more contracted waterborne diseases and over 60 of them have
died. "Encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease, has killed 8,000 people
in Uttar Pradesh since 1978...Uttar Pradesh needs 50m vaccines every
year, according to state health officials. But the Kasauli-based
Central Institute is only able to supply 200,000, they say." (Where is
the right-to-lifers outrage at this?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4179760.stm

This flooding is an annual event in India. Other places flood, too, of
course. Europe didn't escape this summer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4179592.stm
but in the third world, flooding isn't the sole problem. It may not
even be the most deadly. After the flood that killed, after the
disease that killed after the flood, came collapsed buildings:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4194016.stm

Do you really believe there's a benign god who could countenance this?

Or is that just so much blind *****?

Budikka

This is the twenty-seventh in an occasional series highlighting valid
issues that undermine invariably unsupported claims that there's a god.