Great article. The parallel with the Earthquake of Lisbon on All Saints Day 1755 and the subsequent transformation of Voltaire from a theodicist to atheist is compelling.

However I did enjoy the irony of Google's Adsense placing religious adverts in the adspace. :-)

There is wisdom in Christianity. Hate the sin but love the sinner. One can hate the sin of Christianity but still love the sinners.

Or, as Clive Hodges, St Lucia, Qld, has been reported saying:

“Those people who prayed for rain have a lot to answer”

Look at Toowoomba

Whose Christian prayers for

Rain were answered!

Brian fails to tell his full story here. Sin often leads to unbelief. Without going into the reasons Brian 'resigned' from ministry you really don't get the full picture.

"I am convinced that when anyone is inside “the Christian bubble of faith” it is almost impossible for them to see outside that bubble."

And there you have it. The great impasse in any faith based debate.

According to some religious leaders, flood, fire and drought are caused by God to punish innocent humans for the acts of others (sinners).

Praying for rain would seem akin to positive thinking being able to change patterns (such as in the dubious book 'The Secret').

There are as many sinners within the various Churches as there are outside, there are as many good as bad in both. It seems madness that a disbelief in a manufactured deity is considered a sin, which holds that criminals might get a free pass as long as they have faith (the mafia was good at that), while agnostics and atheists will be cast out as sinners no matter their good works.

One's 'goodness' is not measured by one's level of faith but by one's actions.

Still those who pray for rain might be wasting their time but they are not harming anyone or themselves. Humans are good at self-delusion - we all do it at times and it can be difficult to move beyond the 'bubble' of any ideology.