Satan.. What is responsible for?

[magisterfaust]

Whenever there is a “natural” disaster, it is sometimes said by religious people as a punshment from God in response to the (still) sinful nature of humankind.

So, if that is the case, then what is Satan responsible for?

If a natural disaster is the work of god, the he is indiscriminate in his vengeance, which to me appears evil. Babies, Innocent people, (and, yes, they maybe innocent) drowned, buried alive. Or even suffer a slow agonising death of starvation and disease. Yes, that does appear evil. So how can the Evil One top that?

Is god nothing but a narccisatic megalomaniac?

 

[magisterfaust]

Sorry. Meant to say What is he responsible for?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Whenever there is a “natural” disaster, it is sometimes said by religious people as a punshment from God in response to the (still) sinful nature of humankind.

So, if that is the case, then what is Satan responsible for?

If a natural disaster is the work of god, the he is indiscriminate in his vengeance, which to me appears evil. Babies, Innocent people, (and, yes, they maybe innocent) drowned, buried alive. Or even suffer a slow agonising death of starvation and disease. Yes, that does appear evil. So how can the Evil One top that?

Is god nothing but a narccisatic megalomaniac?

What are such ideas supposed to mean ? IMO, what we have here is an ancient & unrevised idea about the causation of events in the natural world. I think the explanation of them, that God sends event X as a punishment, is fine for largely pre-scientific cultures like those of antiquity; but now, I don’t think it fits. ISTM we can continue using old explanations that don’t fit the facts, such as “God did it” - or, adopt explanations which take full account of what we can now know. Land-slides are not God’s doing, but man’s, & are the results of natural processes. I don’t believe God causes them - still less the devil.​

To bring God or bad angels into the matter in inconsistent, if one does not blame the devil for food poisoning, spilt milk, & over-cooked food; yet who does that ? In the past, people used to blame brownies, imps, & hobgoblins for such things: satan (& humans siding with him) were blamed for moral failure or ills such as swine-fever or plague. If we don’t blame God (or the devil) for plague, but ascribe medical causes to it instead - why not be consistent & avoid blaming God (or the devil) for natural disasters which may well be attributable to medical or meteorological or similar causes; or even to human agency in some way ?

God is not “absent” from any of these things - perhaps we should think of them as “present to” Him instead. God is not external to things, but is “other than” them.

I think the problem is probably a pseudo-problem.