Pat Robertson’s comments concerning earthquake in Haiti stirred many negative responses from the Christians of different backgrounds. Although I tried not to express my emotions to the world, I am one of those who strongly disagree with Robertson.

Robertson’s comments, apparently, emerged from his deep belief in God’s punitive acts in history for the evil of individuals or societies. So, naturally, when Haiti was struck by a 7.2 earthquake, he went back in history to see whether Haitians did anything extraordinary evil in the past. And he found something and told the world about it. Wrong? Yes.

First of all, God is the Judge and He did not put us as His advisors. Therefore, we have no idea whether a specific calamity is used by God for pedagogical or punitive purposes or not. Guarding God’s position as a Judge is not our business, and there is no need to make Him the guilty party whenever calamities happen because we want to preserve His Sovereignty.

Second, if every natural disaster is God’s punitive action, then how come God mostly tends to punish the undeveloped countries?

Only 3 days before a 7.2 earthquake rolled through the land of Haiti, California was struck by a 6.5 earthquake. I do not have enough science education to speculate on the differences between the points of magnitude, but even if the Haitian earthquake had magnitude of only 6.5, it would still cause great damage. Meanwhile, here is the damage that it caused in the United States:

(Click here for more pictures)

I think most of us had seen the terrifying pictures of the disaster in Haiti and the differences between the earthquakes are tremendous: in Haiti walls and ceiling were falling, not just cereal boxes, and blood was spilled, not merely milk.

This should put things in perspective. Maybe, after all, it is not the Haitian people that are evil and guilty, but we, wealthy and greedy Capitalists?