Signs Taken for Wonders.

I don't watch my good friend Pat Robertson, aka the assassin, or any of his flock-fleecing brethren (or sistern or cistern), so maybe he's already preyed on this disaster as validation of his world-view. Natural disasters are great fodder for religious interpretation, since the Bible famously relates plagues, earthquakes, flood, and fire as retribution for displeasing the Almighty.

I find such interpretive gestures intellectually bankrupt and spiritually dishonest. After all, these "signs" are simply shapes to fit into a fairly rigid system of thought, and in the end, they will be interpreted in ways that support the interpreter's viewpoint. In Piaget's terms, they will be assimilated -- never will they cause accomodation.

Now an objective zealot might look around and say, "hmm, what is the biggest thing our country is doing out there that might displease God?" and then they'd have to come to the conclusion that our unprovoked invasion of Iraq and slaughter of many innocents (sorry -- "collateral damage" I mean) might have something to do with it. Since there's no such thing as an objective zealot, however, it's my theory that Rev. Robertson and his ilk will locate the cause of God's wrath on one of the following (or maybe a combination of all):

• Any progress, no matter how small or localized, toward human rights for homosexuals.
• Decreased public support for the war in Iraq (which if you recall, has been characterized by our President and other superstitious fools as a "Crusade").
• Hollywood.

Let me say for the record quite clearly that I don't support any supernatural explanation for why Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf states -- Hurricane Katrina is not retribution for our involvement in Iraq, just as Hurricane Agnes was not retribution for Pennsylvania instituting a state lottery. I support a scientific interpretation that goes like this: it's hurricane season and every now and then hurricanes cause a lot of damage; maybe we should track the amount of severe hurricanes year by year and make scientific hypotheses to investigate if they're becoming more frequent and, if they are, what may be contributing to any increase in severity.

Can anyone tell me if the religious interpreters have revved up the spin engines yet?