And then man created God in his own image to represent him.

Not too long after man created God to represent all of the whims and fancies of mankind, man created God to be the creator of all of the convenient bits and pieces of what he, as mankind desired God to be.

First of all, said mortal man, God must be our creator so, let us endow God with the power to create us even though, in the first instance, we were the ones who created Him.

Who are we, mere mortals, affected by many twisted illnesses of the body, and the ultimate expression of our existence, that thing known as death, to dare question the charted course that we know nothing of? If we are good and love our neighbour, we die. If we steal from our neighbour who loves us, we die. If we kill our enemies who hate us, we still die. But, in the mix we create versions of God who will redeem us. But, it is only after we end the only existence we know.

The picture is clear but at the edges it is somewhat blurred. This planet called Earth (who gave it that name?) is not yet finished with its building programme. Because of that, there are many natural disasters which are a fact of what Earth and its existence in the unknown entity called the universe must endure.

Over many years there have been these so-called acts of God, like hurricanes, earthquakes, excessive rainfall leading to floods and massive loss of lives, famine due to absolutely no rain, and of course, man’s ability to tell the gullible the reason for all of it.

In 1976 an earthquake in Tangshan, China (8.3 on the Richter scale) caused the death of over 600,000 people. Where was God?

Before that happened, God, fashioned by man, created a hurricane in a poor country, Bangladesh in 1970 and after the country was flooded as a result, the death toll was about 500,000. Was God sleeping?

In 2004 when most of us in Jamaica were enjoying Christmas, said to be the celebration of the birth of the son of God, a terrible tsunami swept over the South Asian coastlines and took the lives of earth’s brothers and sisters. Close to 300,000 died. Where was God?

Close to home, the deprived nation of Haiti has been over many years economically savaged by the might of France and the USA, and it has never gained acceptance in the league of black nations. Black, as in skin colour.

Haiti has been devastated by an earthquake, and maybe close to 250,000 may be dead. Where was God? This God that we so revere.

Have we not seen this before? Devastation. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Then, after many days, one little child is pulled from the rubble and people say, “Oh my God, it’s a miracle. It’s God’s work.”

Well, if God could save one person, why did He arrange the killing and the suffering of over 200,000 people in Haiti?

Why has God allowed gunmen to run wild in Jamaica and kill innocent people? The answer is simple but it is, at the same time, unpalatable for many.

God does not exist.

Of course, the religious, especially those fervently into their convenient re-creations of God have said, like the preacher man Pat Robertson, that God is vexed with Haiti. In that lies the ultimate creation of God by mankind.

The ability to tell us where the mind of this God is and what He will be doing next week.

We exist on this earth and no man, no woman knows why we are here. We do what we need to be because we are here.

Think of it for a while. What is man’s main objective? To put food in his mouth. It is not to worship an unknown entity. But, if a man is hungry, there is a need in him to blame something for it. So, he creates the alter ego of God. Satan!

I am hungry and Satan is the cause. He gets a bellyful and he says to himself, “God has given me this to eat.”

Devastation in the form of earthquakes and hurricanes attract the ignorant and the gullible. And I entirely understand them. They need a reason to explain what lies beyond their understanding.

In Haiti, if it was God who caused a child to be rescued after suffering, terrible suffering buried under a dark pile of near-death, the same religious people will tell you that it was God that caused the earthquake in the first place.

Why?

Because, it was man who created God. Therefore it is man who created God’s job description and who decides which side God falls on. Like a good politician, man ensures that God is right on all sides. So, it was evil in poor Haiti that brought about God’s wrath.

God loves you if you are good. And even if he puts you under the pressure of Job to prove your love for Him, people like me have no right to question why such a powerful God would have need for so much evil “fun”, watching from His heaven.

If you are evil, all you have to do is say that you believe in Him. It has absolutely nothing to do with how you live. If you beat your wife on Mondays, starve the children on days in between Tuesday and Friday, kick the dog on Saturday and go to church on Sundays, it is OK in the eyes of God.

So, it was God who caused the Haitian earthquake. But it will be man who will help them recover, no matter the political intentions. Man will, after all, have his version of God constantly renewed. Why? It was man who created God in the first place.

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