{"id":89240,"date":"2019-05-22T22:46:09","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89240"},"modified":"2019-05-22T15:36:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T22:36:40","slug":"did-gods-benevolence-fail-on-easter-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/22\/did-gods-benevolence-fail-on-easter-sunday\/","title":{"rendered":"Did God\u2019s benevolence fail on Easter Sunday?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0 <\/strong>Senaka Weeraratna<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The blowing up of over 260 people and\ninjuring over 500 people through coordinated terrorist bombings carried out\nduring Easter services in three prominent Churches in Colombo, Negombo and\nBatticaloa, on April 21, 2019, invariably raises serious doubts in God\u2019s\nbenevolence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If people in Sri Lanka begin\nquestioning God\u2019s relevance, in the light of God\u2019s apparent failure to prevent\nthis massacre, when most of the victims, were ardent followers of Christianity,\nand praying in some of the hallowed Churches in the country e.g. St. Anthony’s Shrine<\/strong> (<\/strong>dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua<\/a>\nand designated\na national shrine and minor basilica), <\/strong>located at Kochchikade<\/a>, Kotahena<\/a>, Colombo<\/a> 13, then they will not be alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easter Sunday<\/a> is one of Christianity’s holiest days and church attendance\nin Sri Lanka is very high on this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of this brief article is\nto open and explore significant religious and metaphysical issues that have\narisen given the strange co \u2013 incidence that such a horrendous mass murder has\nhappened on a very important religious holiday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisbon\nEarthquake (1755)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nmust go back in time. A similar terrible phenomenon took place on a much bigger\nscale when Lisbon (capital of Portugal) was subject to a series of cataclysmic earthquakes on\nthe morning of Sunday November 01, 1755, which was All\nSaints\u2019 Day and many people were attending the Churches whose architecture and\nbuilding structure was not resistant to seismic tremors.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earthquakes caused massive damage to the city of Lisbon and\ndemolished around 12,000 households, killing over 60,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This unfortunate coincidence of the earthquake on a Sunday was\ndefinitely one of the factors that had contributed to the extremely high death\ntoll in this event, as the Christian devotees that stood between the weak walls\nof the churches were crushed in large numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city walls, houses and buildings were not able to escape the\n8.0 magnitude of the earthquake. Almost 85% of Lisbon\u2019s buildings were reduced\nto rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earthquake had reportedly lasted about 5 minutes, causing\n5-meter fissures in length which split-opened in the city center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition the tremors triggered three (3) tsunamis of 6 meter\nwave length which were flooding the region wave after wave, drowning and\nkilling even more people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fires broke out soon after the earthquakes killing a lot more\npeople.  The flames lasted for 5 days and destroyed many important\ndocuments and personal records of the Portuguese people. Many had died from\ninhaling the smoke and collateral damage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting chaos forced the citizens, including prisoners\nthat used their chance of escape, to flee the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fall\nout of the Lisbon Earthquake on changing religious beliefs in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is said\nthat one of the first modern atheistic movements in Europe commenced after this\ntragedy, renouncing religious ideologies as basis of critical thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Survivors soon began questioning God\u2019s existence and his absence\nat a time when God\u2019s help was most needed to save lives. The scale of suffering\nopened up many issues among thinkers, the clergy, politicians, and\nphilosophers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the Church authorities in Lisbon did actually\nannounce and state that the earthquake was indeed a demonstration of God\u2019s\nwrath and punishment for the sins of the victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amusingly, the sinful Lisbon\u2019s red-light district had suffered\nonly minor damages while the churches despite the purported piety were\ncompletely obliterated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 also opened the door to new genre\nof literature questioning God and wisdom of relying solely on God and engaging\nin recital of prayers. Renowned French writer and philosopher Voltaire produced\na classic piece of satirical writing called \u2018Candide\u2018 (1759).  The\nevents discussed in the novel are often based on historical happenings, such as\nthe Seven\nYears’ War<\/a> and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake<\/a>. Voltaire\nridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and\nphilosophers.\nCandide<\/em> satirises various philosophical and religious theories that\nVoltaire had previously criticized including the belief in God. . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would\nthe tragedy of Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka lead to a more reflective and self \u2013\nreliant moral community in Sri Lanka? Only time will tell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka Weeraratna<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0 Senaka Weeraratna The blowing up of over 260 people and injuring over 500 people through coordinated terrorist bombings carried out during Easter services in three prominent Churches in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa, on April 21, 2019, invariably raises serious doubts in God\u2019s benevolence. If people in Sri Lanka begin questioning God\u2019s relevance, in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}