God Hates Haiti?

We have established that god hates figs, but it’s difficult to understand why god hates Haiti. To watch the Jobian tribulations being imposed on that poor country, someone with a religious bent would have to conclude that the Haitians did something to royally piss god off. First, a massive earthquake devastates the country earlier this year, leaving millions to live in conditions that most countries would find deplorable. Then cholera steps in to add insult to injury, possibly brought there by relief workers. Today Hurricane Tomas is dumping tons of water on the country, and whipping it into a froth with high winds. In a country where a corrugated sheet of metal is called home, this can only result in a disaster of major proportions.

“We know that, particularly with flooding and mudslides, there’s going to be a loss of life,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said during a press briefing in Washington. “It’s inevitable.”

So what did they do to incur the Wrath of Yahweh? Is Pat Robertson correct that Haiti’s paying for a centuries old pact with the devil?

Obviously, those questions are rhetorical, because Yahweh doesn’t exist, and Pat Robertson’s a delusional moron. What I’m really asking is “Why do religious people not see this as evidence that god doesn’t exist?” How can anyone look at Haiti, and what that country is going through, and still believe in god?

Haiti is a nominally Roman Catholic country, though much of the population have bastardized their beliefs by mixing them with voodoo. About 85% of the country professes to be Catholic. Either way, though, their belief in the existence of god and/or supernatural forces is strong.

Contrast Haiti with a country like, say, Sweden. Sweden is nominally a Lutheran country.

As of 2009, 71.3% of the Swedes were members of the church, a drop of nearly 2% compared to 2008. Less than 4 percent of the Church of Sweden membership attends public worship during an average week; about 2 percent are regular attendees.

23% of Swedes do not believe there is a god, with 17% actually self identifying as atheist.  While Swedes tend to belong to the Church of Sweden, only 1 out of 10 believe religion is important, and, as seen above, a very small percentage actually attend services regularly. In short, Sweden is pretty far down on any measurements of religiosity. Yet, Sweden enjoys a very nice standard of living, no hurricaines or earthquakes, and suffers very little that could be construed as divine displeasure.

One would think that an all merciful god, the one that coincidentally most Christians believe in, would send hurricaines to Sweden and provide for a much higher standard of living in Haiti. But the opposite is true.

Good evidence, in my opinion, that either god hates Haiti (and loves Sweden) for unknown reasons or – he doesn’t exist.